What is an order management system (OMS)?
An order management system, or OMS, tracks every order from checkout to delivery and coordinates the inventory, fulfillment, and returns behind it. It is the backbone that keeps a promise made at checkout from falling apart later.
It coordinates the inventory, fulfillment, and returns behind each order.
A website, an app, and a marketplace, with stock in different places.
What was ordered, what is in stock, and where each order is.
With it, fulfillment scales smoothly across every channel.
Sell across a website, an app, and a marketplace, and orders pour in from everywhere while stock sits in different places. An OMS pulls that together so you always know what was ordered, what is in stock, and where each order is.
- What was ordered
- What is in stock
- Where each order is
Without it, growth turns into chaos: oversells, lost orders, and unhappy customers. With it, fulfillment scales smoothly across every channel.
Figure 1. One system behind every order
Drawn from this article: orders arrive from a website, an app, and a marketplace, and the OMS tracks each one from checkout to delivery while coordinating the inventory, fulfillment, and returns behind it.
Sthenos builds commerce platforms that handle the full order lifecycle, like a smart commerce platform for a German cleaning solutions brand. See our ecommerce solutions.
What is the difference between an OMS and inventory software?
Inventory software tracks stock. An OMS tracks orders end to end and uses inventory data as one part of fulfilling them.
Inventory software
- Tracks stock
Order management system
- Tracks orders end to end
- Uses inventory data as one part of fulfilling them
Related services: ecommerce and retail software, Magento development.
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Related terms:
Services: Ecommerce Solutions, Ecommerce Development Services
