As an industry expert, I have seen multiple cases where the supply chain starts breaking when a brand reaches 10K+ orders a month, as this is where you need to match SLAs, replenishment timings, customer commitments, and more. Everything can become scattered if you don’t have a robust WMS system in your tech stack.
When you are not ready for this scale, some critical questions start arising in your operations:
- You may have the required SKU available across three locations, but which warehouse should fulfil which order?
- Should you route the order to the warehouse closest to the customer, or transfer it to another warehouse with available stock if the original location cannot fulfil it?
- When you have multiple SKU variants, batches, expiry dates, and thousands of orders every month, which SKU needs your attention first? Which inventory needs replenishment? Which orders need to be prioritised?
To answer all these questions, leading e-commerce brands are switching to WMS and leveraging the benefits of warehouse management systems to bring greater control and visibility to their operations. If you want to match the pace of a growing e-commerce supply chain, we have come up with this blog covering everything you need to know about WMS in supply chain management.
Why WMS is a strategic layer in e-commerce supply chain management
The supply chain is moving faster, leaving very little room for errors or delays. And when turbulence occurs in your warehouse, every step starts slowing down. If your inventory records are inaccurate, your team takes longer to pick orders, or you lack real-time visibility into what is happening inside the warehouse, these issues start rippling across the entire supply chain.
So, WMS in the supply chain gives you a strategic layer within your e-commerce operations to address the challenges that can come between growth and fulfilment. So, here is the exact Importance of warehouse management in supply chain management:
1. Your warehouse moves from manual coordination to system-guided execution
When you have an outdated system or one that cannot support your growth, you often have to manage many warehouse activities manually, which can lead to errors. With a good and advanced WMS, warehouse activities follow defined workflows.
When inventory arrives, your team can receive and scan it, assign it to a storage location, and update its status. When an order is allocated, the warehouse gets a defined picking task. Once the SKU is picked, it can be scanned and verified before packing. The process becomes much easier as your team can simply search the SKU number and get all the required information in one place.
2. You can make smarter inventory allocation decisions
When you have multiple warehouses, the nearest warehouse is not always the right warehouse. You may have 100 units in Delhi and 50 in Bengaluru, while an order comes from Mumbai. Your team needs to consider inventory availability, fulfilment rules, delivery commitments, and warehouse capacity before deciding where to fulfil it.
A WMS in the supply chain working with your OMS and other supply chain systems can support these allocation workflows, which makes the decision easier for your fulfilment team.
3. Your team can pick orders with better accuracy
As order volumes increase, picking can become one of the biggest sources of delays in your warehouse. Your team may spend time walking between locations, searching for SKUs, waiting for replenishment, or checking similar-looking variants.
With a WMS, your picker gets the right location and picking task, while barcode or QR scanning helps verify the SKU and quantity. This makes the process faster and more accurate, as your team does not have to keep checking spreadsheets or asking others where the SKU is stored.
4. Replenishment reaches the picker before the stock runs out
Picking locations can run short even when you have enough inventory available somewhere else in the warehouse. Your picker may reach a bin with 5 units when the order requires 10. Now the picker has to stop, raise a replenishment request, wait for the stock to arrive, and then continue picking.
With a WMS, you can track stock at picking locations and replenish them from reserve locations based on defined thresholds. This helps your team keep the right inventory available at the right picking location and avoid unnecessary delays.
5. WMS helps you control batch- and expiry-led inventory
For expiry-led products, knowing your total inventory is not enough. You need to know which batch is available, where it is stored, when it expires, and whether it is ready to sell. With a WMS, your team can capture batch and expiry information and follow FEFO while picking. This helps you prioritise inventory that is closer to expiry instead of manually checking batches before every order.
6. Packing becomes your final verification checkpoint
A picking error can turn into a return, refund, replacement, or customer complaint once the order reaches the customer. Your team may pick the wrong size, shade, or quantity, and the error can go unnoticed until dispatch.
With a WMS, your team can scan and verify the picked SKU and quantity during packing before the order moves to dispatch. The role of a warehouse management system gives your team one more checkpoint to catch errors before they reach the customer.
7. Returns become a controlled inventory flow
Returned products cannot always go directly back into your sellable inventory. Some products may need inspection, while others may need to be repacked, quarantined, or written off. With a WMS, your team can track the return status and update the inventory based on its condition. This helps you know which returned products are ready to sell and which ones need further action.
8. Every warehouse follows the same operating process
Managing one warehouse is different from managing multiple facilities. One location may follow a different process for receiving, putaway, picking, packing, or returns, making it difficult to maintain consistency across warehouses.
With a warehouse management system in the supply chain, you can standardise these workflows across locations. Your team can follow the same defined process for key warehouse activities, even as you add more facilities.
