The difference between scaling smoothly and drowning in operational chaos lies in how efficiently you manage Amazon orders. Missed shipments, inventory mismanagement, and rising returns can decrease your profits—and worse, it can erode customers’ trust.
When customers receive incorrect or delayed orders, they are quick to leave negative reviews and take their business elsewhere.
On top of that, increasing operational costs to manage returns and refunds can eat into your margins.
So, how do successful sellers keep things running seamlessly?
The answer lies in a smart, data-driven order management strategy—one that minimizes errors, optimizes fulfillment, and ensures customer satisfaction.
In this blog post, we are discussing everything you need to know to manage orders on Amazon Seller Central, including:
— Types of purchase orders
— How to create purchase orders on Amazon
— Tips to better manage your purchase orders on Amazon
— Top tools to help you streamline Amazon order fulfillment process
Let’s get started.
Types of Purchase Orders
Understanding the types of purchase orders (POs) helps you optimize your Amazon order management system and reduce procurement errors while building strategies to manage orders on Amazon efficiently.
Here are 3 types of purchase orders:
1. Standard purchase order: A standard PO is used for one-time purchases of products and services. It includes specific details like the amount, quantity, cost, schedule, and conditions for the individual transaction.
For Amazon sellers, this type of order is useful when placing a trial order with a new supplier or when ordering seasonal or limited-run products.
2. Blanket purchase order: Blanket PO is used for repeated purchases for a certain period, like a year, or for ongoing supplies. It helps sellers lock in pricing and terms with their suppliers for repeated orders.
This type of PO is helpful for Amazon sellers when they want to reduce lead times or are doing seasonal stock planning.
3. Contract purchase order: A contract purchase order represents a lasting relationship between the vendor and the supplier. It contains comprehensive details about the quantity, payment terms, supply stipulations, etc., and is suitable for business partnerships that need adaptability in terms of delivery schedule and quantity.
This type of PO is suitable for Amazon sellers when they want private label or exclusive products without immediate bulk purchases.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Purchase Orders on Amazon
Creating a purchase order involves careful planning and attention to detail. While it may seem complex at first, breaking it down into clear steps can simplify the process and help ensure accuracy
Here’s how you can create a purchase order on Amazon:
1. Recognize your needs
Figuring out what products your business needs is the first step in creating a purchase order. Check your current inventory and demand for the products to place orders accordingly. This insight helps you order products that are in demand.
Failing to recognize product demand can lead to overstocking and wasted resources.
Use your sales history to understand how fast products are selling and time your purchases based on this data.
2. Choose the right suppliers
Now, finding the right supplier is the key to both the quality and efficiency of the purchase. So, consider these factors when choosing the right suppliers:
- Product quality and adherence to industry and Amazon’s standards (e.g., certifications, safety regulations)
- Expected pricing range and payment terms
- Minimum Order Quantity (MQO)
- Their Amazon Fulfilment capabilities, especially if using Amazon FBA
- Return, replacement, and refund policies
- Supplier reviews and reputation in the market
Additionally, check each supplier’s past performance on Amazon, including any negative feedback or issues with order fulfillment. This will give you confidence in their ability to meet your needs.
3. Negotiate the right pricing
Once you’ve identified a supplier, negotiate the price. Negotiate the pricing with the supplier based on your business, discount rates for bulk purchases or long-term partnerships, shipping terms, payment schedules, and other flexibility etc.
Aim for a win-win scenario for both parties instead of fixating on a certain percentage of discount.
4. Draft detailed purchase orders
Once you’ve agreed to terms with the supplier, start preparing your purchase orders. Depending on the type of the purchase order, include the following details in the order:
- Product quantity and SKU details
- Pricing terms and conditions, including any discounts
- Shipment and fulfillment details
- Delivery Schedule and frequency
In Amazon Seller Central, you can input these details through the purchase order section, which allows you to track and manage purchase orders directly from your dashboard.
5. Internal review and approval
After creating the purchase order, vet it thoroughly and send it for the internal review and approval of your management or responsible party.
If you have an internal process to do it, follow the same.
Once the responsible team reviews and approves the order, you can send it to the supplier.
Actionable Tips to Manage Orders on Amazon
Lack of a solid purchase order management process leads to inefficiency and lost sales. It may also be impossible to get insights into what products are driving your sales and the status of your inventory without an efficient management process.
Here are a few tips to help improve purchase order management:
1. Create a streamlined process
A streamlined, repeatable process ensures efficiency.
Here is how you can do it:
— Define roles for each stage of the process (e.g., procurement, logistics, finance).
— Ensure consistency at every step to prevent delays or errors
— Minimize complexities by removing unnecessary steps
This will help you understand who’s handling what and when. It reduces confusion and helps manage purchase orders on Amazon efficiently.
2. Establish better communication
Effective communication is the key to avoiding inefficient orders, wasted resources, and over/understocking. So, communicate needs and changes immediately to the concerned parties, whether they are internal stakeholders or suppliers.
This will allow you to confirm the order quantity, quality, delivery schedule, pricing, etc., with everyone involved and avoid any last-minute surprises, like changes in price or quantity.
