Distributed Order Management
eCommerce is wildly different than it was ten years ago. With the rise of omnichannel and globalization, managing your store has become increasingly complex.
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With that, without support for multichannel sales, traditional order management systems won’t be enough for you to meet the ever-increasing customer expectations.
Today’s customers want to purchase on multiple channels easily, including brick-and-mortar stores, get deliveries quickly, and return products without too much trouble.
In fact, did you know that 46% of omnichannel customers shop elsewhere when delivery times are too long? And 90% of US online shoppers would define free 2-3-day shipping as the expected baseline delivery time. Could you deliver on that? My guess is not without an omnichannel approach.
An omnichannel distribution model was a natural reaction from eCommerce businesses, but they’ve encountered a new issue in aligning these channels. Now, that’s precisely where distributed order management enters the picture, enabling seamless integration.
Distributed Order Management (DOM) uses prioritization rules to fulfill customer orders from multiple stock locations and through order-splitting strategies so as to shorten delivery times while also lowering shipment costs, ensuring the best possible customer experience.
The seamless integration of online channels, physical locations, and inventory warehouses means that the business gets to create a unified brand experience, ultimately increasing its revenue from both new and returning customers.
To top it off, not only would a DOM provide operational flexibility right now, but it’s also extremely easy to scale as your business grows.
A traditional order management solution (OMS) is great for companies that sell products through one sales channel and deliver packages from one stock location.
In this case, the traditional OMS helps to simplify the whole process from receiving the order to delivering it to the customer.
However, when we have multichannel or even omnichannel commerce, traditional OMS just won’t do. The customer experience would deteriorate while the retailer would have trouble managing the inventory. Ultimately, this would result in losing customers due to overselling, going out of stock, long delivery times, and more.
Any eCommerce business with more than one channel would seriously benefit from a DOM. Think of it as a solution that does everything the traditional OMS does, just more.
DOM simplifies order fulfillment for businesses with multiple SKU locations by presenting a unified view of your multi-channel inventory.
After receiving an order from one of the multiple sales channels, it uses the preset business rules to optimize order fulfillment at the lowest cost without the customer ever noticing. Aside from the product availability in the supply chain, it also takes into account the distance between a storage facility and the customers, the delivery schedules, and more.
To illustrate, one of your goals in using DOM may be to find the best yet quickest sources for product delivery. Here a DOM would jump in and minimize costs by setting rules to fulfill orders from the closest sources.
On the other hand, you may want to avoid going out-of-stock at any one location. In this case, you’d set up the business rules so that your DOM creates split order strategies where products are delivered to the customer from different stock locations at the same time.
Finally, DOM also helps enable cross-channel distribution such as buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS), ship-from-store, ship-to-store, return-to-store, and more.
Crystallize is designed from the ground up to tackle omnichannel eCommerce scenarios.
Starting from the storefront side, you can add any number of frontends to Crystallize. This could be regional physical stores, multiple brand sites, point of sales, or B2B channels. All are served from a central headless eCommerce service.
Any number of price variants or price lists can be created for different markets. Stock is tracked based on location. This makes Crystallize fit great as an engine to power modern eCommerce scenarios with distributed order management.
The final component unique to Crystallize is the flexible fulfillment pipelines that allow you to define custom flows for different types of fulfillment. E.g., home delivery, in-store pickup or digital services.
To make your DOM ready to use, you first have to feed it all the relevant information.
This means defining your stock and return locations, delivery lead times for each of the different stock locations, split order strategies for cases when an order needs to be split into multiple shipments, your business rules, as well as onboarding all stakeholders in your company with the solution.
As with any other new automated process, don’t forget to test whether your business rules have been set up correctly. And when you have determined that everything is working, start enjoying the great benefits it can provide for your business.
Multichannel Inventory and Order Management
The bigger your market, the bigger the benefits you’ll get out of a DOM, so much so that global businesses with complex supply networks wouldn’t be able to get by without one.
With a DOM, you can track orders, inventory, in-transit deliveries, and in-transit returns in real-time. The tracking is automated, ensuring you never over-sell or under-deliver and meet customer expectations.
Cost-efficient Order Fulfillment
With operational costs rising every day, it’s important that your order fulfillment process is as optimized as possible. That’s where DOM enters the picture.
It determines the fastest way to fulfill orders to customers at the lowest cost.
Easily Scalable
Due to its easy scalability, a DOM supports your growth. As your sales rise, your supply networks spread, and you enter new markets, your DOM will be right by your side, ensuring that your customers’ needs are met.
Amazing Customer Experience
Maybe most importantly, a DOM enables eCommerce businesses to provide the best customer experience. When they need fast delivery, DOM makes it happen without the customer ever knowing of the potential complexities behind the order.
They make an order -- and then receive it on time, at the location of their choice, just like it should be.
Moreover, in the case of returns, DOM provides more than enough flexibility to blow away your customer and make sure they purchase from you again.
Distributed Order Management (DOM) is crucial for businesses as it optimizes order fulfillment by orchestrating inventory allocation and sourcing decisions across the entire supply chain network. By providing real-time visibility into inventory levels and locations, DOM enables businesses to make informed decisions, maximizing resource utilization and reducing operational costs. The system enhances customer satisfaction by enabling faster, more accurate order processing and delivery, supporting businesses in meeting the rising expectations of today's consumers.
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