Ecommerce warehouse management: what is it and top 5 best systems for 2021

Good eCommerce warehouse management for your online business can help you save money and time while meeting customer expectations. Warehouse management relates to tracking and monitoring orders, shipping, receiving, picking of products, and large other related procedures. Therefore, choosing a suitable warehouse management solution is extremely essential for your business

What is Ecommerce Warehouse Management?

Ecommerce warehousing is the storage of physical products before they are sold online. Warehousing relates to safely and securely storing goods, as well as checking where goods are located when they arrived, how long they’ve been in stock, and the quantity on hand at any given time. Taking place in an eCommerce warehouse or fulfillment center, general operations include:

  • Training and managing warehouse staff.
  • Managing inventory, equipment, and safety.
  • Building and care for relationships with shipping carriers.
  • Keeping goods secure.
  • Forecasting shipping volume and labor requests.
  • Obtaining certifications and licensing.
  • Scaling operations as the company grows.
  • Keeping up with suitable safety regulations.
  • Recording daily inbound and outbound shipments.
Ecommerce Warehouse Management

Ecommerce warehouse management Comparison Criteria

What are we looking for when we choose eCommerce warehouse management systems for review? Here’s a summary of the evaluation criteria:

  1. User Interface (UI): Is it clean and attractive?
  2. Usability: Is it simply to learn and master? Does the company provide good tech support, user support, tutorials, and training?
  3. Features & Functionality:
    • Scalability – Is it easy for the system to develop with your business?
    • Complete Transaction Management – Does the management system every step of the warehousing processes (ie. receiving, purchase order and sales order tracking, order picking, shipping, and so on)?
    • Solve Multiple Business Channels – Can the system solve direct-to-customer, eCommerce, retail, and wholesale?
    • Reporting and analytics – Are the reporting tools powerful, customizable, flexible, and visually appealing? Can they be exported into various, popular file types for review?
  4. Integrations: Is it convenient to connect with other tools like your retail operations platform and CRMs? Any pre-built integrations? Will it work with any existing supply chain management tools, enterprise resource planning tools, or transportation management systems you have in place?
  5. Value for $: How suitable is the price for the functions, capabilities, and use case? Is pricing clear, transparent, and flexible?

Top 5 Best eCommerce Warehouse Management systems in 2021

An eCommerce warehouse management system is a digital tool designed to support, manage, and optimize typical warehouse workflow. Frequently, these processes contain the likes of inventory management and inventory accuracy, picking and shipping, fulfillment, auditing, and more. An eCommerce warehouse management might be included with your business resource planning software or supply chain management (SCM) software, or it might be a separate software.

Warehouse management systems operate differently, relying on the WMS software you settle on. However, you can expect each to have similar basic features that contain products like inventory tracking, handheld barcode scanners or radio-frequency identification (RFID) scanners, label and packing slip printing, shipment tracking, navigating pallet and inventory storage, supporting staff

1. Anchanto

Anchanto is eCommerce warehouse management software for eCommerce merchants, business, and warehousing & fulfillment service providers. It was a solution for such global famous players as Nestle, L’OREAL, Luxasia, GreatDeals, Garnier, etc. Anchanto’s system helps eCommerce businesses to control operations such as warehousing, catalog, pricing, logistics, shipping, etc.

  • Ready integrations with 41+ eCommerce marketplaces and platforms
  • 24×7 access to inventory, orders, and customer data
  • Warehouse tracking android app for delivery staff

2. Infoplus 

Infoplus is one of the best eCommerce warehouse management systems. It comes with full WMS with inbound and purchasing, outbound and shipping, inventory control, setting up blocks, custom reporting, dashboards, management by exception, low stocks and stock controls, customer portal, and real-time order and shipment tracking.

Besides, Infoplus is very flexible in its pricing plans with some lower-cost options for start-ups and small companies. They are also very transparent with their pricing scheme on their online store. Thus, they scored well in the evaluation for Value for Cost.

One disadvantage is a lack of, or subpar versions of, reporting and statistics tools. These eCommerce warehouse management systems are lacking in real-time reporting as well as data import/export.

3. Mobe3

Mobe3 is a cloud-based eCommerce warehouse management systems for midsize and enterprise-level warehouses. It comes with an AI layer and operates on rule-based features.

  • Artificial intelligence layer to assess the processes of batch picking and task assigning
  • The intuitively designed interface assign in streamlining everyday processes and maximizes user experience
  • Uses in-application inventory images to reduce accuracy and user experience

4. Odoo

An inventory system with an easy POV of product location, scheduling dates, status, and more. Odoo is a list of warehouse and sales solutions divided into a family of apps that cover store, sales, operations, and productivity tools. Their eCommerce warehouse management systems offer order points and automated RFQs for automated replenishment of your supply chain.

Odoo allows for the free use of 1 of their applications and a modest cost for the addition of another. However, the lack of third-party integration options might be cumbersome to some customers who are looking to incorporate their day-to-day project management tools into this system.  Odoo costs $24/user/month and has a free basic plan for 1 app.

5. 3PL Warehouse Manager

The 3PL warehouse management system is a service of 3PL Central. It was originally developed to offer 3PL providers the ability to manage and track their unique operational challenges.

  • Manages hundreds of customers and their defined processes and practices according to their needs
  • Offer maximum scalability
  • Real-time information tracking
  • Offer customizable GUI with an option to use the company’s logo

Warehouse management software has many advantages, some of which such as decreased operating expenses and labor costs, optimized inventory tracking, just-in-time (low stock, fast replenish) warehouse inventory capabilities, security practices, inbound/outbound control, billing management, CRM, and much more. There is some free warehouse management software that may be sufficient for small businesses such as Odoo, PartKeepr, ABC Inventory, Stockpile, and Skyware.