Direct-to-Consumer Order Management Chaos? Fix These 5 Bottlenecks

Understanding the challenges in D2C manufacturing order processing

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) manufacturing promises higher margins, tighter customer relationships, and greater control over the brand experience. But as many manufacturers quickly discover, success brings complexity. Order volumes rise, sales channels multiply, and fulfillment expectations accelerate. What once felt manageable suddenly becomes chaotic.

At the heart of many D2C struggles is a common issue: order management bottlenecks. These bottlenecks don’t just slow down operations—they ripple across customer service, fulfillment, finance, and inventory planning. And in most cases, they point to an underlying ERP problem: the lack of a unified order-to-cash process.

Here are the most common D2C order management challenges, along with how Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central can help resolve them.

Why does order processing get slower as your brand gets bigger?

Early on, many D2C manufacturers rely on lightweight tools: an eCommerce platform, a shipping app, spreadsheets, and maybe an aging accounting system. This patchwork works great—until it doesn’t.

As order volumes grow, these disconnected systems create friction:

• Orders must be imported or re-keyed into multiple systems
• Inventory availability isn’t updated in real time
• Pricing, promotions, and taxes vary by channel
• Fulfillment teams lack a single, trusted view of demand

Instead of scaling smoothly, order processing slows down because every order touches multiple systems.

How Business Central can help

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central centralizes order capture, inventory management, pricing, and fulfillment in a single system. Orders from eCommerce platforms, marketplaces, and EDI flow into a single sales order framework. Inventory availability, reservations, and allocations are updated in real time—so growth is managed efficiently without friction.

How to spot the signs your fulfillment process is breaking down

Many D2C manufacturers don’t realize they have an order management problem until customer complaints spike. But the warning signs usually appear much earlier:

• Orders sit in “pending” status longer than expected
• Warehouse teams frequently expedite or override picks
• Partial shipments increase without clear explanations
• Inventory counts don’t match what’s shown online

These symptoms often indicate that fulfillment teams are reacting manually rather than following a predictable, system-driven workflow.

How Business Central can help

Business Central supports structured fulfillment processes, including pick, pack, and ship workflows that align with warehouse reality. Order promising, inventory reservations, and shipment planning help ensure the right products are picked at the right time. Built-in tracking and status visibility make bottlenecks visible before they become customer issues.

Why customer service can’t keep up with order volume

Customer service teams often feel overwhelmed as D2C order volume grows. The most common complaint isn’t “too many customers”; it’s “lack of visibility.”

When order data is spread across systems (for example, ERP, WMS, and CRM), customer service has limited to no visibility into customer orders:

• Customer service can’t quickly answer “Where is my order?”
• Refunds and returns require manual investigation
• Payment, shipment, and inventory data don’t always align
• Simple inquiries turn into multi-system scavenger hunts

This lack of visibility impacts other departments as well, ultimately affecting the entire company.

For example, reserved orders or orders that were supposed to be earmarked for one customer but were accidentally shipped to another can damage customer relationships and the brand’s reputation. 

Likewise, suppliers who consistently deliver late or deliver the wrong supplies have a downstream impact on your ability to plan and keep customer-promised delivery dates. Lack of visibility into the causes of delayed inbound receipts and outbound shipments can lead to poor customer satisfaction and loss of repeat business.

Ultimately, the result is longer response times, frustrated customers, and burned-out staff.

How Business Central can help

Business Central provides a single source of truth for order status, payments, shipments, and returns. Integrated hand scanners and a WMS system tied into order fulfillment help establish controls and guardrails from receipt to shipment. 

Customer service teams can see the full lifecycle of an order—from placement to delivery—without switching systems. This dramatically reduces handling time per inquiry and allows teams to scale without adding headcount.

Moreover, management now has visibility into the entire supply chain and order-delivery process, enabling early identification of potential problems and implementation of proactive solutions.

What happens when your sales channels outgrow your workflow?

D2C manufacturers rarely sell through just one channel. Over time, they expand into:

• Branded eCommerce sites
• Online marketplaces
• Wholesale or B2B portals
• Pop-up retail or subscription models

Each channel introduces new rules for pricing, fulfillment, taxes, and returns. Without a flexible ERP, workflows become a problem. Teams create channel-specific workarounds that are difficult to maintain and impossible to standardize into a single workflow.

How Business Central can help

Business Central supports multi-channel sales through flexible pricing, discounting, customer groups, and fulfillment logic. It integrates with leading eCommerce platforms and the broader Microsoft ecosystem, enabling manufacturers to adapt workflows without rebuilding their ERP. The result is that new channels can be added without breaking existing processes.

The underlying problem: No unified order-to-cash process

When order management breaks down, the root cause is rarely the warehouse or the eCommerce platform alone. More often, it’s an ERP that was never designed to support modern, high-volume, multi-channel D2C operations.

A fragmented order-to-cash process leads to:

• Manual reconciliations between orders, shipments, and invoices
• Delayed revenue recognition and cash application
• Poor visibility into profitability by channel or customer
• Increased operational risk as volume grows

How Business Central can help

Business Central unifies the entire order-to-cash process for manufacturers—order entry, fulfillment, invoicing, payments, and financial posting—all within a single system. This eliminates handoffs, reduces errors, and provides real-time financial insight into D2C performance. Finance teams gain confidence that operational growth is accurately reflected in the books.

Turning order management into a competitive advantage

Order management for D2C manufacturers is no longer a back-office concern; it’s a core part of the customer experience. Fast, accurate, and transparent fulfillment directly impacts brand loyalty and lifetime value.

By implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, manufacturers can:

• Scale order processing without adding complexity
• Improve fulfillment accuracy and speed
• Empower customer service with real-time visibility
• Support multiple sales channels with confidence
• Establish a resilient, unified order-to-cash foundation

Instead of fighting bottlenecks, D2C manufacturers can turn order management into a strategic advantage, one that supports growth, profitability, and exceptional customer experiences.

Contact ArcherPoint by Cherry Bekaert to learn more about how Business Central can increase customer satisfaction by helping you manage orders more effectively.

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