.png)
Congrats, you got an order!
In our first episode of "What Happens When You Click Buy," we discuss the immediate steps you should know after receiving a customer order and answer, "Where do I fulfill this order from?"
When starting with one inventory location like your garage, fulfilling orders is straightforward. But as you grow, you add more warehouses or third-party logistics (3PLs) partners, making deciding on which inventory location to fulfill from more complex.
For instance, if you have two warehouse locations on the East Coast and West Coast of the United States, it's relatively simple — fulfill East Coast orders from the East Coast facility and vice versa for West Coast orders. But things become complicated as you add more inventory locations or involve store fulfillment methods, such as last-mile carriers or store associates picking items off shelves for shipping directly to customers.
Managing various ordering channels becomes even more crucial as your business expands into additional sales channels, such as retail or wholesale distribution networks outside your website platform (e.g., Shopify).
Traditionally, order management systems (OMS) can help make these decisions based on factors like distance between customer and warehouse locations while considering cost efficiency.
But not every supply chain team needs an OMS, especially when you're starting. Start managing your fulfillment operations using spreadsheets, which can be sufficient when beginning but won't scale well over time.
Our recommendation: automate your order management early on, which provides long-term benefits for growth and efficiency by streamlining operations ahead of expansion into new sales channels.
