How to Create a Magento 2 Omnichannel Solution

To create a true Magento 2 omnichannel solution for your business and customers, you need to integrate a few third-party extensions, starting with Magento Commerce Order Management.

Magento 2 is the world’s leading enterprise eCommerce platform. More than 200,000 businesses have migrated to M2 because it provides complete control over your data and content and delivers modern site functionality.

M2 has a wide range of flexible and user-friendly features, from inventory and catalog management to SEO to advanced marketing and sales options. It can also be the foundation of an omnichannel solution for your business.

But on its own, Magento 2 is ‘just’ a web ordering system. It needs the support of third-party extensions to fulfill the needs of a store POS and provide seamless order management across every channel.

Meet Magento Commerce Order Management (MCOM)

Think of Magento Commerce Order Management as air traffic control for your commerce activities.

MCOM is a modular, cloud-based platform that provides centralized inventory, order and fulfillment capabilities. It manages orders coming in from all channels and matches them to the best eCommerce fulfillment options. You can also manage all logistics, customer service and payment processes of an order from creation through completion.

“With MCOM and other third-party extensions that add POS features, you can create a single Magento-based system for taking orders online and in store. This model can then be expanded across multiple stores to provide a constant, low-friction, unified commerce experience.” – Mayank Agrawal, CTO, DotcomWeavers

Magento Commerce Order Management Features

With M2 and MCOM, you can sell effectively to anyone, anywhere. But how does that work for your business?

Real-Time Inventory: Gives you the ability to pool stock from multiple sources and provide totals for different front ends (international stores, warehouses, etc.). You can specify product safety margins and get real-time inventory updates to mitigate the risk of oversells.

Single Customer View: Combine databases to create a single view of customer orders and product inventory. This helps increase efficiency, deliverability and order fulfillment. Combined data offers greater insight for communicating and nurturing customers (think personalization, offers, and incentives) and creates a tailored customer journey.

Item Sourcing Engine: Intelligently source order items from the best location(s) according to rules that you define. MCOM also gives you the flexibility to ‘batch’ orders or source them in real-time, depending on speed requirements. This enables you to optimize inventory, minimize the number of split shipments, save on costs and make customers happier.

Flexible Fulfillment: Magento 2 and MCOM support a variety of fulfillment options for your omnichannel offering:

• Warehouses (FCs or DCs)
• Drop-ship
• Virtual / Digital content providers
• Pre-shipped items (ex: downloads or store POS orders)
• Fulfillment from physical stores
• In-store pickup (click & collect)
• Ship to store (multi-stage fulfillment paths)

MCOM also offers an out-of-the-box in-store interface for sources (warehouses, etc.) without fulfillment software of their own, which is good for click & collect and ship-from-store orders. Finally, it can also connect with third-party fulfillment tools via powerful APIs.

Customer Services: Magento + MCOM provides a host of customer-friendly features including:

• Tracking – where’s my stuff?
• Cancellations (cancel before shipment, automatically cancel associated items)
• Refunds (create refunds against items or services up to the original sale value)
• Returns & Exchanges (management of return processes and creation of corresponding refunds and/or shipment of replacement items)

As with the fulfillment feature, MCOM offers an out-of-the-box customer service option. It can also connect to your CRM tool and even gives you the ability to add MCOM screens to third-party tools.

Payment Options: MCOM makes connecting your payment system seamless and efficient for your business and your customers. Again, MCOM offers an out-of-the-box payment solution and supports flexible third-party tool connectivity and customization so you can set up the payment gateway you need.

Benefits of a Magento 2 Omnichannel Solution with MCOM

With Magento 2 and MCOM, you can deliver a better user experience and optimize your retail. Here’s how.

Superior Order Management

MCOM merges your online and offline business by centralizing inventory in real time, even globally, and intelligently sourcing products for fulfillment. This supports an ‘endless aisle of inventory’, which gives customers more purchasing options. It also helps store associates ‘save sales’ that might have been lost due to a lack of inventory in the store.

Flexible Order Fulfillment

Better fulfillment means more sales. MCOM can reduce the operational costs of managing your inventory by turning your stores, warehouses, suppliers, and partners into distribution centers. This enables you to satisfy customer needs and make more sales. Some options are:

• Ship-from-store: Let customers choose the local store they want their products delivered from, rather than a warehouse. By exposing all store inventory online, you’ll increase sales, source products from closer locations, and deliver orders faster.
• Ship-to-store: Have the right inventory at the right store at the right time. This function offers customers a more convenient experience and reduces local shipping costs, the amount of local stock you carry and the markdowns you have to make on unsold goods.
• Buy online and pick up in store (BOPIS): Also called Click & Carry, customers can shop at home, place an order and get the product faster without paying shipping fees. They also have an easier return process if required. As a merchant, BOPIS benefits you because it drives more foot traffic…and in-store customers spend more than online.

A Better In-Store Experience

The easier you make it for customers to shop the way they want, the more sales you’ll see. Capabilities like Mobile POS from eBizmart (a Magento partner), can help you personalize customer engagement. Store associates can access products, pricing, coupons, orders and returns on a tablet, which makes shopping convenient for customers and earns you more sales.

Omnichannel Makes You Competitive

Nearly half of all retailers have or will adopt an omnichannel eCommerce platform by the end of 2019. Omnichannel must be a priority for businesses that want to succeed.

With a unified commerce offering, you can create a consistent, customer-centric experience that helps people engage with your brand. …All this, while streamlining your business operations and reducing your total cost of ownership.

CONNECT MAGENTO ORDER MANAGEMENT TO MAGENTO 2

Note: this process is technical and we suggest you find a qualified Magento development team to assist you.

To connect MCOM with your Magento 2 store, your developer will need to install the MCOM connector. This is available via Composer. The key requirements are:

1. Obtain OMS connector repository access credentials
2. Get access to the Magento 2 server via SSH
3. Install Composer on your Magento 2 server

Once the MCOM connector is installed, a few configurations must be made on the Magento instance. These are made under the newly-created admin section for MCOM. Here’s a checklist to follow:

• Synchronize your catalog with MCOM so all data and fields can be imported.
• Define order download settings to specify when orders are downloaded into MCOM.
• Define order status update settings to specify when order statuses should be updated from MCOM to Magento.
• Reset inventory stock and sync it with MCOM so your inventory is updated regularly.

M2 + MCOM SUMMARY

For Magento users, MCOM enables you to launch a true Magento 2 omnichannel solution. Here are the key points we covered:

MAGENTO COMMERCE EDITION

• Flexible and customizable commerce platform

MAGENTO COMMERCE ORDER MANAGEMENT

• Order state and event management
• Order orchestration & routing
• Partial shipments, order splitting
• Pre-sales, backorders, returns
• Customer or managed payments
• Customer service tools
• In-store tools for omnichannel enablement

THIRD PARTY EXTENSION ECOSYSTEM

• Completes your offering with PIM, CRM, Experience Management

Finally, keep in mind that support for Magento 1 ends in June 2020. This means you’ll need to migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2. If you’re considering a Magento 2 omnichannel solution for your business, speak with your developer about adding Magento Commerce Order Management to your migration project. 

We offer free Magento migration and integration assessments. Get in touch today to schedule yours!

If this article was helpful or if you have questions please let us know in the comments!