9. Your warehouse stays connected with the rest of your supply chain
Your warehouse does not operate separately from your website, marketplaces, OMS, ERP, or logistics partners. When these systems are disconnected, your team may have to move information manually between different platforms. So, how does WMS integrate with other supply chain systems?
With a WMS, your warehouse can connect with your OMS, ERP, marketplaces, and other supply chain systems. Orders can flow into the warehouse, while inventory and fulfilment updates can move back to the connected systems. This helps your team work with the same information instead of managing multiple disconnected systems.
So, a WMS in supply chain management can change the way you manage your warehouse, from inventory movement to fulfilment. Here’s a quick look at what changes when you bring an advanced WMS into your operations.
| Parameter | Without WMS | With WMS |
|---|---|---|
| Warehouse Workflows | Warehouse activities depend heavily on manual coordination. | Warehouse activities follow defined and system-guided workflows. |
| Order Fulfilment Decisions | Your team manually decides which warehouse should fulfil an order. | Your team gets better inventory visibility to make smarter fulfilment decisions. |
| Picking Accuracy | Pickers spend time searching for SKUs and checking variants. | Pickers get defined tasks and can scan SKUs for faster and more accurate picking. |
| Picking Location Stockouts | Picking gets interrupted when stock runs out at the picking location. | Replenishment can happen from reserve locations based on defined thresholds. |
| Batch and Expiry Tracking | Teams manually check batches and expiry dates. | Batch and expiry information can support FEFO-based picking. |
| Dispatch Verification | The wrong SKU, size, shade, or quantity can reach dispatch. | Packing becomes a verification checkpoint before dispatch. |
| Returns Management | Returned products can remain stuck without a clear inventory status. | Return status and inventory condition can be tracked systematically. |
| Multi-Warehouse Operations | Different warehouses may follow different operating processes. | Standard workflows can be followed across multiple warehouses. |
| System Integration | Teams manually move information between different systems. | WMS connects warehouse operations with OMS, ERP, marketplaces, and other systems. |
| Operational Visibility | Your team spends more time finding information and coordinating activities. | Your team gets better visibility and control over warehouse operations. |
This is the overall impact a WMS in supply chain management can provide when a brand starts scaling and facing operational challenges. But supply chain management has multiple stages, and each stage needs the right level of control and visibility. So, how does WMS support each stage of supply chain management? Let’s break it down step by step.
How WMS brings control to every stage of the supply chain
For beauty, cosmetics, FMCG, and other expiry-sensitive categories, batch tracking and FIFO/FEFO allocation are particularly important. On the other hand, apparel brands need better pick-path optimisation as they manage multiple SKU variants across shades, sizes, colours, and styles. Each category has different warehouse requirements, and an advanced WMS helps bring better coordination across these processes.
So, supply chain operations can become complex as your business scales, but the right WMS features can make each stage easier to manage. Let’s see how WMS supports each stage of the supply chain.
| Supply Chain Stage | How WMS Improves the Process |
|---|---|
| Receiving | Your team can scan incoming products, verify quantities, capture batch and expiry details, and identify discrepancies during receiving. |
| Quality Checking | Products can be marked as sellable, damaged, quarantined, or pending inspection before they enter available inventory. |
| Putaway and Storage | WMS can help assign the right shelf, bin, zone, or storage location based on product type, movement frequency, and available space. |
| Inventory Control | You can track inventory by SKU, variant, location, batch, expiry date, and status. Cycle counting also helps identify discrepancies without waiting for a full stocktake. |
| Inventory Allocation | When connected with an OMS, WMS can support fulfilment decisions based on inventory availability, warehouse location, capacity, serviceability, and customer commitments. |
| Picking | WMS can generate picklists and support batch, wave, zone, or cluster picking, helping your team reduce unnecessary movement and process more orders. |
| Packing | Your team can verify picked SKUs, manage bundles, and generate invoices and shipping labels while reducing incorrect shipments. |
| Dispatch | WMS can help manage manifests, shipment handover, carrier allocation, and dispatch status through a defined workflow. |
| Last-Mile Handover | Logistics integrations can move shipment details, tracking information, and delivery updates between your warehouse, logistics partners, and sales channels. |
| Returns and Exchanges | Your team can scan, inspect, grade, quarantine, restock, or mark returned products for vendor return without mixing them with sellable inventory. |
| Reporting and Optimisation | Warehouse managers can track inventory accuracy, order ageing, picking productivity, dispatch performance, returns, and warehouse space utilisation. |
So, whether you deal with expiry-sensitive products or non-perishable inventory, a WMS can support different product categories and their specific warehouse requirements. But your warehouse does not operate in isolation. A WMS also connects with other systems, from logistics and marketplaces to ERP and POS, helping information flow smoothly across your operations. Here are the key integrations a WMS can support and how they help keep your supply chain connected.
