OMS Multi-Warehousing: Order Routing

Many of the Anchanto OMS users have multiple warehouse and store locations from where they fulfil the online orders. The current options and setup available in the market is not scalable and required manual assignment of orders to the respective fulfilment location.

Order is fulfilled from the particular set warehouse irrespective of the consumer’s location which adds to the logistics cost, higher delivery lead time to fulfil the orders. Also, the order needs to be routed based on the stock location available at the warehouse. The user should be able to configure the business rules according to which orders will be routed to the specific warehouse and be fulfilled accordingly.

This advanced multi warehousing feature with different auto routing logics will help such users to auto assign orders to the most suitable warehouses and optimize the fulfilment process.

Multi Warehousing Order Routing Logics

The different order routing logics caters to the different seller business needs to fulfil the orders as per their requirement. Go through the details mentioned below to understand each routing logic and how it works and suits the seller’s business needs.

The order routing logic can be set up through the ‘Warehouse Configuration’ option and can be set separately for each sales channel that is connected by the seller in his Anchanto OMS account.

To find the best routing logic that helps the seller fulfil the order in a hassle-free manner, the seller should first go through the below and understand the different rule options available in Anchanto OMS.

OMS Routing

OMS Routing will allow sellers to set the smart rule for each sales channel to auto assign the orders to the most suitable warehouse based on the rule selected by the seller.

Following are rules that sellers can choose from:

• Warehouse Priority-wise
• Location-wise
  1. Proximity
  2. Zip Code mapping
  3. City Mapping
• Highest Inventory Availability
• Logistic Cost

Order Split Functionality is a new feature that is supported by few marketplaces such as Lazada & Shopify, when it is enabled, the orders that cannot be fulfilled by a single warehouse will be split automatically by the line item and assigned to the respective warehouse based on the warehouse priority and stock availability.

Rule 1: Warehouse Priority-wise

The Warehouse Priority-wise rule allows sellers to set the priority for all their warehouses activated for the selected sales channel. Based on the warehouse priority set by the seller, the orders get auto assigned to the P1 warehouse. If the order cannot be fulfilled fully from P1 warehouse, then it will be auto assigned to the P2 or so on.

For example: If there are warehouses in part of East & West Malaysia, then the seller can choose any one warehouse as the priority 1 (P1) warehouse and another as P2. If the seller chooses West Malaysia as a priority 1 warehouse and East Malaysia as a P2 then the order will auto assign to West Malaysia Warehouse.

In case:

1. If the complete order can be fulfilled by all the warehouses, then the warehouse that has been set as the priority will get assigned to the order and can fulfil the order.
2. If the complete order cannot be fulfilled by the priority warehouse, then it will check for the second priority warehouse so on and so forth.
3. If the complete order cannot be fulfilled from any of the warehouses, then it will be assigned to the P1 warehouse as per the priority set by the seller, post that seller can inbound the stock and can fulfil the order or can cancel the out-of-stock product directly on marketplace to sync in OMS.

Rule 2: Location Wise

Location wise rules allow sellers to auto assign the orders to the nearest warehouse based on the buyer delivery address. Seller can choose either ‘Proximity’, ‘Zip Code Mapping’ or 'City Mapping' to auto find the nearest warehouse or assigned the order to the mapped warehouse manually.

Condition 1: Proximity

1. OMS auto finds the nearest warehouse to the delivery location based on geo coordinates.
2. If the complete order cannot be fulfilled from the nearest warehouse, then it will automatically assign the order to the next nearest warehouse.
3. If there are two warehouses that are equidistant from the location of the placed order, then the system will pick the warehouse with the lowest number of orders for processing.
4. In the case of warehouses being equidistant from the location of the placed order and the same number of orders that are being processed, then the system will select the warehouse with the highest available inventory.
5. In the case all the above conditions are the same i.e. equidistant from the warehouses, same number of processing orders and the same amount of inventory in both warehouses, then in this case the warehouse will be selected based on alphabetical order.

Condition 2/3: Zip Code Mapping / City Mapping

1. Sellers can add/map the zip codes/cities manually for each warehouse enabled for this sales channel in Anchanto OMS.
2. When any order delivery address has one of the mapped zip codes/cities then the order will be auto assigned to the respected mapped warehouse in Anchanto OMS.
3. Seller must select any one warehouse as a primary warehouse so if there are any orders with zip code that are not assigned to any of the warehouses then such orders will auto assign to the primary warehouse in Anchanto OMS.
4. Sellers can add the zip codes one by one or in bulk using excel files for all warehouses.
5. Sellers can remove the already mapped zip code by clicking on the close icon.

NOTE: In case if the seller changes the routing logic, then the past orders will not have any impact. Those orders will remain assigned to their respective warehouses that were assigned earlier. The change will apply to only new orders after saving the configuration.