3. Use key performance indicators (KPIs)
Establish relevant KPIs to manage your purchase orders for your business or a specific order. It will help you build your own Amazon order management system by providing insights into your most popular products, seasonal products, etc.
These details will help you understand which products you need to order immediately or seasonally and avoid deadstocks and stockouts.
Here are a few KPIs to track:
- Purchase order approval time
- Cost per purchase order
- Supplier lead time
- On-time delivery rate
- Purchase order cycle time
4. Improve your vendor database
Often, businesses like to purchase from suppliers they have previously purchased from. However, it is not wise to rely on a single vendor all the time for supplies.
Hence, maintain a list of the best vendors in the market with their contact details. It will allow you to work with them if your current supplier defaults on the shipment or fails to comply with your requests consistently.
The database can help you find reliable and reputable suppliers fast and avoid delaying your purchases.
5. Use advanced technologies
A great option to streamline and improve your purchase management is to use adequate systems and software to manage it.
There are several tools and Amazon order management systems that can:
- Automate invoicing and fulfillment to reduce human interventions and errors
- Get real-time updates on order status, inventory levels, delivery times, etc.
- Bring consistency in purchase orders and supplier communications
- Automate approval workflows to reduce unnecessary expenses
- Help ensure better quality and process compliance
As these systems are designed to optimize your Amazon order processing, you can also customize them as per your needs.
6. Ensure quality of product at delivery
Always check product quality upon delivery to identify any issues and resolve them quickly with the supplier. This helps you establish your quality assessment process with the supplier and ensure prompt replacement of any low-quality products to prevent future issues.
3 Top Tools to Manage Orders on Amazon Efficiently
In Amazon, order management is more than just shipping your orders to the buyers. It involves the entire Amazon order fulfillment process, starting from the point of sale till the product’s delivery.
This process is vital for three reasons:
- Achieving customer satisfaction
- Ensure operational efficiency
- Retaining your customers
Failing to manage the orders leads to missing any or all of these goals, which is not good for your business.
Here are a few tools to help you manage Amazon order processing better.
1. Extensiv
- Rating: 4.3/5 from 105+ reviews on G2
- Best for brands looking for omnichannel fulfillment technology
- Pricing: Custom
Extensiv helps businesses ensure accurate and timely fulfillment by managing everything from order placement to delivery. It also helps you make data-driven decisions to improve your revenue and brand image.
With Extensive, you can scale your Amazon business confidently without worrying about the Amazon ordering process.
Pros
- Better order management and fulfillment with a single source of truth
- Save up to 10 hours of manual labor and reduce human errors
- Generate actionable insights to reduce inefficiencies
- Process orders 24x7 with automated workflows
Cons
- Platform updates are slow
- More expensive than competitors
2. Zoho
- Rating: 4.3/5 from 95+ reviews on G2
- Best for brands looking for simple order management software
- Pricing: Tiered subscription starting from US $39/month
Zoho’s online order management solution helps manage sales and purchase orders, create shipments, and deliver updates right from the same platform. This unified solution offers you full control over how you manage orders on Amazon and implement management strategies without any complexities. It also allows you to streamline your orders and generate insights to serve customers and other stakeholders better.
With Zoho’s order management software, you can also free your time and use it to grow your orders instead of just focusing on managing the Amazon ordering process.
Pros
- Centralize all your sales channels for better insights and visibility
- Manage your purchase orders efficiently from the platform
- Set up and integrate diverse payment accounts
- Track trends to optimize inventory and sales
Cons
- Lack of sufficient customization options
- Limited integrations for merchants to manage orders on Amazon
3. Unicommerce
- Rating: 4.5/5 from 35+ reviews on G2
- Best for brands that need a centralized platform offering full order visibility
- Pricing: Custom
Unicommere’s order management system helps you manage bulk orders and purchases across different channels. As a centralized platform, it offers you full visibility to manage orders on Amazon better, avoid underselling, and ensure efficient inventory planning.
The platform also helps generate a variety of order insights that can power your Amazon inventory management and fulfillment operations.
Pros
- Centralized dashboard for pending, unverified, and failed orders
- Extensive integration capabilities with diverse online marketplaces
- Logistics partner allocation as per serviceability area, proximity, etc
- Better inventory traceability with advanced returns management features
Cons
- Slow customer service and help
- Lack of enough B2B support
Manage Orders on Amazon Better with SalesDuo
As an Amazon seller, you must manage orders on Amazon efficiently to deliver products on time, keep the customers satisfied, and ensure continued business. Without the right management practices and systems, both order fulfillment and supplier management can get out of hand and become complex.
An effective solution is to use order management software solutions or work with an experienced Amazon account management agency like SalesDuo.
With our proprietary BI software and process, we help you manage both purchases and customer orders seamlessly. Choose SalesDuo: We’ve managed US $3 billion in revenue and helped Fortune 500 businesses scale rapidly.
And if you wish to learn how, contact us for a free 1:1 consultation.
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About the Author
Meet Arjun Narayan, a Business Dynamo with two decades of conquering boardrooms and founding two companies that didn't just survive but thrived. When he's not navigating business strategies and delivery teams, you'll find him immersed in his love for cars and exploring new models, geeking out over tech trends, globe-trotting for new adventures, and occasionally pondering the mysteries of the universe over a good cup of coffee.
