As a business grows online, keeping up with orders and demand can become one of the biggest roadblocks to growth.
Ensuring the business infrastructure and ecommerce website are both able to cope with an increasing number of orders is a huge challenge, and requires a powerful system in place to advance.
A businesses order management system is vital to success, especially when dealing with large quantity of orders, with physical locations spread out across a large area. Decisions have to be made about where to distribute orders from, and this can complicate things further. In order to deliver orders more efficiently, it is best to ensure that orders are dispatched from depots closer to the target address. However, this can complicate things from an ecommerce perspective.
Williams Commerce have developed Distributed Order Management system that allows a business using Magento Enterprise to distribute from different locations, while managing available online stock for each location too.
Hancocks Cash and Carry, the UKs largest confectionery wholesaler and a client of Williams Commerce were starting to be held back by having a single location from which they distributed. They had to make the decision between buying another building to keep up with distribution, or use the assets they already possess.
With 20 different depots across the UK, this decision turned out to be easy, as they decided to distribute from two of their existing locations, in addition to their current central location in Loughborough. Now, splitting their distribution network between The North, The Midlands and The South, Hancocks are able to process orders more efficiently, while also spreading the workload between three locations.
In order for this to function online, Williams Commerce had to implement their system, so that orders made online were sent to the correct depot. Customers, whether they are a guest or a registered user, simply have to enter their postcode, and the Hancocks website will show stock for their nearest depot. Once they place their order, the system automatically processes the order with their nearest depot based on their location.
If you are interested in moving to Magento Enterprise, or are looking for the right system for your business, contact Williams Commerce today at [email protected], or on 0116 326 1116 and visit our website at www.williamscommerce.com.