Rule 3: Highest Inventory Availability

This rule auto assigns the order to the warehouse that has the highest number of inventory available for the products in the order.

1. When the order has only one product, then the order will be assigned to the warehouse that has the highest stock for the ordered product.
2. In case of multiple products in single order then OMS consider the summation of total inventory of all the SKUs while assigning the order in Anchanto OMS.
3. If the order cannot be fulfilled from one warehouse, then the order remains in partial state unless the ‘split order function’ is enabled (for Shopify and Lazada), then the order is split into different warehouses and fulfilled accordingly.

Rule 4: Logistic Cost

The core purpose of this routing logic rule is that the orders are fulfilled from the warehouses or distribution centres that cost the least amount of logistic cost to the seller.

Sellers must manually upload the logistic cost for each carrier using bulk upload files in Anchanto OMS. If the cost is different from one location to another then the details must be fed accordingly in the Anchanto OMS.

Based on the logistic cost fed in the Anchanto system, it assigns the order to the warehouse that can fulfil the order with lowest logistic cost.

Note: Sellers can get the logistic rates and delivery charges from one location to another to feed them in Anchanto OMS.

Steps to setup the logistic cost rule:

1. Select the primary warehouse first, If the order can be fulfilled from the primary warehouse, then it won’t check any logistic conditions.
2. Export and upload the Area using the bulk file upload to appear in Anchanto OMS for further process. E.g. Area can be a region or state.
3. Export and upload the Area & City mapping file to specify the city belongs to the specific area.
4. Export & upload the Area-Warehouse mapping.
5. Export and upload the Logistic Cost Table contains the weight wise slabs to upload the logistic cost per area using bulk file in Anchanto OMS.

NOTE:

• In case the orders cannot be fulfilled by the Priority Warehouse Center, then the list of fulfilment centres will be generated along with the logistics cost. For the locations with the logistics cost less than the ceiling cost, the location with the least logistic cost will be assigned as the fulfilment location.
• In case the logistics costs are same for multiple locations then the one with minimum distance will be assigned as a fulfilment location. If the distance is also the same at both locations, then one of the many sets will be selected at random by the system.

Transfer Order

Transfer Order routing logic is suitable for the sellers that have multiple locations or warehouses, but the order fulfilment can be done from only one location/warehouse.

Sometimes the seller has the primary warehouse that has all setup to fulfil the order to the buyer whereas other warehouses or locations are used only for storage purposes and may have all required setup to pick, pack and fulfil the orders directly to the buyers.

As per the routing logic when the order is received in OMS then it will be auto assigned to the primary warehouse. If the primary warehouse does not have stock for all the products that are available in the order, then OMS will auto create an internal transfer order for those out-of-stock items and assign them to the other warehouse that has the stock for those products.

Other warehouses can see the transfer order request and can process them to transfer the required stock to the primary warehouse for the fulfilment.

Once the stock is received, the seller can proceed for the fulfilment process to handover to the carrier.

Procedure for Transfer order:

1. Login from the seller account, select the order in partial state and click on transfer order on the right corner of the order tab (if manual).
2. In the outbound tab of the secondary warehouse -> go to actions -> select packed -> select shipped.
3. Login from the destination warehouse and in the inbound tab, you will be able to see the order that is coming from the other warehouse.
4. Manually click on receive order once the order is received and passes quality check. And it will move to the completed section.
5. You can then login from your original seller account and see that your order has moved from partial state to read for pick up state.
6. The order is then fulfilled.

NOTE:

• The system will select the warehouse by which there can be a minimal amount of transfer orders.
• In the warehouse champ you can track all the transfer orders.
• You can create multiple transfer orders manually against the same order without any restrictions.

Manual Routing

The order routing type allows sellers to decide and assign the orders to the warehouse manually.

Once the rule is activated:

• Orders will not be auto assigned to any of the warehouses for this sales channel.
• Sellers can select one or multiple orders and assign to the desired warehouse manually.
• Once the order is assigned to any warehouse then it cannot be reverted or changed to another warehouse.

Marketplace Routing

Select this order routing type when the sales channel decides the order fulfilment location.

Sellers must create the same warehouse in Anchanto OMS that are created on the sales channel and map them in Anchanto OMS. The orders assigned by sales channel to the specific warehouse/location will sync to the respective mapped warehouse in Anchanto OMS.

Steps to configure:

1. Make sure all locations and warehouses created on sales channels are also created in Anchanto OMS.
2. Connect the sales channel to Anchanto OMS with a single warehouse initially.
3. Post connection, click on the Warehouse configuration option available under the 3 dots.
   
4. Click on Add/Remove Warehouse.
   
5. Select the additional warehouses that needs to be connected to this sales channel and click on confirm.
   
6. Select the respective Anchanto warehouse from the dropdown against the sales channel location appearing on the screen and click on Confirm.