Before buy a sales order software for your business, check these features are available.
As your ecommerce business grows, it becomes crucial to manage sales, order, and inventory effectively. With robust sales order management software, you can do all these efficiently.
So what is sales order management software?
It is a tool that helps in controlling the process between customers placing orders and products moving out for delivery. You can track sales, inventory, order, and fulfillment and ensure all people involved in the entire process are updated about every step.
With the availability of many sales order management software in the market, it gets tricky to choose the correct option.
So, we have developed an exclusive checklist that would help you pick the best software suited to your needs.
Follow these instructions:
1. Consider Your BudgetThe success of your ecommerce depends mainly on sales order management. So, consider your budget before buying software for that purpose. The prices of these systems vary from one another depending on your requirements. Don't go for something only to save money as it may trouble you a lot in the long run.
The expensive software costs over $1000 and can't function better than a direct cloud-activated system. So, explore the market to compare software prices and then decide the amount of money you can spend.
2. Check Integration FeaturesOnce you get an idea of the sales order software you want, check their integration features to learn if they support your sales channels. If you want more integration, the software price will increase. So, choose a sales order software with only the required integrations.
3. Look For A Flexible Order Management SystemThe production flow keeps on fluctuating. Thus, you need a system that adapts to the changing flow. For example, flexible order management software enables you to change your process, manage stock inventory, customize orders, and edit orders on the go.
4.Check For Forecast Stock Needs
As and when an item is restocked, information is fed into the software with the product details and the number of units restocked. The software you choose should be able to check and list the existing stock in warehouse along with the number of units. This is automated based on the orders received and dispatched for each product. The e-commerce software auto-calculates it in back-end and displays the units of stock available in the warehouse. This is a real-time process.
Another great feature is that it alerts you once you hit low stock and informs inventory team to restocking items. You can also set an alert once the stock hits a minimum quantity so the time to refill the stock does not affect orders. This way, you are never out of stock. This feature connects the warehouse and inventory departments.
5. Sales tracking software should work on all platforms
As an e-commerce business, you'd use digital marketing to drive traffic to your e-commerce store. So your sales software should track and integrate orders from every source. This includes your website, marketplaces, ecommerce store, and any other landing page where you're driving traffic to receive orders. Regardless of the platform, sales software should consolidate data from each platform and integrate sales orders to ensure smooth functioning.
When the software integrates all your marketing channel order data in one interface, you will also be able to track the orders received from each medium. This will also benefit in boosting digital marketing strategies from time-to-time. This information is made available real-time for you to be able to access from anywhere in the world.
6. Sign Up For Free Trials And DemosRegister for free trials to use and check if the sales order management software is suitable for your online business. You even book demos as certain software providers run a live step-by-step session with your business-related data as examples which helps you clearly understand how they benefit got ecommerce business.
7. Evaluate Your Shortlisted OptionsDon't go for software quickly just because you think it is a lucrative option. Review the shortlisted options. Broaden your criteria as you need to consider the overall business relationship that you would with the system. The critical evaluation would help you to make the right choice.
Closing Thoughts
Sales is the ultimate motive of an e-commerce store. Making the process fast and hassle-free is what gets repeat customers for the business. A powerful sales order management is a prerequisite, mainly when your ecommerce system starts to grow. With advanced sales tracking software, both you and your customers can track orders anytime.
Test out the tools available in the marketplace, and then take your time to make a decision. Hopefully, this guide helps you choose the right sales order management software suited to your business requirements.