When a customer places an order on an ecommerce site and it goes through without a hitch, that’s not an accident. It’s the result of the business ensuring there are systems and processes in place behind the scenes to create a smooth experience for online shoppers.
Your order entry process is how you capture and record customer orders, and it’s an essential component of a seamless shopping experience. Learn the importance of accurate order entry for ecommerce, how it works, and how you can optimize it.
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What is order entry?
The order entry process involves collecting customer and order details from a sales channel like an ecommerce site or marketplace listing, confirming order details for accuracy, validating payments, and recording order information for future reference. All of this shores up customer satisfaction by ensuring orders are accurate and fulfilled quickly.
The importance of accurate order entry
Accurate order entry reduces errors during the order fulfillment process, which saves companies time and money by avoiding incorrect shipments and returns that can lead to dissatisfied customers and additional costs for your business.
Capturing customer orders correctly improves order analytics about order history and buying patterns. Your business can use this data to manage inventory replenishment, demand forecasting, marketing strategies, speed up the order-to-cash cycle, and generate more sales. By contrast, inaccurate order entry results in delays, shipping errors, operational inefficiencies, and a negative customer experience.
How order entry works
The order entry process involves some basic steps that businesses use to ensure a smooth order fulfillment process. With an integrated ecommerce platform like Shopify, this process can take just seconds:
1. Order placement
The order entry process begins when a customer places an order. That may be through a business’s online store, another sales channel like an online marketplace or mobile app, or a brick-and-mortar retail store.
A well-structured ecommerce platform lets customers easily browse product listings, add items to an online shopping cart, and place an order.
2. Data capture and validation
Data capture in the order entry process involves extracting important order details. This includes customer data like their name, email address, phone number, and shipping address, the product details, and item quantities.
Businesses using Shopify as their ecommerce platform benefit from its built-in order management and delivery tool, which automatically obtains customer data from orders and organizes it in a single dashboard.
Validating information like customer details and payment information is another essential part of order processing. Shopify automatically performs address validation for orders and runs a fraud analysis using machine learning software to identify suspicious activity like mismatched information. The system flags potentially fraudulent orders for businesses to review on the Orders page of the Shopify admin dashboard.
3. Payment processing
After validating orders, the next step is processing payments. A reliable ecommerce platform handles order processing using built-in payment processing systems. For instance, Shopify offers a built-in tool called Shopify Payments to process orders, validate payment information, and encrypt data by converting sensitive payment details like credit card numbers into inaccessible code.
4. Order confirmation
After successful payment processing, the business sends an order confirmation to the customer with order details like an order number, shipping details, and cost breakdown. Shopify businesses can automate this process through Shopify’s built-in order management system (OMS), which lets them set up and customize automatic order confirmation messages through email or SMS text messages in the Notifications section of the Shopify admin dashboard.
Order confirmation messages give businesses the opportunity to show gratitude for a purchase and include a call to action (CTA) that invites further engagement—for example, encouraging a referral or recommending a product based on a customer’s purchase history.
5. Order handoff
The final step in the order entry process is handing off an order to the relevant departments or systems. Businesses send order details to their in-house fulfillment teams or third-party logistics (3PL) providers, who use sales order details to pick the correct items in a warehouse and package them with an accurate shipping label. Businesses also send sales orders to accounting departments to maintain up-to-date financial records, while customer service teams log order details to inform future customer interactions.
Order entry challenges
A range of factors can result in mistakes or challenges during the order entry process, including:
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Incorrect information. Lack of correct product or customer information leads to order entry delays and other problems.
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Manual processes. Businesses using manual order entry systems for capturing customer information and generating a sales order can face inaccuracies from human error and inefficiencies from slow data entry.
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Unintegrated systems. Software tools that don’t communicate hinder information transfers between systems like an OMS, shipping software, and inventory management system.
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Lack of validation. Without a process for validating information like a customer’s payment information or shipping address, order entry errors can go unnoticed until an issue arises that requires immediate attention—like a missed delivery or fraudulent purchase.
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Scalability problems. Businesses receiving an unexpected increase in orders can have difficulty maintaining accurate order entry during spikes in demand, whether due to peak seasons or viral marketing campaigns.
How to optimize the order entry process
- Use software tools to capture order data
- Manage your inventory to avoid stockouts
- Customize your ecommerce checkout page
- Update customers about the status of their orders
Here are some best practices to consider to optimize the order entry process for your own business.
Use software tools to capture order data
Implement an order management software tool for tracking and managing orders. For instance, Shopify offers a built-in OMS to automatically create orders on the Shopify admin dashboard after customers make purchases. By using automation and machine learning tools, Shopify instantly validates order information, saves customer information, and securely processes payments.
A customer relationship management (CRM) system—a platform designed to collect and store customer information, activity, and communications in a centralized database—can improve efficiency. Shopify businesses use CRM integrations to connect their CRM tool with other business systems so that data automatically flows between them. For example, you could download a CRM tool from the Shopify App Store that integrates with Shopify’s built-in OMS to automatically collect data from sales orders made through the platform.
By using a CRM integration, you can capture data and generate reports to share with various departments. Sales departments can then send personalized product recommendations, marketing departments can analyze customer behavior, and customer service representatives can track customer interactions to create a connected customer experience.
Manage your inventory to avoid stockouts
Use an integrated inventory management system that connects to your OMS and provides updates about real-time stock levels. If you’re a Shopify business, Shopify’s built-in inventory management system automatically updates inventory levels based on orders to keep information consistent across multiple sales channels.
Using Shopify’s automation app (Shopify Flow), set up inventory workflows to avoid stockouts. As one example, you could establish restocking alerts when inventory levels are low or automatically hide out-of-stock products from your ecommerce store’s website.
Customize your ecommerce checkout page
A smooth ecommerce checkout process makes it easy for customers to enter order details quickly, helping to reduce online shopping cart abandonment. Shopify businesses can use the drag-and-drop checkout and account editor tool to add brand assets, personalize messaging, and customize the layout of their checkout page. Businesses can use Google Autocomplete to automatically fill in relevant customer information like names and addresses.
Update customers about the status of their orders
After a customer places a purchase order, redirect them to an order status page so they can check the progress of their order. Shopify automatically includes an order tracking page for online stores, which businesses can customize using the checkout and account editor tool. Using Shopify’s integrated platform, order tracking pages update automatically to show when an order is confirmed, on its way, and delivered.
Order entry FAQ
What is order entry?
Order entry is the process of capturing and processing an order placed with a business—confirming order details for accuracy, validating payment, and recording order information for future reference.
Why is order entry important?
An effective order entry system can improve the shopping experience and increase customer satisfaction by securely processing orders and shipping the correct items to recipients in a timely manner.
What is the objective of customer order entry?
The objective of customer order entry is to ensure that orders are accurate, fulfilled quickly, and recorded properly for future reference.
