Last updated - September 24, 2020
This article is part of Order Management Guide:
- Basics of order management
- Dealing with refunds
- The role of plugins in order management (current article)
- Ensuring prompt email notifications
WooCommerce order management features are definitely top-notch. However, there is scope for many added features that can help store owners in managing orders. Some of these added functionalities help you in ways that you may have not even thought about before.
How plugins impact your store
As your store scales up in size, extensions or plugins are the way to go to meet challenges in WooCommerce. As in the case of other functionalities, plugins can help you in order management as well. Let’s take a brief look at some of the areas where plugins can have a considerable impact.
Decrease glitches
Any issues that prevent the smooth fulfillment of orders may lead to long-lasting negative impacts on your store’s reputation. When balancing a huge inventory and huge order numbers, it’s natural for issues to creep up. However, the trick lies in identifying them early and rectifying them. Checklists, notes, and reminders can all help you to manage orders without glitches.
Increase efficiency
The efficiency of your store is a key decisive feature in sales conversion and customer retention. You have to make sure that the speed of the store doesn’t suffer in proportion to the volume of your inventory. Seamless integration with payment gateways and prompt refunds can contribute to efficient management.
Focus on customer delight
Customer experience is paramount in any business and it is particularly true for online stores. You have to be always one step ahead to keep your customers happy. Precise and prompt order fulfillment is an absolute must. You have to maintain it consistently to build your store’s reputation as well. The WooCommerce marketplace has abundant options to help you in these aspects with regards to order management.
Increase sales
When you receive an order, a promotional scope also comes along with it. You can use notes to suggest similar products the customer may want to buy. Try to be discrete and to not tick off the customer by overselling.
How do plugins help in order management?
When chosen rightly, plugins can make your life a lot easier as an online store owner. Let’s look into some of the areas in order management where plugins can help.
Order export and import
There are quite a few efficient plugins in the WooCommerce marketplace that will help you with order export and import. Many of them allow to export and import order data in multiple formats (CSV, XML, XLS, JSON, etc.). In addition, there are extensions that integrate the exported data to suit your shipping service provider as well.
Examples:
Editing multiple orders
You can find plugins that help you to edit and save up to three orders inline simultaneously. This can help you very well to speed up your order management process.
Examples:
Creating custom order status
The possibility of creating custom statuses for your orders makes the order management section quite smooth. There are plugins that help display descriptions on the order-view page to explain order status. This enables the customers to be aware of their orders at all stages of the process. Consequentially, it helps a lot in improving customer satisfaction on your store as well.
Examples:
- YITH WooCommerce Custom Order Status
- WooCommerce Order Status Manager
- WooCommerce Order Status & Actions Manager
Creating sequential order number
Sequentially assigning numbers to your orders might make your Orders page look more organized. You can opt for a plugin that does this if you’re looking for a way out of the chaos. These plugins allow adding a prefix or suffix to your order numbers as well. In addition, you can separate free orders by not assigning sequential order numbers to them. Overall, this feature will give store owners better control over orders and their store in general.
Examples:
Before finalizing a plugin, you need to carefully evaluate your store’s requirements, compatibility, and the effect of the plugin on the speed of the site, etc. A carefully-chosen plugin can help a lot in managing the daily needs of your site. Happy Selling!