How Wholesale Order Management Software Streamlines Orders

Wholesale order management refers to the invisible order fulfillment processes between business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customers (B2C). These processes include accepting orders, updating inventory, and delivering products.

46% of wholesalers monitor their order cycle through manual systems. 19% don’t track their cycle at all. Because of the wholesale business size and complexity, it’s easy to experience distortions in data collation and fulfillment.

As a wholesaler, you can streamline your order fulfillment processes with wholesale order management software. In this article, you’ll get an overview of how it works.

Overview of Wholesale Order Management Software

B2B order management is much like the B2C relationship. A customer places an order, the seller processes the order and then prepares the order for shipping.

The major difference is wholesalers operate on a larger scale. You sell products in bulk, not single packets or units like the retailer. So there’s an influx of products coming in and going out of your warehouses. This means more inventory monitoring.

While spreadsheets like Excel and QuickBooks can help record sales data, they’re time constraining. A single misstep in logging inventory data can cause business losses. On the other hand, wholesale order management software can automate order and inventory management to improve your process flow.

How Wholesale Order Management Software Works

Creates end-to-end workflows

An OMS handles your workflow processes from start to finish. Here’s a breakdown of how it works:

• The wholesaler buys goods from the manufacturer.
• A customer places an order on a wholesaler’s sales channels. This customer can be a retail business or a single customer.
• The OMS software collects their data and sends them confirmation messages. On the wholesaler’s end, they receive an automatically generated invoice.
• Once the order is processed, the products are picked and packed for delivery.
• The items are loaded onto freight trucks and delivered to customers.

Synchronize your services

An order management software (OMS) unifies all your sales channels on one central platform. This creates an omnichannel experience where wholesale customers can access your service information on any channel.

Amazon’s omnichannel is a great example of how this works. When you place an item in your virtual Amazon cart, you can still see it when running the mobile app. When you make a purchase, you can also view the history on mobile and website platforms.

The advantage of an omnichannel experience for wholesalers is that it creates a personalized and uniform experience for customers. Customers can easily switch between your website, apps, and social media platforms. In addition, it helps to synchronize all your sales channels.

Updates inventory in real-time

When SKUs of ordered items are scanned, the OMS software will automatically remove the items from your inventory. This will help you know how many products you have left and whether to restock again.

You’ll also be able to handle multiple orders from the same client, or even different clients, without altering the units manually on a spreadsheet application. This will prevent inventory distortions that could lead to overstocking or understocking your warehouse.

Reduces costs and human errors

An OMS reduces your costs from incorrect shipments, late deliveries, and missed orders. Immediately after a customer places an order, the OMS generates a sales order document or invoice. This document states the customer’s order and other relevant information, such as the product quantity and price.

The OMS then routes the order to the appropriate warehouse with the right inventory level to process the order. From there, the items are prepared for shipping. All these processes eliminate manual labor, which slows down workflow and increases the risks of human error.

Selling Singleton Vs Wholesale

Another unique feature of an OMS is the ability to sort case packs. Case packs refer to items or products with the same SKUs and are grouped in one box. SKUs are unique identifiers of a product that look like barcodes.

These barcodes help wholesalers separate their products into similar groups of color, size, price, and brand within their OMS when scanned. This makes it easier for wholesalers to track the entire box as they sell items in single pieces or wholesale volumes.

Since wholesalers deal with retail and individual customers, they must ensure they have records of uncased and cased items. Leveraging flexible software can help you know how many product units you have left of a product.

You can also see the number of full case packs you have left to sell. Cased and uncased packs exist as separate entities, allowing you to make informed decisions on restocking your inventory and preventing inventory distortions.

Vera Agiang

Tech advocate and writer @ fabric.