Orders in five places
Website, marketplaces, EDI, phone and a rep with a spreadsheet, all landing in different systems that don't talk to each other.
✦ Order management
Order management systems built around how you actually fulfil orders
An order management system pulls orders in from every channel, routes them to the right warehouse or supplier, and keeps stock, status and customer promises in sync. Off-the-shelf OMS software covers this well for standard retail flows. We build the rest: multi-entity, multi-warehouse and B2B rules that packaged systems were never designed for.
✦ Where it hurts
The problems that bring people to us
Split shipments and part-orders
One order fulfilled from three warehouses, or backordered against a supplier, and nobody can see the whole picture from one screen.
Pricing and terms per account
Trade customers on negotiated pricing, credit terms and approval workflows that a consumer OMS has no concept of.
Stock is never quite right
Available-to-promise doesn't account for allocated, in-transit or reserved stock, so you oversell and then apologise.
Returns and exceptions eat a day
Cancellations, part-returns and substitutions handled by email and memory rather than by the system.
Growth outpaces the platform
The OMS you bought for one warehouse and one channel is now the thing stopping you opening a second.
✦ The honest bit
When an off-the-shelf order management system is the right answer
If you sell on one or two mainstream channels, ship from a single warehouse, and your fulfilment rules are close to standard retail, a packaged OMS such as Linnworks, Brightpearl, ChannelAdvisor or your ecommerce platform's native order tools will do the job for less than a bespoke build, and faster.
The maths changes when your order logic is the thing that makes you different: multi-entity trading, complex allocation rules across warehouses and suppliers, account-specific pricing and approvals, or fulfilment workflows that packaged vendors treat as edge cases and you treat as everyday.
We will say so directly in a scoping call. If a configured off-the-shelf OMS covers your real requirements, that is what we will recommend, and we would rather tell you that on day one than three months into a build.
The pattern we see most often is a business that started on an off-the-shelf OMS, outgrew it as SKU count, channel count or trading complexity increased, and now needs the order logic to match how the business actually trades rather than the other way round.
✦ What we build
What a bespoke OMS typically covers
Built module by module, integrated with the systems you already run rather than replacing them wholesale.
- Order capture and normalisation from web, marketplace, EDI, phone and manual channels into one order model
- Allocation and routing logic across multiple warehouses, suppliers and dropship partners
- Real-time available-to-promise, accounting for allocated, reserved and in-transit stock
- Account-specific pricing, credit limits, approval workflows and trading terms for B2B customers
- Split shipment, backorder, part-return and substitution handling as first-class flows, not exceptions
- Integration with your warehouse management system, carriers, accounts package and CRM
- A single order status view for customer service, replacing five systems and a spreadsheet
- Reporting on fulfilment performance, exceptions and stock accuracy on your own definitions
✦ Decision
Off-the-shelf OMS vs bespoke, at a glance
| Situation | Likely right answer |
|---|---|
| Single warehouse, one or two channels, standard pricing | Off-the-shelf OMS |
| Multiple warehouses or suppliers with complex allocation rules | Bespoke, or heavily customised |
| B2B accounts with negotiated pricing and approval chains | Bespoke |
| Order logic that is a genuine point of difference for the business | Bespoke |
| You mainly need a tidy dashboard over one clean channel | Off-the-shelf OMS |
✦ Path
How we approach an OMS build
1
Map the order journey
Every channel, every exception, every handoff, documented as it actually happens today, not as the org chart says it should.
2
Decide build vs buy honestly
If a configured package covers it, we say so. We only build what genuinely needs building.
3
Deliver the highest-value flow first
Usually allocation and available-to-promise, live and in use before the rest of the system is built.
4
Integrate rather than replace
Your WMS, accounts and CRM stay in place; the OMS becomes the layer that makes them agree with each other.
5
Hand over documented and owned by you
Source code, data and infrastructure are yours, with no dependency on us to keep running.
✦ Questions we get asked
Order management system questions
Do we need a bespoke order management system or would an off-the-shelf OMS work?
If your fulfilment is close to standard retail on one or two channels, an off-the-shelf OMS is almost always the right first move. Bespoke earns its cost when allocation, pricing or approval rules are genuinely complex or specific to how you trade.
How does an OMS differ from a WMS?
An order management system decides what should happen to an order - where it's fulfilled from, at what price, under what terms. A warehouse management system executes the physical picking and packing. Most businesses need both, integrated.
Can a bespoke OMS integrate with our existing ecommerce platform and accounts package?
Yes, that is usually the point. We build the OMS as the layer that reconciles channels, stock and orders, integrating with Shopify, Sana, Xero, Sage or whatever you already run rather than asking you to replace it.
How long does an order management system build take?
A first working version covering your highest-value flow - typically allocation and order routing - is usually a matter of months, delivered in stages so value lands before the whole system is finished.
What happens to our current systems during the build?
They keep running. We integrate around them and cut over flow by flow, so nobody is asked to trust an unproven system with the whole order book on day one.
✦ Related
Where to go next
Distribution and wholesale softwareOrder management sits inside a wider distribution platform for many of our clients.Read more Inventory management softwareStock accuracy is the foundation an OMS depends on.Read more Software integration servicesConnecting an OMS to your accounts, WMS and CRM.Read more
Talk through your order flow We'll tell you what we'd build.
Bring us your channels, your exceptions and the spreadsheet everyone relies on. We'll tell you honestly whether you need bespoke or a better-configured off-the-shelf system.
No pitch deck · We map your process · You own the software