You're evaluating order management systems and every vendor claims to do everything. The feature lists blur together. The demos all look polished. But once you're live, the gaps between a good OMS and a bad one become painfully obvious — in missed shipments, oversold inventory, and fulfillment bottlenecks that cost real money.
This guide cuts through the noise. Below are the 9 features that separate an OMS built for real eCommerce operations from one that just checks boxes on a sales deck. For each feature, we cover what it actually means, why it matters to your business, what to ask during a vendor evaluation, and how SkuNexus approaches it. Whether you're building an RFP or preparing for a demo, this is the framework.
| Feature | Why It Matters | Key Question to Ask |
|---|---|---|
| Software Integrations | One broken connection = data gaps everywhere | "How many pre-built integrations? What's the timeline for custom?" |
| Real-Time Data Sync | Lag = overselling, wrong inventory counts | "Is sync real-time or batched? What's the delay?" |
| Automated Order Routing | Manual routing doesn't scale past 500 orders/day | "Can I set unlimited routing rules? Multi-vendor splitting?" |
| Order Visibility & Status | "Where's my order?" is the #1 support inquiry | "Can I create custom statuses and tags that trigger automation?" |
| Omnichannel Management | Separate workflows per channel = exponential complexity | "Show me orders from Shopify and Amazon side by side." |
| Returns Management | Returns are 20-30% of eCommerce orders | "Walk me through a return from initiation to inventory restock." |
| Role-Based Access | Wrong access = errors and security risk | "Can I restrict a 3PL partner to see only their fulfillments?" |
| Workflow Customization | Every business has at least one unique workflow | "What happens when I need a workflow you don't have?" |
| Scalability | If the system chokes on Black Friday, you lose revenue | "What happens to my bill when I 3x volume during Q4?" |
An order management system must connect to your eCommerce platform, ERP, POS, shipping carriers, marketplace channels, and payment processors without requiring custom development for each one. If your OMS can't talk to the rest of your tech stack natively, every workaround you build is a future failure point. A single broken integration can cascade into inventory errors, shipping delays, and customer service fires across your entire operation.
Every manual data handoff between systems is a potential failure point. A single missed inventory update between your Shopify store and Amazon listing creates an oversell that costs you a customer and a review. Multiply that across dozens of daily syncs and the risk compounds quickly.
What to evaluate:
SkuNexus approach: Native integrations with Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento that a non-technical team member can configure in minutes. Over 150 pre-built connectors to ERPs, marketplaces, and carriers. Open API for anything custom — if you need a connection that isn't preconfigured, our team or one of our channel partners can build it.
Every data point — inventory levels, order statuses, customer information, shipping updates — needs to stay identical across every connected system at all times. Not "syncs every 15 minutes." Real-time. Most merchants assume their order management system handles this automatically. It doesn't — and the gap between assumption and reality is where oversells happen.
A 15-minute sync delay during a flash sale means hundreds of orders placed against inventory that's already spoken for. Returns that don't immediately update available stock create cascading inaccuracies across channels. Even a brief lag opens the door to oversells — a customer orders an item that shows "in stock" on your site, but was actually purchased on Amazon 10 minutes ago. That's a cancelled order, a refund, and a 1-star review.
What to evaluate:
SkuNexus approach: Continuous data pull from all connected platforms as fast as the source system provides it. This maintains 100% inventory accuracy across all channels. SkuNexus clients have reported reducing per-order processing time by up to 30 minutes after implementing real-time sync across multiple sales channels — time that was previously spent manually verifying stock levels and reconciling discrepancies.
When an order comes in, the system automatically decides which warehouse, store, 3PL, or dropship vendor should fulfill it — based on rules you define. No human touches the order until it's time to pick. Of all the features in an order management system, routing automation delivers the most immediate ROI because it eliminates the slowest, most error-prone step in the order management process.
Manual routing breaks at scale. Once you're processing 500+ orders per day across multiple fulfillment locations, a human cannot make optimal routing decisions fast enough. The wrong routing decision means higher shipping costs, slower delivery, or split shipments that eat your margin. And it only gets worse during peak season when volume spikes and every second counts.
