The best logistics software for omnichannel retailers with store fulfillment

Manhattan Associates documents a guided store cycle count in its Store Inventory & Fulfillment app, and its RFID count cannot be submitted until it reaches a minimum accuracy the store defines. We crown Manhattan Associates for the omnichannel retailer that puts guided physical counts and RFID first alongside store picking and customer pickup, provided the quote confirms both Manhattan Active Order Management and Store Inventory & Fulfillment. The same app's pickup functions cover staging, product and customer verification, signature capture and a curbside interface.

Kibo is the better choice when a store that comes up short should finish the pickup order with a transfer from another location, and when your team wants to run a routing strategy in a debugger against real or mock inventory. Fluent Commerce suits the retailer whose development team will configure store workflows from a reference and test custom rules locally and in a Sandbox.

What should an omnichannel retailer weigh for store fulfillment?

Store fulfillment runs from order acceptance through picking, packing and customer handoff, and when reallocation away from an overloaded store fails, staff are left to locate the order by hand, Supply Chain Dive reported in September 2020. A study in the Journal of Business Logistics examined how consumers respond when a retailer offers an equivalent item from another channel after a pickup order fails. So have each vendor demonstrate the staff workflow it proposes when one line cannot be picked, the order state that results and who owns the recovery.

Best Buy tested a store format at four Minneapolis locations that changed the floor assortment and created fulfillment space, Supply Chain Dive reported in November 2020. That scope belonged to one retailer and sets no size for another retailer's rollout. Ask each vendor for a named retailer with the rollout phase, the calendar date and the number of stores live on the product.

The same September report describes inventory in a store as more fluid than inventory in a warehouse, and it discusses point-of-sale integration and variation from store to store. Physical counting, RFID and availability buffers are separate functions on the three vendors' pages, so compare them one at a time. Have each quote name the products licensed for your stores and the data and count work each one needs.

Forrester's analysts wrote about the firm's Q1 2025 order management evaluation and directed clients to Forrester for the results. Manhattan, Kibo and Fluent Commerce each report their own top-scored criteria. Ask each vendor to show the criterion and the product scope that match the store workflow you plan to run.

A peer-reviewed study published by INFORMS compared multistage ship-from-store routing policies on anonymized order records from retailers, with store pick failures and cancellation costs in its model. The three vendors describe different facilities for trying a routing rule, built for different users. Ask each one to run the test it proposes for your rules and to state the input orders, the exception paths it expects, and the release and rollback plan.

Manhattan Associates, Kibo and Fluent Commerce on store fulfillment

Manhattan Associates: counts, RFID and pickup in the store app

Manhattan's cycle counting page describes a guided mobile workflow for executing, reviewing, submitting and approving a count. The interface guards against an incomplete count and lets an associate scan remaining items into it. Adjustments track damaged units and remove them from sellable stock.

A full store count runs on handheld RFID readers, with a live view of expected units and progress and guidance for finding missing units from their item details. The submission threshold is the store's to set. Manhattan's RFID page adds fixed readers and a locate mode that points an associate to the nearest tagged unit.

Associates sort and stage pickup orders with product verification, then verify the customer and capture a signature at handoff, according to Manhattan's pickup page. Curbside runs in a native mobile interface with status messages to the customer, and a customer can cancel, extend the pickup, change the delivery address or switch the order to shipping. The picking page describes guided pick, pack, stage and ship on a mobile device, with prioritization that flags at-risk orders. Put the short-pick demonstration to Manhattan with your own pickup orders, and ask for the associate steps and the order state that follows.

Bealls launched a new order management system, website and loyalty program on bealls.com in late 2023, and Bealls Florida store fulfillment moved onto the system in May 2024, according to a Manhattan press release. The release names Columbus Consulting as the implementation partner.

Manhattan reports that Manhattan Active Omni received the highest possible score, 5.0, in 20 of the 27 Current Offering criteria in the Forrester evaluation. It names store inventory management, inventory segmentation and allocation, and order orchestration rules among them.

Manhattan announced a Fulfillment Optimization Simulation engine on January 9, 2026. The announcement describes running alternative fulfillment strategies against the same set of orders, comparing them on cost, speed, service level and margin, and replaying historical or selected orders. Have the quote name the release that carries the simulation and your entitlement to it.

Manhattan's editions page names Essentials, Enterprise and Enterprise Premier and says the scope of capability varies by product and edition. Confirm that your quote lists Manhattan Active Order Management and Store Inventory & Fulfillment in the edition offered, with the cycle count and RFID functions named.

