Summer is ending and you’re searching for a grill on sale, and you find the perfect one online. On the website, they say that the grill is currently available at your local store. However, to your dismay, when you arrive at the store, they’ve just sold out of that specific grill. If only the retailer could have given you more real-time inventory visibility online, then it would have both saved you time and eliminated a tremendously negative customer experience.

No retailer wants its customer to have an experience like this at its store, and yet few retailers have optimized omnichannel operations to fully eliminate issues like this today. Omnichannel commerce tops retailers’ investment priority lists year after year because the bar keeps being raised for seamless, omnichannel customer experiences.

These realities in the retail industry are pressing retailers to identify strategic partners for omnichannel initiatives and place investments carefully into order management systems (OMS) technologies that best serve their customers’ needs. “The Forrester Wave™: Omnichannel Order Management Systems, Q3 2018” is aimed at helping our clients do just that.

In our 40-criteria evaluation of OMS providers, we identified and analyzed the 10 most significant vendors in this space — Aptos, Digital River, IBM, Jagged Peak, Kibo, Magento, Manhattan Associates, Oracle, Oracle NetSuite, and Radial. We evaluated them in criteria within four core capabilities:

  • Enterprise-level visibility
  • Distributed order management (DOM)
  • Customer service
  • Store fulfillment

Our research found that leading OMS solutions offered enterprise-ready functionality for complex retail-specific scenarios aimed at the business user. Those outside of the Leaders category have less advanced functionality and are often better suited for those looking to get omnichannel up and running quickly (including SMBs).

To see how each vendor stacks up, read “The Forrester Wave™: Omnichannel Order Management Systems, Q3 2018” today. Please feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below.