What to evaluate:
SkuNexus approach: The Auto-Decision Engine supports unlimited routing rules that evaluate inventory, geography, cost, and speed simultaneously. Orders can be split across warehouses, stores, 3PLs, and dropship vendors automatically. Every routing decision is logged with full reasoning for audit. One SkuNexus client operating three warehouses and two dropship vendors reduced their routing decision time from 45 minutes of manual work per batch to under 2 minutes of automated processing — while simultaneously cutting shipping costs by routing to the nearest fulfillment node.
This is where SkuNexus is fundamentally different. Most OMS platforms offer basic routing — nearest warehouse with stock. The Auto-Decision Engine evaluates dozens of variables simultaneously, the way a senior operations manager would think through the decision, but in milliseconds and at unlimited scale.
Every order has a clear, customizable status that tells your team exactly where it is in the lifecycle — from placement through fulfillment, shipping, delivery, and potential return. With dozens of orders moving through multiple stages simultaneously, confusion compounds fast. Clear visibility isn't a convenience — it's what prevents a $50 order from becoming a $200 customer service problem.
"Where's my order?" is the #1 customer service inquiry for eCommerce brands. If your team can't answer instantly, you're burning labor hours on manual lookups and damaging customer trust with every delayed response. A good OMS makes this a non-issue — the information is visible the moment someone asks.
What to evaluate:
SkuNexus approach: Fully customizable order statuses and tags that map to your existing workflow terminology. Custom attributes drive further automation — tag an order "VIP" and it automatically routes to your fastest fulfillment center. Tag it "Fragile" and the pick, pack, and ship workflow adjusts accordingly. Your team sees exactly the information they need, nothing more.
A single platform that aggregates orders from every sales channel — website, Amazon, Walmart, retail stores, wholesale, B2B portals — and enables fulfillment from any location in your network. This is where an order management system earns its keep: the more channels you sell on, the more critical it becomes to have one system controlling inventory and fulfillment across all of them.
Running separate fulfillment workflows per channel means separate inventory pools, separate teams, and exponential complexity. The merchant selling on Shopify, Amazon, three retail stores, and a wholesale channel needs one system managing all of it — not six disconnected processes held together with spreadsheets. According to industry data, brands that unify their channels into a single OMS see 15-25% reductions in carrying costs from inventory pooling alone.
What to evaluate:
SkuNexus approach: Functions as a single source of truth (SSOT), aggregating all data into one platform. Orders from disparate channels are managed in one place with full support for ship, BOPIS/ship-from-store, and dropship fulfillment. This flexibility has added benefits — dropshipping offers a backstop when stock is out and widens your available product line, while leveraging in-store merchandise through online channels increases inventory turnover and decreases carrying costs.
A structured workflow for processing customer returns — from RMA generation through receipt, inspection, inventory restock or disposal, and refund or exchange processing. Returns are the part of eCommerce that nobody wants to think about, but your order management system needs to handle them as cleanly as it handles forward fulfillment.
Returns represent 20-30% of eCommerce orders. Without an automated returns workflow, each return is a manual fire drill that consumes warehouse labor, delays the customer's refund, and leaves inventory in limbo — neither available for resale nor properly written off.
What to evaluate:
SkuNexus approach: Full returns module with customizable inspection workflows. Merchants control whether returned items go back into inventory based on condition criteria they define. Enterprise clients have built custom returns logic that reduced their return-to-resale cycle from 5+ days to under 24 hours — meaning returned inventory is generating revenue again instead of sitting in a processing queue.
Different team members see only the information and actions relevant to their role. A warehouse picker sees their pick list. A COO sees performance dashboards across all locations. A 3PL partner sees only their assigned fulfillments. The need for rigorous access control across an eCommerce enterprise extends into areas you may not have considered.
Beyond security (which is non-negotiable), role-based access reduces errors. A warehouse worker who can see and modify order routing rules is a warehouse worker who will accidentally break your automation. Conversely, a COO who has to navigate past pick lists to find reporting data is wasting time on every login. Clearly defined roles ensure employees see only what's relevant to their work and responsibility level.
