Smartstore Order Management - For a continuous value chain in the digital age

What is Smartstore Order Management System SOMS?
The Smartstore Order Management System is a platform-independent, stand-alone offering from SmartStore AG that can be integrated into any front-end sales channel or back-end system. The platform supports companies in organizing customer contacts across sales and fulfillment channels by collecting information. It is the ideal order management system that makes it easier for retailers to sell through efficient order processing directly in the stores.

SOMS provides seamless processes for order organization, shipping, order status and even refunds are no problem. It has everything a company needs to increase sales through order processing so that customers keep coming back.

What are the advantages of using the Smartstore Order Management System (SOMS)?
Order management in Smartstore is in itself an error-free system which helps retailers and businesses increasing their sales through efficiency and control. Among the many benefits of using SOMS as a complementary platform are:

• Cloud-based - Smartstore Order Management System (SOMS) is a cloud-based SaaS system The platform is hosted by Smartstore itself and operated under strict security.
• Distributed Order Management - Users can distribute a single view across multiple channels. Orders are correctly routed to their fulfillment locations.
• Omnichannel fulfillment - The system uses metrics to determine the best possible fulfillment scenario, including location, logistics, lowest shipping costs and fastest fulfillment.
• In-store fulfillment - Retailers can use a variety of tools to select and pack, create shipping documents, and support carrier integration.
•  Global inventory management - Retailers can track inventory at each node with a fully visible list.
• Customer Service - All order-related information is available to the dealer and ensures customer satisfaction. Information provided includes return management, complaints, exchanges, and cancellations.

This sounds really good. And how does it work exactly?
Online retailers must be able to react quickly to customer requests. The Smartstore Order Management System (SOMS) gives companies a complete real-time overview of the entire process - both customers and inventory. The system achieves this goal by:

• Optimizing inventory utilization - The system helps retailers to get the most out of their inventory - through higher speed, higher turns and lower inventory costs.
• Increase retail sales - Smartstore Order Management System (SOMS) helps you increase same-day sales while increasing pedestrian frequency to retail locations. The system also helps by reducing sales losses and shortages.
• Expanding the new channel - Retailers can capture orders from multiple channels and use SOMS to direct the right inventory to the right channels based on business rules.
• Reduce operational costs/reduce time to market - Retailers can implement an omnichannel vision at competitive prices using the Smartstore ecosystem.

That sounds rather complicated at first, doesn't it?
The workflow of the Smartstore Order Management may seem complicated at first, but once implemented it is a piece of cake. The user-friendly design works as follows:

• Placing Orders - As soon as a customer clicks on the "Checkout" button, orders are created immediately. No further administrative steps are necessary.
• Order Status - Initial orders are set to "Pending" status, allowing both parties to cancel the order at any time. The system offers several standard statuses, including New, Pending, Processing, Complete, Canceled and Closed. An important feature of the platform also allows users to create their own statuses.
• Invoicing - When customers pay by credit card, invoices are created automatically. However, when customers pay by check, money order or bank transfer, an administrator must manually enter an invoice. Once the system or an administrator creates an invoice, a copy is automatically sent to the customer by email.
• Shipping Details - Once a customer has selected a shipping address, the merchant simply needs to print a shipping label and notify the customer that the order is on its way.

Nowadays, customers prefer to order online and pick up their order in the store. This is easily possible with the Smartstore Order Management.

Does this mean that a customer, whether B2C or B2B, becomes part of my logistics process?
Yes, exactly. The main advantage of the Smartstore Order Management is how the system deals with the inevitable customer problem. Retailers can cancel and create repeat orders by copying existing orders in the system. Customers can also quickly reorder completed orders that are already in the system. Finally, using the self-billing procedure makes it quick and easy to issue occasional customer refunds. This procedure allows users to keep refund notes. Smartstore Order Management also facilitates the work of reorders.

So, is Smartstore Order Management something for me too?
Absolutely. Today's customers are informed and demanding. 86 percent of customers want to shop online and possibly hand in their returns in the store. 73 percent of customers want their orders delivered directly to the store. And a large number of customers - 81 percent - believe that store employees are not informed. The question is, can you afford NOT to have Smartstore Order Management on your site?

Okay. So far, I got it all. Now one last question. Instead of the cloud-based SaaS hosted by Smartstore, can we use SOMS ourselves as On Premises?
Yes, that's no problem. You can even switch to your own On Premises after you have been using our cloud-based Smartstore Order Management for a long time. You can continue to use all the services you have used so far.  However, from now on you are responsible for the security and operation of the system yourself.

Valuable Data from Web Crawling and Automatic Data Integration

It is no mean feat to get data from anywhere on the Internet via web crawling. Our expertise goes further than that.

Integrating this data appropriately and automatically into existing processes: we can do this so quickly (since 2014 with standardized technology according to ISO/IEC 19510 for business process model and notation) that no one can keep up.

Here are five examples:

1. customers value comprehensive and competent information on the items they are looking for, and preferably in their native language. On the web, manufacturers and suppliers offer lots of information in many languages. With APIs, web crawling or a PDF extraction optimized by us (without OCR) we collect this information for you.

2. We supplement the information found (article images, prices, delivery times, assembly instructions, spare parts, etc.) individually as required and integrate it with the articles in your Smartstore.

3. We automatically take relevant information from your incoming e-mails into account. For example, we create proposal lists from inquiries, purchasing proposal lists from offers, and newsletters for your customers from price changes or delivery bills.

4. We convert inquiries, orders or invoices into EDI standards. For almost 3,000 suppliers who can only send PDF invoices, for whom classic EDI, xInvoice or ZUGFeRD would be far too costly, we convert PDF invoices – without optical text recognition (OCR), i.e. with 100 percent quality – into the invoice formats that can be processed automatically by the customer.

5. We check incoming invoices against purchase orders, reject incomplete or fraudulent invoices, log the legally required audit trail for each invoice, add information such as vendor number, G/L accounts, cost objects, tax codes, and company codes, and integrate the invoices into financial accounting or, for example, into SAP’s logistics invoice verification.

Practical example: “Ametista” wins with SOMS and Smartstore integration

Integration of Brick & Mortar and e-commerce in small business operations. The customer Ametista sells approximately 3,000 jewelry items via a store location and via the Smartstore online store system. In the past, the customer faced some problems from time to time because items were purchased in the Smartstore that were no longer available in stock.

He was looking for a solution that

1. reliably stops displaying online store items that were sold out in the brick & mortar retail store, and
2. re-list items with inventory in the Smartstore online store when goods are received in the retail store.

His leading system is ERP “Selectline” https://www.selectline.ch/de. Selectline has a suitable programming interface (API) through which we can find all item inventories.

Depending on the inventory of the items, we show or hide the display in the smartstore store. During the first run, we found almost 1,000 items that were incorrectly hidden and thus not sold through the store for years.

Another Ametista solution is to synchronize sales in the Smartstore with ERP Selectline. To do this, we generate an invoice directly in the ERP from the order in the Smartstore.

Through our solutions, manual effort is reduced, more sales are generated, the external image of the company is improved and the owner could go on his well-deserved vacation without any worries.

Ready to get started?
Contact us or try Smartstore for free. Contact sales:
https://smartstore.com/en/contact