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Order management! Order management! Order management! Where do you even start when trying to teach someone about such a broad topic?
Where does it start, and where does it end? What are the steps in between? How do you explain all the little idiosyncratic things you need to know to get the job done? And what about all the different scenarios you’ll encounter?
Plenty of us probably don’t even know how to define ‘order management.’ But no worries, that’s what we’re here to do. By the end of this guide, you’ll be a master of it all.
You can also check out our inventory management guide here.
Why Learn About Order Management?
Understanding the world of order management has plenty of benefits, whatever part of the process you fulfill.
You may be completely new to order management, or about to head a new order management team, or maybe you’ve started your own business or already work in order management and simply need a refresher on some areas.
It might be that you don’t work in order management at all but work with people who do, in which case understanding their process can make your work easier, or you may just be a curious customer with too much free time.
The primary benefits of learning about order management are reducing errors, saving time, money, and resources, and keeping customers satisfied and returning for more. It’s all about making your business more efficient and increasing its longevity.
A business that pumps out orders like a well-oiled machine and is reactive to challenges will outperform and outlast a business that doesn’t have a standardized process for dealing with orders.
As cheesy as it might sound, in order management, knowledge really is power, and you will be ahead of the game if you learn how it all works before jumping in head first with little to no understanding.
Who Is This Guide For?
This order management guide aims to cover every little thing you should know as an order management professional.
The earliest chapters focus on what you need to know as a beginner before moving on to more complex and advanced topics. It’s your one-stop shop for all things related to order management.
What Will I Learn in This Order Management Guide?
A lot! There’s not much we’ll leave out in this all-encompassing guide. Here are the five primary things you will take away from this order management guide:
- The basics of order management, how order management works, and how to create and work with purchase orders.
- All you need to know about drop shipping and cross-docking.
- Why you must adopt order management software, how to pick the best order management software, and how to work with order management software.
- Order management in e-commerce and multichannel and omnichannel selling environments.
- Best practices for order management, the costs associated with order management, and how to improve the process.
How Long Is This Order Management Guide?
We’ve broken our order management guide down to 19 chapters to digest everything you need to know about order management easily. We’ve also included an additional chapter at the end to cover any leftover questions.
It’ll take you a good while to get through it all, so don’t expect to read it all in one sitting!
Here’s the breakdown of our order management guide:
- Chapter 1. What Is Order Management? Starting at the very beginning, we define what we actually mean when we say ‘order management.’
- Chapter 2. Order Management Terms and Basic Concepts. Moving on, we look at the basic concepts you need to know about order management.
- Chapter 3. What Are Purchase Orders? What You Need to Know. Purchase orders are a major part of order management, and this chapter covers all the vitals.
- Chapter 4. Creating Purchase Orders. This is a super important chapter for anyone who will be creating purchase orders daily.
- Chapter 5. What Is Dropshipping? Dropshipping is a great way to circumvent your orders and reduce your workload, and this chapter covers all you should know about it.
- Chapter 6. What Is Cross-docking? Cross-docking is another way to workaround orders, and it can sometimes get confused with dropshipping.
- Chapter 7. Why Should You Use Software for Order Management? Unless you live in Bedrock, you will use software for order management.
- Chapter 8. How Do You Manage Orders With Order Management Software? Armed with the right software, order management becomes much, much simpler.
- Chapter 9. Order Management and Shipping. Here we focus on the relationship between order management and shipping, specifically ‘last-mile delivery.’
- Chapter 10. Multichannel Order Management. We explain how a multichannel approach to selling products has changed order management.
- Chapter 11. Goals, KPIs, and Metrics in Order Management. You can find ways to improve the order management process by measuring your performance.
- Chapter 12. Why Should You Automate Order Management? Automation is incredibly helpful for speeding up processes and reducing human errors.
- Chapter 13. What Are Common Order Management Challenges? You will run into challenges in order management, and knowing about them beforehand will be super helpful.
- Chapter 14. What Are the Costs Associated with Order Management? This one covers all the potential costs you may encounter in order management.
- Chapter 15. Order Management Best Practices. Knowing these best practices will be a major advantage in order management.
- Chapter 16. How to Improve the Order Management Process? Once you get the hang of order management, you want your operations running as smoothly as possible.
- Chapter 17. Everything to Know about Order Management. We summarize everything we have learned so far throughout our order management guide.
- Chapter 18. Order Management Frequently Asked Questions. In our final chapter, we run through all the frequently asked questions people commonly have about order management.
Don’t forget to bookmark this page and return whenever you need a refresh or want to advance to the next level. When you’re ready, head over to Chapter 1.