If we said ‘Shopping’

Tell us what’s the first thing that came to your mind?

Was it the city’s biggest mall or was it Amazon? Nearby perfume store or a perfume website which will ship you the order from the other part of the country?

Sure enough, people’s preferred choices between brick and mortar stores and online marketplaces would vary depending on what they’re shopping for and when they’re shopping (first time or a repeated purchase).

Changes in shopping behaviour since 2019

According to research conducted by Salesforce in 2019 (surveyed over 10,000 global consumers), 71% of shoppers go to a physical store for a first-time purchase while 75% of shoppers felt comfortable making the same purchase online the second time.

It is evident from the above analysis that when customers have confidence in the product they’re shopping for, they would turn to online for their replenishing needs. Online shopping also provides variety in options, lucrative discounts, and delivery at your doorstep.

At a time when the trend of online shopping was catching up, there arose a need to rely on it anyway. On March 11, 2020, when WHO declared COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, online became the go-to for all kinds of shopping.

A complete lockdown being imposed in various parts of the world led to a massive influx of demand for daily essentials (consumables) and at a later stage even for non-essentials such as home décor, gym essentials, etc.

How online shopping has changed the experience for buyers and sellers

For Buyers

Advantages

1. Ease of ordering at the comfort of one’s home
2. Lucrative offers and competitive prices
3. Varied options from multiple sellers
4. Less time spent on making a purchase by saving travel time

Challenges

1. Increased risk from virtual sellers
2. Increased ETA
3. Absence of in-person experience

For Sellers

Advantages

1. Increased reach
2. Elimination of middle parties involved & subsequent decreasing costs
3. With an increasing number of customers, sellers can make higher profits even after decreasing their margins

Challenges

1. Changing customer expectations
2. Onus to cater to increasing demands
3. Logistics and timely delivery of the product

While the opportunities have increased for a seller, the competition is no less. With the multiple options that a customer has, a seller can’t afford to leave a customer with an upsetting experience and expect them to come back. It is therefore important for sellers to quickly resolve the challenges faced by both customers as well as themselves.

Order Management System (OMS)

OMS which was rarely used by retailers became a critical tool for success to sell online.

An OMS not only helps a seller in providing their customers a transparent and seamless experience, but it also helps them in managing their inventory and arranging quicker supplies from the manufacturers.

While looking for an OMS for your own online business, below are the features you need to keep in mind:

1. Fulfill orders
2. Instant Payments
3. Locate inventory
4. Tracking orders
5. Manage returns
6. Reporting
7. AI-powered predictions

With so many vendors providing OMS solutions it is important to choose the most reliable one which can handle large scale orders, allow a user-friendly interface, provide options for prompt communication with customers, and keep customer’s data safe.

Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud is one of the most advanced and trusted solutions which help customers deliver  “buy anywhere, service anywhere, fulfill anywhere” shopping experiences unified across all channels with real-time inventory visibility, order lifecycle management, and allocation logic.

Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud and Order Management

As part of its Commerce Cloud, Salesforce built Salesforce Order Management which is a customer-first order management system designed for today’s e-commerce scale and experience needs, enabling companies to provide fast, efficient, and personalized order fulfillment—complete with real-time inventory status, order updates and easy returns.

It is aimed at creating a single platform for customer service, finance, shipping, tracking, and fulfilling orders. Businesses can now view organized data and consequently tap into new growth avenues.

Salesforce Order Management will deliver:

1. Order Lifecycle Management
2. Connected Commerce and Service Experience
3. Inventory Management
4. Einstein’s Intelligence
5. Reports and Dashboards
6. Timely communication with customers on various platforms
7. Support for multi-currency
8. Visual Order Workflows

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Salesforce also released a bunch of new features for Order Management earlier this month. You can see all the details here.

As always we are here to help. If you have any questions regarding this or if you are interested in having order management at your company, feel free to reach out to us at Cloudideas.

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