When your listings are live, you need to be prepared for incoming orders. Order management contains several standard steps that will be executed upon every order, so it’s important to have a solid process behind it:
- Ingest the order into your internal systems
- Ensure the order can be fulfilled and accept the order (or cancel the order, e.g. when you are out of stock)
- Prepare the order for shipment (Pick & Pack)
- Ship the order
- Provide a shipment tracking link to the marketplace and the customer
- Ensure the order status on the marketplace is timely updated
This part of onboarding is appealing to automate, as it is very repetitive. When it comes to marketplace integrators, automated order management is the core feature they offer, as it is what most sellers need.
In the table below are the most popular order management methods which can help you make the right decision for your business.
| Type | Recommended if | Prerequisites | PROs | CONs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manually in the marketplace backend | 1. You have less than 5 orders per day | 1. None | 1. Easy to use 2. No prerequisites | 1. Very time-consuming 2. Prone to errors 3. Requires constant monitoring |
| File import / export | 1. You have less than 20 orders per day 2. Your internal system supports order import 3. Your internal system does not support connections to other systems | 1. Spreadsheets (Excel, Google Docs) 2. Data manipulation skills (XLS, CSV) 3. Compliant internal system | 1. Easy to use 2. Few prerequisites | 1. Can be time-consuming 2. Prone to errors 3. Requires constant monitoring |
| Feed syncronization | 1. You have more than 20 orders per day 2. You want to offer fast delivery 3. Your internal system supports feed import and export | 1. Feed ingestion, generation and update capacity | 1. Easy to maintain 2. Eliminates the need of manual actions 3. Works 24/7 | 1. Requires a feed management tool connected to your internal system |
| Integrator | 1. You have more than 20 orders per day 2. You are already using an integrator 3. You want to sell on multiple marketplaces 4. You want to offer fast delivery | 1. Subscription with a supported integrator | 1. Reusable process to sell on many marketplaces 2. Eliminates the need of manual actions 3. Works 24/7 | 1. Relatively difficult to set up 2. Requires investment 3. Develops a dependency on the integrator for multiple processes |
| Custom API | 1. You have more than 20 orders per day 2. You are not using an integrator for whatever reason 3. You want to offer fast delivery | 1. Software development team 2. Compliant internal system (API capacity) | 1. Can fully automate the order process 2. Works 24/7 | 1. Difficult to develop and maintain 2. Requires investment |
Choosing an order management method is a strategic decision, depending on several factors:
- Size and growth rate of your business
- Your technical capacity and internal systems
- Your expansion plans – are you planning to onboard many marketplaces, or you prefer to stick to one?
If you are a small business, which is just getting started with marketplaces, you might want to begin with some manual work until you gain some traction. But if you are already growing fast and want to expand quickly, it’s a good idea to look into an integrator solution. Finally, if you are a big organization with some legacy software limitations, a custom API could be the best way to go.
Need help making this decision and bringing it to life? Reach out to Marketplace Agents.