Order Management vs Order Fulfilment: Differences and How-Tos

Order management moves forward everything concerning a customer's order—from when they click that "buy" button down to when they happily unpack the product. It’s what directs order-related processes, keeping them together so you won’t miss out on important steps.

Speaking of important…

If you don’t prioritise order management, you’ll be stuck juggling plenty of challenges. 

So order management is useful for various needs including to prevent overselling or speed up refunds while keeping customers in the loop.

For instance, a warehouse manager relying on spreadsheets may inadvertently miss an update on stock and any ensuing delays. Order management solves that by providing oversight in real time.

Shockingly or not, there are no sales happening without order management. 

As the backbone of inventory and payments, it's what you'll inevitably fall back to for managing multiple sales channels and sending accurate shipping details to customers. 

It's behind every transaction and without it, you risk over-selling products, losing track of orders, or disappointing new and recurrent customers.

There are four key elements that go into successful order management:

1. Inventory tracking: This helps you know what’s in your stock or where you’re falling short.
2. Order processing: Use it to handle payments and assign orders to the appropriate staff members.
3. Customer communication: Help customers track shipments and get updates on that progress.
4. Returns management: Accept and check returns without leaving the customer out of the picture.

Order fulfilment is part of a larger order management process, honing on physical processes related to picking, packing, and shipping an item. 

If order management is the guide behind the entire process, fulfilment is what you use to execute that plan. For logistics professionals and retailers, this also becomes a moment of truth. 

But why?

If you want more speed and accuracy in your order management process, you need to improve order fulfilment. This is what keeps customer satisfaction high so you can generate many good reviews and promote repeat purchasing by the same customers. 

When done right, order fulfilment system leaves virtually no room for mistakes, minimises delays, and allows your team to correctly handle products. This not only builds up trust and brand reputation, but also keeps your businesses competitive.

That’s because it helps you deliver items on time, send orders correctly every time, and promptly handle complaints from customers.

No delays. No damage to your brand reputation. Fewer returns. More expectations met.

The four core elements (or rather stages) that support order fulfilment every step of the way are:

1. Picking: Selecting the desired merchandise at the warehouse.
2. Packing: Wrapping, boxing, and customising packaging for products. 
3. Shipping: Selecting the best carrier to get it there on time (and ideally at a lower cost).
4. Tracking: Allowing the customer to see exactly where their package is.

Here’s the deal on the order fulfilment vs order management debate. 

Order management is the strategic force acting behind the scenes. Order fulfilment is the doer that brings it all together. Management is supposed to check on everything: stock levels, payments, returns, while fulfilment acts primarily on delivery. 

Now imagine an online clothing store notices an unanticipated spike in orders of winter jackets. Order management detects this surge, so they adjust stock levels and send alerts to suppliers if they need more inventory. 

Order fulfilment comes in to pick up the jackets from the warehouse, pack them on time, and ship them out to the customer. One sets the stage, and the other plays it out like a manager-subordinate relationship.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of order management vs order fulfilment:

When it comes to relationships, there’s no order management vs order fulfilment debate. They're partners, not enemies. 

Order management sets the stage and plans out everything fulfilment needs to handle. If order management tells fulfilment they’ve prepared 20 lamps for a batch of orders, the fulfilment team needs to communicate their status—delays and shipped items included.

Likewise, if a customer orders three books, order management processes the payment, checks stock availability, and instructs fulfilment to pack and ship. 

Yes, order management handles more stages and it almost covers everything. Almost. 

Without order fulfilment, the item wouldn’t get out to the customer and order management wouldn’t even know when they’re supposed to notify a customer of a delay or delivery progress.

This said, order fulfilment is a small, short, and easily negligible process but it’s an essential part of delivering a stellar customer experience. In fact, even the best order management platforms out there would fall short if they didn’t come with strong order fulfilment features.

In a previous artic le, we talked about how important it is to pick the right cloud based order management system in the first place. 

We're talking about a tool that will help you with virtually everything including tracking orders, managing inventory, payment processing, and coordinating returns.

This time, we'd like to stress how important the fulfilment technology is to all that. You'll need a combination of the two technologies to increase the accuracy of your deliveries, lower costs, and make customers happy.

When selecting an order management system, the factors that matter the most are your core use cases and common challenges. 

For instance, if you're a small team, you'll need automation to speed up operations. If you're constantly struggling with stock shortages, real time inventory tracking should be on your list. 

If you're planning on expanding your business by adding a warehouse or new location, the solution simply needs to adapt to your growth.

Make a list of what you’re trying to fix or achieve over the next few quarters and pick accordingly.

Grab our free guide to choosing an ecommerce order management software to learn more about:

• Where to start when choosing an ecommerce order management system
• What key factors to consider when testing retail order management software
• What retail order management software considerations 3PLs should know
• What red flags to watch out for

Mintsoft is a cloud based order management system that allows companies to simplify the order process, minimise mistakes, and subsequently become more efficient in managing orders. 

Whether you're a retailer, a 3PL provider, or a warehouse operator, Mintsoft gives you all the tools you need to manage orders, monitor inventory, and execute fulfilment without the hurdles.

You'll especially enjoy Mintsoft features like:

• Workflow automation: Use them to speed up order processing using automated rules and batch scheduling.
• Inventory and warehouse management: Get visibility into your real time stock status to prevent stockouts.
• Multi-channel integrations: Connect to over 150 platforms, marketplaces, and couriers, including Shopify, Amazon, and WooCommerce.
• Shipping and labelling module: Instantly create shipping labels, increasing order accuracy with barcode scanning.
• Custom reporting and insights: Track performance and spot trends with detailed analytics and reporting.

Book a personalised demo to see how you can get access to:

• Real time updates on orders, inventory, and shipments
• Automatic selection for the cheapest courier based on rules you set
• Over 150 pre-built integrations to all major ecommerce platforms, shopping carts, and couriers
• And so much more under a single platform!