What to evaluate:
SkuNexus approach: Unlimited users with granular role configuration. An administrator selects from a checklist of system features — each user sees only what's relevant. Warehouse teams using barcode scanning for inventory see their scan interface and pick lists. A 3PL partner sees only their assigned fulfillments. No per-user pricing means you never have to restrict access for cost reasons.
The ability to modify how the system works — not just configure settings, but actually change business logic, add new workflows, and build operations the vendor never anticipated. Most OMS platforms let you adjust settings within their framework. The question is whether you can break out of that framework when your business demands it.
Every eCommerce business has at least one workflow that's unique to their operation. A frozen food company needs temperature logging in receiving. A subscription box company needs kit-building logic. A luxury brand needs authentication steps before inventory intake. If your OMS can't accommodate these, you're either building workarounds in spreadsheets or changing your operations to fit the software — and neither is sustainable.
What to evaluate:
SkuNexus approach: Full source code access. Clients and their development teams have built custom receiving methods, proprietary packing operations, and automated shipping label generation that SkuNexus never designed. One specialty food client built a temperature-logging workflow into their receiving process in under a week — a customization that would have been a 6-month feature request with a closed-source vendor. The platform's open, headless architecture means it never becomes the bottleneck when a brand invents a better way to do things.
The "Magento of OMS" principle: Just as Magento gave merchants full control over their storefront code, SkuNexus gives full control over operations code. No feature request tickets. No waiting for the next release. Your developers build what you need, when you need it.
The system handles growth — more orders, more warehouses, more channels, more complexity — without degraded performance, forced plan upgrades, or artificial limits. Your order management system should be the last thing you worry about during a growth phase — not the first bottleneck you hit.
The OMS that works for 1,000 orders per day needs to work for 10,000 orders per day during peak season. If the system chokes during Black Friday, you're losing revenue at the exact moment it matters most. And if scaling means a surprise invoice for overage fees, your margin calculations for the quarter are wrong.
What to evaluate:
SkuNexus approach: No limits on users, integrations, warehouses, fulfillment options, order volume, or customer support. Dedicated database per client means your performance isn't affected by other customers' traffic spikes. Built on infrastructure designed for scale, SkuNexus expands and adjusts as needed — adding a new warehouse is configuration, not a project.
Print this out. Bring it to your next vendor demo. These are the 9 questions that will tell you more about an OMS in 30 minutes than a sales deck ever will:
If a vendor can answer all 9 clearly and show you each one live, they're worth serious consideration. If they dodge any of them, that's your answer.
Track these evaluations against your order management KPIs to see which platform actually delivers on the metrics that matter to your operation. And when you're ready to compare platforms side by side, our best eCommerce OMS guide breaks down what to look for beyond features alone.
Want to see how SkuNexus answers all 9? Schedule a demo and bring this checklist with you.
The 9 essential features are: software integrations, real-time data synchronization, automated order routing, order visibility and status management, omnichannel management, returns management, role-based security, workflow customization, and scalability. The most critical vary by business — a multi-warehouse operation will prioritize routing automation, while a fast-growing D2C brand will prioritize scalability and channel coverage.
An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system manages broad business functions — accounting, HR, procurement. An OMS specifically manages the order lifecycle from placement to delivery. Many businesses run both: the ERP handles financials, the OMS handles fulfillment. SkuNexus integrates with ERPs like NetSuite and SAP so they work together without data gaps.
OMS pricing varies widely — from $500/month for basic SaaS platforms to $50,000+/year for enterprise solutions like Manhattan or SAP. Key cost factors include order volume, number of integrations, implementation complexity, and whether you need customization. Watch for per-user fees and transaction-based pricing that scale unpredictably as your business grows.
An Auto-Decision Engine automatically routes orders to the optimal fulfillment location based on rules you define — considering inventory levels, geographic proximity, shipping cost, and delivery speed simultaneously. Unlike basic "nearest warehouse" routing, it evaluates multiple variables per order and can split orders across locations. SkuNexus's Auto-Decision Engine is the core of its routing automation.
Yes, but not all do it well. B2B orders involve purchase orders, net payment terms, volume pricing, and EDI compliance — very different from B2C. Look for an OMS that handles both workflows natively rather than treating B2B as an afterthought. SkuNexus supports B2B and B2C in a single platform with workflow customization for each.