WMS integration with key supply chain systems
A WMS does not work in isolation. Your warehouse needs to exchange information with the systems managing orders, inventory, sales channels, finance, and logistics. When these systems are connected properly, your team does not have to keep moving information manually from one platform to another. So, here are the integrations supported by WMS:
1. OMS and order management systems
Your OMS manages orders and fulfilment orchestration, while the WMS manages what happens inside the warehouse. This integration helps you track the order information flowing through your OMS, while the WMS keeps track of everything happening inside the warehouse, from picking and packing to dispatch.
2. Website and marketplaces
Your website and marketplaces are where your orders come from, while your WMS manages the inventory and fulfilment happening inside the warehouse. This integration helps you keep track of orders coming from different channels while the WMS updates inventory, fulfilment, and dispatch status in real time.
3. ERP
Your ERP manages procurement, finance, accounting, and other business processes, while your WMS manages physical inventory movement inside the warehouse. This integration helps you connect purchase orders, goods receipts, inventory updates, and other warehouse information with your core business systems.
4. POS and retail systems
Your POS system tracks sales and inventory across physical stores, while your WMS manages stock movement across warehouses. This integration helps you keep track of store inventory, replenishment requirements, and stock transfers while maintaining better visibility across your online and offline operations.
5. TMS, shipping platforms, and carriers
Your WMS manages the order until it is ready for dispatch, while your TMS or logistics partner manages the movement after handover. This integration helps you share shipment details, generate labels, manage manifests, and track delivery updates without entering the same information manually across different systems.
6. 3PL systems
When you work with 3PL partners, your inventory and fulfilment operations happen across facilities that you may not directly control. This integration helps you track stock, inbound receipts, fulfilment, dispatch, and returns handled by your 3PL partners while keeping the information connected with your central warehouse operations.
If you are looking for a WMS that brings together the features, integrations, and workflows covered above, Unicommerce can help. We work with leading e-commerce and D2C brands that rely on us as their operations scale, and our platform continues to evolve with their changing requirements. Here’s what Unicommerce offers to make complex supply chain operations easier to manage.
How Unicommerce helps e-commerce brands manage warehouse and supply chain complexity
Unicommerce’s warehouse management system is built for e-commerce and omnichannel brands managing high order volumes, multiple fulfilment locations, complex SKU mixes, and multiple sales channels. Instead of managing inventory, warehouse execution, fulfilment, logistics, and returns across disconnected systems, Unicommerce brings these workflows together on one platform. Here is how its WMS capabilities map to the challenges growing brands face.
Integration support offered by Unicommerce
| Integration Type | Key Integrations Supported by Unicommerce |
|---|---|
| Marketplaces | Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Meesho, AJIO, JioMart, Nykaa, FirstCry, Noon, Lazada, Shopee, and TikTok Shop. |
| E-commerce Platforms / Carts | Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, and PrestaShop. |
| Quick Commerce | Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, BigBasket, and Flipkart Minutes. |
| Logistics / Shipping | Shipway, Shiprocket, ClickPost, Delhivery, FedEx, Blue Dart, Aramex, Gati, Ecom Express, eKart, NimbusPost, Pickrr, DTDC, SmartShip, and WareIQ. |
| ERP / Accounting | SAP, Oracle, Tally, Busy, and Microsoft Dynamics Navision. |
| POS / Retail | Ginesys and Logic ERP. |
| 3PL / Fulfilment | WareIQ, Eshopbox, Locad, and other fulfilment partners. |
Apart from these, Unicommerce works with multiple e-commerce and D2C brands, managing growing order volumes and increasingly complex warehouse operations.
One example is Marico Limited, which needed to manage D2C orders across multiple warehouses and vendors while improving facility allocation, inventory visibility, fulfilment, returns, and cancellations. With Unicommerce, Marico automated key order and inventory workflows and improved its warehouse operations as its business scaled. As a result, the brand grew from 10 to 1,000 orders per day, improved its order fulfilment rate from 98% to over 99.99%, and reduced dispatch time from 24 hours to 2 hours. The case demonstrates how connected warehouse and fulfilment workflows can help high-volume brands scale without adding the same level of manual operational complexity.
See how Unicommerce’s robust WMS helps e-commerce businesses manage their warehouse operations
To Sum Up
Warehouse management systems have evolved from basic inventory tracking tools into a critical part of modern supply chains. They connect key warehouse processes across receiving, storage, picking, packing, and dispatch while keeping inventory and operational data aligned. For retail and e-commerce brands, a WMS like Unicommerce helps bring greater control and visibility across warehouse operations as the business scales.
