Order management is the holistic process of handling all aspects of an order, from the initial sale to the final delivery and on to the initial crucial steps of customer management. However, in a multi-channel sales environment, this can be complex, as orders can come in from a variety of channels, such as online, in-store, or over the phone.
Top Challenges in Multi-Channel Order Management
The global multichannel order management market was valued at $2.5 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach $6.5 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 10.1%. This growth is being driven by the increasing popularity of multi-channel sales, as well as the need for businesses to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their order management processes.
Managing orders across multiple sales channels introduces an array of complexities that demand careful consideration. These challenges span various facets of order management, each requiring a distinct approach for effective resolution.
1. Channel Fragmentation
Each sales channel comes with unique requirements, interfaces, and customer expectations. Ensuring consistent order processing and tracking across diverse platforms demands a unified approach that can adapt to each channel’s intricacies.
2. Order Synchronization
Keeping orders synchronized across various channels is vital. The challenge lies in guaranteeing that changes or cancellations initiated through one channel are promptly reflected in others — preventing order discrepancies and customer frustration.
3. Ensuring Consistent Pricing Strategies
Managing consistent pricing across multiple channels while considering discounts, promotions, and region-specific variations requires meticulous monitoring and a robust pricing strategy. There’s also a need for dynamic pricing strategy.
4. Achieving Accurate Stock Management
Accurate inventory management, which is a rather challenging endeavor, is imperative to prevent overselling or underselling. Coordinating inventory levels in real-time across different channels helps maintain availability without over-committing resources.
5. Guarding Against Unforeseen Risks
The open nature of multi-channel sales exposes businesses to the increased risk of fraudulent activities. Therefore, establishing stringent fraud detection mechanisms and authentication protocols is crucial to safeguarding transactions and customer trust.
6. Adhering to Regulations
Complying with diverse regulations, including tax laws, data privacy rules, and shipping regulations, across various sales channels requires meticulous planning and execution to avoid legal pitfalls.
7. Reporting
Gathering, consolidating, and interpreting data from multiple channels for accurate reporting necessitates sophisticated analytics tools and methods to extract meaningful insights for strategic decision-making.
8. Delivering Consistent Experiences
Maintaining consistent customer service across channels, promptly addressing queries, managing returns, and providing timely updates are essential to ensure positive customer experiences. However, that’s rather difficult to realize.
9. Orchestrating Seamless Connections
For multi-channel sales, it’s critical to integrate various systems such as ERP, CRM, and eCommerce platforms to ensure smooth data flow and reduce manual intervention. After all, robust integration helps maintain accurate records and streamline processes.
10. Scaling to Match Demand
As sales volume fluctuates across channels, having a scalable infrastructure that adapts to demand changes is vital to prevent bottlenecks and ensure smooth operations.
11. Safeguarding Sensitive Information
Multi-channel operations increase the attack surface for cyber threats. So, implementing robust security measures, encryption protocols, and access controls that can guard against data breaches and protect customer information is critical.
In the complex landscape of multi-channel order management, addressing these challenges effectively is pivotal to ensuring seamless operations, customer satisfaction, and business growth. This is precisely where Kibo Commerce becomes a viable option.
How Does Kibo OMS Alleviate These Challenges?
Kibo Order Management solution has been specifically designed to help businesses address the challenge of siloed order management. It’s a composable OMS that enables B2B businesses to:
- Get holistic visibility into the data flowing across channels
- Simplify complex commerce experiences
- Address complex routing or fulfillment needs
This explains why Kibo clients experience a 274% increase in revenue, an 88% increase in average order value, and a 67% decrease in returns. As for the challenges addressed above, Kibo OMS helps B2B businesses in:
- Offering robust channel integration capabilities, allowing businesses to seamlessly connect and manage various sales channels. This translates into unified order processing, inventory management, and better customer engagement across diverse platforms.
- Real-time order synchronization that ensures updates, cancellations, or changes made through one channel are instantly reflected across all connected channels. This prevents order discrepancies and provides a consistent customer experience.
- Facilitating dynamic pricing adjustments, discounts, and promotions that can be managed centrally, ensuring accuracy and coherence in pricing.
- Real-time inventory tracking across channels to prevent stockouts and overstocks.
- Generating comprehensive reports that provide insights into multi-channel operations. This enables informed decision-making, performance analysis, and strategic planning.
How Can an Expert Partner Like Ignitiv Help?
In the intricate realm of multi-channel order management, leveraging Kibo OMS’ features empowers businesses to navigate complexities and streamline operations, ensuring optimized performance and enhanced customer satisfaction.
As a trusted Kibo Commerce Solutions partner, Ignitiv has been providing order management solutions to both B2C and B2B businesses. We have been working with Kibo since its inception and helping enterprises transform their commerce experiences. With a profound understanding of the Kibo Commerce platform and the largest team of Kibo solutions experts, we can guide B2B businesses in choosing, implementing, personalizing, and managing the right Kibo Commerce solution.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you with order management in multi-channel sales.
