Want to know the secret weapon to maximize your business growth?
It’s the right order management system.
The global e-commerce market for consumer electronics is growing rapidly as consumers shift their shopping habits online. This shift is being driven by a range of factors, with one significant influence being the pandemic, which meant many more consumers started to shop online. Another is the rise in augmented reality (AR) technology which gives consumers the ability to ‘see’ products before purchasing them.
In 2020, the consumer electronics e-commerce market stood at $23 billion. By 2021, this increased significantly to $343.34 billion. By 2025—the market is expected to be worth $511.06 billion.
Now is a great time to have an electronics e-commerce business—but to effectively tap into this growing market, it’s essential to have the right systems and software in place. In this article, we’ll explore how transitioning to a new approach can help supercharge your e-commerce electronics store to help you grow your business as efficiently as possible.
What is an order management system?
An order management system (OMS) helps modern e-commerce businesses to integrate all aspects of their sales into one easy-to-manage platform. It includes all aspects of the customer journey—from the second they place an order to the shipping process. It even takes all the stress and strains away from returns or refunds.
Why do electronics sellers need an order management system?
Successful e-commerce businesses are shifting to intelligent order management systems that streamline the entire order process. Choose the right system, and you can enjoy the following benefits.
Coordinate backend operations
As the business grows and more orders come in, it’s no longer viable to keep track of inventory and orders using old-school spreadsheets. As more customers switch to buying online, taking control of your back-end operations will help your business grow. Using an OMS can help you coordinate your back-end operations from your supply chain to packaging and distribution.
Reduce human error
Human error is a fact of life—but an OMS helps to reduce it as much as possible. You’ll improve inventory control, minimize packing mistakes, and streamline the entire ordering, delivery, and returns processes from one central platform.
Make better business decisions
Using an OMS helps you make better business decisions thanks to the vast amount of data. How do you forecast product demand? 54% of retailers still carry out this task manually, which takes time and results in overstocking errors, according to Zentail. An OMS can help you stay ahead of supply chain issues and manage your Purchase Orders.
Improve the customer experience
The age of the effortless economy is here, which means your customers call the shots. With 76% of buyers saying convenience is key—if you can’t meet their demands from product discovery to fast delivery and frictionless returns—they’ll simply start shopping elsewhere. By focusing on creating a seamless customer experience—you can convert those one-time purchasers into loyal customers.
How electronics sellers can know if an order management software is right
Ready to find the perfect order management software for your electronics e-commerce business? For the best performance, look out for the following features.
Omnichannel functionality
To get your products in front of potential customers, your order management software must be capable of integrating with multiple sales channels, including social media, marketplaces, and your own website.
Placing your products with major marketplace players should be a key part of your strategy—as marketplaces are often the place consumers start their search. Selling on Newegg is one part of an omnichannel strategy.
We encourage our sellers to step into channel diversification in order to expand their reach and mitigate risks. Our seller support services like Newegg Logistics are designed to accommodate sellers who conduct business across Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, and other sales channels.
Connects to multiple fulfillment options
One of the biggest challenges for e-commerce businesses is how to seamlessly manage their inventory across multiple channels and fulfillment options. If you work with Third-Party Logistics (3PL) providers, plus managing your own warehouse and other options, including Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA) or eBay Fulfillment—then things can soon start to feel complicated. But choose an OMS that can connect with all of these, and you’ll have a birds-eye view of all your orders and inventory from multiple sales channels and facilities.
Automates the order fulfillment process
Customers these days expect their orders to come as quickly as possible—and 95% of them prioritize convenient delivery options, meaning next-day delivery. To meet your customers’ expectations, your OMS needs to send order information to 3PLs fast. If you’re managing some orders within your warehouse, it should be able to print shipping labels.
Makes the pick, pack, and ship process as easy as possible
Pick, pack, and ship is the process of getting your orders packed and dispatched. There are a few different methods to choose from, including piece picking, batch picking, zone picking, and wave picking. But sometimes, trying to pick and pack orders from multiple sales channels can become overwhelming for your warehouse staff. They may prepare orders from one channel, then log into another and see they need to return to the same warehouse location they just returned from.
Using an OMS like Linnworks can streamline this process and make it as efficient as possible. Collect your sales channels into one place, and let your OMS do the hard work of creating a picking and packing list that’s organized to help your staff find the correct items as efficiently as possible.
Intelligent shipping management
Your OMS should help you move orders from packing to shipping as quickly as possible. By choosing an OMS with automatic package assignment, you can take advantage of the most efficient method for managing your shipping and getting your customers’ parcels to them as quickly as possible—which is what they want. Automatic order allocation means you no longer need to manually select the best warehouses or 3PL fulfillment centers—because it’s all done for you in the blink of an eye.
Linnworks OMS even automatically allocates these orders based on criteria like order source, item availability, and shipping address before assigning a shipping carrier to deliver the parcel in the shortest time possible. You can also improve the customer experience at this early stage by sending a tracking URL with every dispatch notification email to allow your customers to track their parcels.
Optimizes the returns process
For many customers—your returns policy really matters. Research from Linnworks found that 89% of customers want to be able to make a return without having to get in touch with customer service. If your return process isn’t up to scratch, then 72% of shoppers will think twice about whether to make a purchase through your store, according to Linnworks research.
Choose a strong OMS and streamline the customer journey to allow for frictionless returns. Allow your customers to print their own return labels, track their packages back to the warehouse and enjoy a fast refund process when necessary.
Manage your business growth the right way
Growing your business requires intention—and deciding to switch to an integrated order management system is a brilliant move. It’s time to transition away from logging into multiple sales channels, stressing over whether you’ve got the right amount of inventory in the right warehouse, and trying to manually forecast demand. Streamline your systems and invest in the right OMS to stay on top of your e-commerce operations as your business goes from strength to strength.
About the Author
Linnworks connects, manages, and automates commerce operations, powering businesses to sell wherever their customers are and capture every revenue opportunity. With Linnworks, integrate your commerce technologies into one central system and scale up quickly with automated workflows and insights.
Find out more at www.linnworks.com.
