Why Now Is The Time To Give Your Order Management System (OMS) A Pre-Holiday Tune-Up

By Nicola Kinsella, VP of Global Marketing, Fluent Commerce

The temperature is dropping, homes are being decorated, and folks everywhere are preparing for the holidays. While topping off your antifreeze and shovelling snow from your driveway, it might be a good time to give your Order Management System (OMS) a tune-up too.

Waiting until the chaotic shopping season begins can overwhelm your staff with shipments, replenishing the shelves, and managing stock. Then there can be the additional challenges of labor shortages, an inconsistent supply chain, and demanding customers. If you have a flexible OMS, there are some short-term changes you can make to your system that may help manage the chaos more profitably and efficiently.

Stock Up To Avoid Disappointment

Nothing else your OMS can do matters if you lose a sale, overpromise and under-deliver, or must cancel orders based on inaccurate stock information. During the holiday season, the risk is even greater and can be more challenging when you are selling items across multiple channels or even regions.

Supply chains can be unpredictable and it’s better to stock up and give yourself a buffer than leave your customers disappointed. And you’ll be protected if stores go dark due to evolving health requirements. If that does happen, set your buffers to zero and keep inventory moving.

Make sure you are adjusting your fraud risk threshold for hot items that you expect to sell out. It benefits your brand to get those items in the hands of trustworthy consumers who could become long-term buyers rather than fraudulent purchasers. Not every sale is worth the same amount.

Don’t worry about splitting orders. Even if your customer gets their purchase in two separate shipments, they should get some of their items early than having to wait on all back ordered items. It’s a tangible way to show customers that you’re doing your best while reducing the amount of stock that needs to be held in your already full store or warehouse.

Stack-Rank Your Sourcing

It’s not always the items themselves that are in short supply—often it’s the capacity and/or labor that can be limiting. Given the nature of holidays, especially this year, it could be incredibly beneficial to tweak sourcing rules.

Put your distribution centers at a higher priority than your stores. To give customers the best in-person shopping experience, you’ll want to keep your hottest items on your shelves and employees free to help. Post-holidays, you can always return to prioritizing the oldest inventory or optimizing for shipping time and expense.

Use your third-party logistics (3PL) or drop-ship vendors (DSV) more than you usually would. This will allow your distribution centers to free up capacity by routing their shipments to 3PL’s or DSVs. Just make sure that your partners are capable of managing the extra volume coming their way.

Grade your stores by their fulfilment capacity. You can program your OMS to automatically prefer the stores that are better equipped to process the order. If time is an issue or you lack the data for precise categorization, choose a proxy such as a store footprint size.

Ensure Your Shipping Is Stable

It’s always better to under promise and over-deliver than to have a dissatisfied customer. By increasing default processing time, you can reduce the number of calls to your customer service team and avoid distribution center delays or shipping errors with a one- to two-day buffer.

When a customer pays extra for expedited shipping, they should automatically go to the front of the queue before it even gets to the carrier. These short service-level agreement (SLA) orders should be picked and packed first. If there are concerns about a distribution center missing a deadline, do what you can to fail over to a nearby store.

Over the holidays, there isn’t a moment to spare, so temporarily reduce the remorse period. During the rest of the year, it is wiser to delay order orchestration in case the customer cancels their order. By shortening this buffer temporarily, you can begin processing within a few minutes.

Do Your Best To Reduce Holiday Stress For Your Stores

Temporary adjustments to your typical store policies could be the difference in retaining customers long-term or losing them altogether. Just one item out of stock can sour the pick-up or same-day delivery experience. By taking a proactive approach you take the stress off your employees and create a better consumer experience. Here are some recommended temporary adjustments:

• Consider implementing a “lowest-stock” pick procedure. This will reduce the chances of someone in-store buying the item you’ve already sold.
• Put thresholds in place for your BOPIS daily capacity. To avoid long delays or last-minute cancellations, you have the power to set limits that also will reduce the labor needed in the process. This system also can be fluid and set in place by store managers who understand the day-to-day operations.
• To balance your staff’s time, shift pick-pack and pick-ups to off-hours. Not only will this speed up pick-ups, but it also can reduce parking lot congestion and relieve the burden on your employees.

As every retailer can attest, while the holidays are a magical time, they bring unique challenges every year. By taking a proactive approach with your order management, you can reduce the stress on your employees and create an unforgettable customer experience.