What is Order Orchestration? A Guide for eCommerce Brands
Order orchestration is a concept often overlooked by many eCommerce brands because, well, they have little idea what it’s about.
At its core, order orchestration is the process of automating how orders are received and shipped to customers. Though they have similar characteristics, order orchestration isn’t the same as order management, and in this post, we will explore how they differ from each other.
Key Takeaway:
Order orchestration isn't the same as order management. While the former focuses on automating the fulfilment process for greater efficiency, the latter encompasses the entire process.What is Order Orchestration?
Order orchestration is the process of synchronizing and automating how orders are captured, processed, fulfilled, and delivered across all your sales channels.
While an Order Management System (OMS) handles the basic task of processing orders, order orchestration goes a step further. It ensures that orders are routed to the most optimal fulfillment center, inventory levels are updated in real time, and customers are kept informed every step of the way.
The Process: How Does Order Orchestration Work?
Although the exact steps might vary depending on your industry, here’s the workflow of a typical order orchestration process.
Order Capture
Orders flow in from your webstore, online marketplaces, social media, wholesale portals, and physical retail stores. The system centralizes all these orders in one place, ensuring smooth order fulfillment later on.Inventory Synchronization
Real-time stock updates ensure that when an item sells in one channel, the quantity is adjusted everywhere else, preventing overselling. This ensures that your inventory management is not disrupted.Order Routing
The system automatically selects the best fulfillment center, store, or partner to fulfill the order, based on factors like location, cost, and available stock.Fulfillment Execution
Pick, pack, and ship instructions are sent to the warehouse or store team. Fulfillment systems ensure fewer errors and faster turnaround times.Shipment Tracking
Customers get real-time updates, from “order confirmed” to “out for delivery,” boosting transparency and trust.Returns Management
A smooth reverse logistics process ensures customers can return or exchange items easily, without creating a burden on operations.
Order Orchestration Rules
To have granular control over your business operations, it’s important to have well-defined rules. These are predefined guidelines that determine how orders are routed and fulfilled across channels, warehouses, and logistics partners.
Having rules not only ensures consistency and efficiency in your fulfillment process, but also ensures your business stays flexible and agile when economic realities change.
That being said, here are three common rules you should consider implementing:
Inventory to life date: This rule is used when you want to quickly clear out slow-moving inventory by routing orders to their location.
Cost-based optimization: As the name implies, fulfillment rules are made with the goal of keeping costs at the barest minimum. A good example is fulfilling orders from distribution centers closest to your customer to minimize shipping costs.
Control split shipment: Slip shipments can bloat up your costs, and this can hurt your business. Applying control split shipment rules can minimize this greatly.
The other rules include assignment throttling & threshold, and geographic proximity.
How Is Order Orchestration Different From Order Management?
On the surface, order orchestration and management look pretty much the same. However, they are nauced in several subtle ways. Here’s a tabular comparison of the two concepts:
Aspect | Order Management | Order Orchestration |
|---|---|---|
Focus | Executing orders | Optimizing fulfillment strategy |
Scope | Single process layer (OMS) | Multi-system coordination (OMS, WMS, ERP, CRM) |
Decision-making | Processes orders as they come | Uses rules & automation to decide how to fulfill |
Technology Role | Centralizes orders | Integrates multiple systems for seamless workflows |
Customer Experience | Ensures orders are delivered | Ensures orders are delivered faster, cheaper, and with better visibility |
In short, order management handles execution, whereas order orchestration takes care of optimization.
Why Does Your eCommerce Brand Need Both?
It can be tempting to focus your time and resources exclusively on managing orders without caring if the process is properly orchestrated. This can be your undoing, and here’s why:
While order management is the backbone of your sales process, orchestration is the brain. The former ensures you can handle orders reliably, whereas the latter sees to it that orders are fulfilled in the most efficient and cost-effective way.
What Are the Benefits of Effective Order Orchestration?
When done right, order orchestration delivers big wins for ecommerce brands. Some of these wins are as follows.
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Omnichannel consistency: Customers get the same great experience whether buying online, in-store, or via marketplaces.
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Reduced fulfillment errors: Automation minimizes mistakes and lost orders.
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Lower costs: Optimized routing reduces shipping expenses and speeds up delivery.
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Better insights: Data on order patterns helps with demand forecasting and supply chain planning.
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Better customer satisfaction: What better way to satisfy your customers than ensuring their orders get delivered speedily and without errors?
Best Practices for Implementing Order Orchestration
To make order orchestration successful and streamline your entire order process, here are important tips to keep in mind:
Invest in integrated technology that connects your OMS, ERP, WMS, CRM, and sales platforms.
Standardize workflows for order routing, returns, and exception handling.
Automate as much as possible to reduce human error and speed up processes.
Provide transparency with real-time updates for both teams and customers.
Track KPIs such as order accuracy, fulfillment costs, and delivery speed to continuously improve.
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