The real value of a WMS goes beyond warehouse automation. It helps businesses improve day-to-day efficiency, manage growing order volumes, reduce costly errors, and respond faster to changing customer demands. With Unicommerce, you can connect your warehouse operations with inventory, order management, marketplaces, ERP, POS, and logistics partners. Also, brands can build a more connected and scalable supply chain.
FAQs
1. Why is WMS important in supply chain management?
WMS is important in supply chain management because it helps businesses control inventory, warehouse activities, order fulfilment, and returns from one system. It provides visibility across locations, reduces manual coordination, improves picking and packing accuracy, and helps brands respond faster as order volumes and SKU counts increase.
2. What is WMS in the supply chain?
WMS in the supply chain is software that manages warehouse activities such as receiving, putaway, storage, inventory control, picking, packing, dispatch, replenishment, and returns. It connects warehouse operations with systems such as OMS, ERP, marketplaces, e-commerce platforms, POS, and logistics providers.
3. How does a warehouse management system improve supply chain efficiency?
A warehouse management system improves supply chain efficiency by replacing manual processes with system-guided workflows. It helps teams locate inventory, assign picking tasks, automate replenishment, verify orders, standardise warehouse operations, and track fulfilment performance. This can reduce delays, errors, unnecessary movement, and operational costs.
4. What are the benefits of WMS in supply chain management?
The key benefits of WMS in supply chain management include:
- Centralised inventory visibility
- Faster receiving and putaway
- More accurate picking and packing
- Better warehouse space utilisation
- Automated replenishment
- Improved batch and expiry tracking
- Standardised multi-warehouse workflows
- Better returns management
- Real-time fulfilment visibility
- Integration with other supply chain systems
5. What is the role of a warehouse management system in the supply chain?
The role of a warehouse management system is to coordinate and control the movement of inventory inside the warehouse. It supports activities from receiving and storage to picking, packing, dispatch, and returns. WMS also shares inventory and fulfilment updates with connected order, sales, finance, and logistics systems.
6. How does WMS manage multiple warehouses?
WMS helps manage multiple warehouses by providing centralised visibility into inventory, orders, warehouse capacity, and fulfilment activities across locations. It can support facility allocation, stock transfers, standardised workflows, location-level tracking, and warehouse-wise performance reporting.
7. How does WMS help prevent stockouts and overstocking?
WMS helps reduce stockouts and overstocking by tracking inventory at the SKU, variant, warehouse, bin, batch, and status levels. Teams can monitor fast-moving and slow-moving products, replenish picking locations from reserve stock, identify ageing inventory, and make better procurement and allocation decisions.
8. How can WMS improve picking and fulfilment accuracy?
WMS can improve picking and fulfilment accuracy by assigning defined picking tasks and showing the correct SKU and storage location to warehouse staff. Barcode or handheld scanning can verify products and quantities during picking and packing, helping reduce incorrect shipments, cancellations, returns, and customer complaints.
9. How does WMS integrate with other supply chain systems?
WMS integrates with OMS, ERP, e-commerce platforms, marketplaces, POS systems, transportation management systems, logistics providers, and 3PL platforms. Orders can flow into the warehouse, while inventory, fulfilment, dispatch, shipment, and return updates can move back to connected systems.
10. Why is a warehouse management system important for growing e-commerce brands?
A warehouse management system is important for growing e-commerce brands because it helps manage increasing order volumes, multiple sales channels, complex SKU variants, and several fulfilment locations. It provides better control over inventory and warehouse execution while helping teams scale operations without relying on the same level of manual effort.
Related Read:
- Attain 99.99%+ Fulfilment with Warehouse Management System
- FMCG Industry challenges in India
- Healthcare Industry: Trends, Challenges, Opportunities & Solutions
- What is Warehouse Management System?
- Logistics vs Supply Chain Management
- E-commerce Apparel Industry: Trends, Challenges, Opportunities & Solutions
- Essential WMS Features to Attain Operational Capabilities
- Tips on Implementing Warehouse Management System
- Factors to consider when selecting a Multiple Warehouse Management
- Enhance the Operations of the Warehouse with Order Picking
Uncover Leading Brands Success with Unicommerce! –
- Mamaearth Attained 99.99% Order Fulfillment Rate
- Upscalio Achieved a 99%+ Order Fulfillment Rate with 100%+ Order Growth
- Dhani Healthcare Streamlined Operations Across 166 Facilities
- Urban Company Achieved 8X Growth in Sales Volume
- Plum Goodness Streamlined Inventory Operations with 69% Growth Rate in Sales
- Marico Achieved 100% Growth in Sales
- Bulbul Simplified Selling Across 200+ Vendors
- Chumbak Lifestyle Boost Sales Across 58+ Retail Stores
- TCNS Achieved 9X Growth in Sales
- Hamilton Housewares Attained 96%+ Pick Accuracy Rate