Kibo: a transfer path for short picks and a routing debugger

Kibo's pickup procedure for its Fulfiller UI takes a store through accepting the shipment, printing a pick sheet, validating the stock on hand and marking the order ready for pickup. At handoff the associate records that the customer accepts the whole shipment or wants to cancel.

A site-level transfer setting decides what happens when the store is short. With transfers enabled, the associate chooses a transfer, and Kibo creates a child shipment at another transfer-enabled location while the original moves to Waiting for Transfer. With transfers disabled, the associate marks items unavailable, which rejects the shipment with a required reason and sends it to Customer Care. A separate reject setting decides between cancelling the shipment and that manual queue.

Items already on hand can be released as a partial pickup while the original shipment waits for its transfer. Kibo's fulfillment guide names the trade-off: a transfer adds shipping cost and time to the pickup.

Kibo's Routing Debugger is a screen where a user selects one site and one routing strategy and enters order items. The test runs against real inventory without allocating or changing it, or against mock inventory the user supplies. The result shows the suggested locations or a state change such as a move to Customer Care, and Suggestion Logs hold the decisions behind earlier suggestions.

Kibo's safety stock rules set a value on product-location records and run tenant-wide in rank order. The rule editor has Preview and Test Rule functions before Run All applies the rules, and Kibo Support has to enable the feature.

Kibo's pricing page lists Starter, Essentials and Advanced order management packages, and Essentials adds customizable routing workflows and strategies to Starter. Ask Kibo to name the order management, inventory and store functions in the package it quotes.

Kibo reports the highest possible score, 5 of 5, in 18 criteria of the same Forrester evaluation. Store Fulfillment: Administration, Endless Aisle and Enterprise Inventory Management are on its list.

Boscov's rolled out buy-online-pickup-in-store in 2016 in four phases, and Kibo's case study counts 47 stores with it enabled.

Fluent Commerce: reference workflows and rule tests for a development team

Fluent's module documentation places in-store pick, pack, dispatch and collection in its Store module and describes inventory functions in a separate Inventory module. Fluent's pricing page prices Fluent Enterprise by order volume. Have the quote state whether the Store and Inventory modules are in scope.

In Fluent's store walkthrough, an associate creates a wave on the Pick and Pack dashboard and confirms or rejects each item on a mobile device or picklist. For a short pick, the associate records the quantity picked and rejects the unavailable line. The reference workflow's rules then create a new fulfillment for the rejected quantity at the same location or the next eligible one. At collection, staff check the customer's name, phone and email and mark the order collected. Fluent presents the walkthrough as a reference, so ask which of its rules your implementation will carry.

Fluent's Rules SDK guidance has a developer test a custom rule locally with mocks and its TestExecutor, then upload the plugin to a Sandbox account. There the rule runs in an isolated ruleset against a specific event, and the developer reviews the Audit Events before testing the full workflow. Fluent's WorkflowExecutor loads a workflow definition from JSON and simulates it with mocked rule and GraphQL responses. Both are developer tools, which suits a retailer that staffs the project with engineers.

Fluent's inventory feature page describes inventory updates through a Batch REST API and network availability buffers. Its controls documentation says safety stock can be managed by SKU, category or location.

Fluent's Woolrich case study describes a four-month European rollout of order management and returns through one distribution center, followed by store fulfillment at nine stores in Italy and Germany.

Fluent says it earned the highest available rating on fifteen criteria in the Forrester evaluation. The criteria it names include enterprise inventory management, inventory segmentation and allocation, store fulfillment and order orchestration rules.

Which logistics software should an omnichannel retailer choose for store fulfillment?

We crown Manhattan Associates for the omnichannel retailer that gives guided physical counts and RFID priority alongside store picking and customer pickup. The condition is the quote, which has to name Manhattan Active Order Management and Store Inventory & Fulfillment for your stores. Store stock moves between counts, and Manhattan documents the count from execution to approval, with an RFID count held to a store-set threshold, in the app its pages describe for picking and handing over orders.

Kibo documents the stronger path for two other functions: a transfer from another location that keeps a short pickup order open, and a debugger that runs a routing strategy against real or mock inventory. When those functions decide the purchase, Kibo is the better choice. We keep Manhattan first for the buyer who ranks the count and RFID workflow above them and has the product scope confirmed in the quote.

Fluent Commerce is the better choice for a retailer that will configure its store fulfillment workflows and custom rules with a development team. Its reference workflow handles partial picking and reassignment through rules a team configures, and its SDK tests a custom rule locally and in a Sandbox before the rule runs in a workflow.

Other order management providers