Real Time Order Visibility: Knowing Exactly Where Every Order Stands

Orders become problems when visibility disappears

A modern e-commerce operation does not collapse because of one mistake. It collapses because small gaps in visibility compound into larger failures. When a brand cannot see whether orders are picked, packed, staged, or shipped, every team begins operating on guesses. Research shows that customers expect real time order visibility because they now assume every step of fulfillment should be transparent.

Inside the warehouse, an order can stall for dozens of reasons. A batch might fall behind. A picker might be reassigned. A label might misprint. A carrier might arrive late. None of these issues are fatal on their own. But without real time order visibility, they become invisible until it is too late to correct them.

Many brands come to G10 after experiencing this lack of visibility at another provider. They describe long stretches of silence, unexplained delays, and dashboards that reflected yesterday instead of right now. They want a 3PL that shows its work, not one that hides behind summary reports.

As Maureen Milligan said, "Most of the customers who come to us from another 3PL, their challenges have always been access to their data, order accuracy and efficiency, and basically just meeting the committed requirements. So we've seen a lot of people come disillusioned by their last 3PL, where their orders weren't getting fulfilled in time, their inventory accuracy was not there, and they were not able to satisfy customer orders." Real time order visibility exists to prevent these disappointments.

Order visibility begins with real time tracking of every action

An order's journey does not begin when it ships. It begins when the system receives it, and real time visibility must follow every step in between. That means tracking receiving, putaway, picking, packing, QC, and outbound staging with the same precision that carriers use for shipments.

Bryan Wright outlined what this level of visibility looks like when he said, "Absolutely. We have portals that show you the data. We have history that shows you all of that tracking. It shows the product landed on the dock at 8 o'clock. At 8:10, John picked it up and took it to location XYZ, and at 10 o'clock, we picked two items off of that pellet in the location 1, 2, 3, 4, order, you know, ABC, and at 11 o'clock, we packed it, we put it in this box and put this label number on it, and all the way through the process onto the truck and to the customer." This is what real time order visibility should feel like for a brand.

With this type of transparency, a brand never wonders where an order stalled. The system shows the exact moment work slowed down. It shows who handled the order last. It shows whether the process is ahead or behind pace. Instead of reacting to customer complaints, teams can correct issues before they escalate.

Scanning is the backbone of real time order visibility

No warehouse can deliver real time order visibility unless its people scan everything they touch. Scanning assigns responsibility, timestamps actions, and ensures the system reflects the physical world. Without scanning, visibility breaks instantly.

As Connor Perkins said, "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper. You can lose a lot of money in this industry by you know having people ship stuff wrong, or store it wrong, and now it's lost somewhere. So having a 3PL and WMS that is 100% scan-based is crucial." For real time order visibility to work, this discipline must be non-negotiable.

Connor also highlighted what happens when accuracy and scanning break down. He said, "One of the pain points our clients have experienced with previous 3PLSs is inventory accuracy; maybe their previous 3PL wasn't great at picking the orders accurately. So they were losing money by shipping wrong items or wrong quantities of items." Real time order visibility prevents this by exposing inaccuracies immediately.

Portals let brands watch orders progress in real time

Real time visibility only matters if brands can see it. A 3PL must provide a customer-facing portal where orders update as work happens. Anything less leaves customers waiting for explanations instead of watching progress.

As Maureen said, "We're in the last stages of developing a new portal that will give customers real-time visibility to their on-time order fulfillment, inventory accuracy, and even inventory levels so that they can monitor those things directly in our systems. They'll have visibility to what the statuses of their orders-are they getting processed as they expect?-and things like that." This includes every stage an order passes through.

She continued with, "A lot of the 3PL customer expectations are that order fulfillment is happening extremely timely, that our inventory is accurate, that we're able to execute on their orders very quickly, and get them shipped the same day. So what these real-time portals provide our customers is 100% visibility." Watching orders update moment by moment eliminates uncertainty.

Connor added operational context when he said, "Our clients get best-in-class visibility and transparency. They can see their daily orders, they can see KPIs, and they can see historical transactions. They can look at a daily level or go into the more granular version where they're looking at transactional history on an item." True visibility works at both the big-picture level and the individual-order level.

He also said, "You have easy access to reporting and you can export to Excel, or really any format that you like you know directly from our WMS portal." Order visibility becomes more actionable when customers can work with the data directly.

Order visibility prevents small delays from becoming failures

Most fulfillment crises begin as small, invisible delays. A team gets overloaded. A carrier misses a window. A pick line slows down. Without visibility, these issues compound quietly until they break deadlines. Real time order visibility exposes them early.

As Maureen said, "We will take in your inbounds, we will get them received and reported back to you within our SLAs, and oftentimes more quickly than what we contracted for. We will ship your orders out the day they're required. And our inventory accuracy is generally right there at that 99.7% that we agreed." You cannot hit numbers like these without precise, real time order tracking.

With real time visibility, operations leaders can adjust labor, flag issues, and re-route priorities before the customer ever feels the impact. Visibility prevents surprises.

Trust grows when order visibility is real and continuous

Brands do not lose trust because of a single error. They lose trust because they were kept in the dark. When a 3PL provides real time visibility, that darkness disappears. Brands see every movement, every update, every delay, and every resolution. They gain confidence because they can verify the truth.

As Maureen said, "For customers who have come to us from a bad 3PL relationship, they experience relief. They're suddenly seeing their business scaling, that the data supports what we agreed to, and then the trust begins to build." Real time order visibility makes that relief possible.

Real time order visibility is no longer optional

Fast-moving brands need more than daily summaries. They need accurate, moment-to-moment updates that show exactly what is happening to every order. They need visibility that keeps pace with their growth, not visibility that lags behind it.

As Connor said, "This is one of our strengths. G10 is on the cutting edge for this kind of transparency and feedback for clients." Real time order visibility has become a baseline expectation for any 3PL that wants to support high-growth brands.

If you want fulfillment that communicates clearly, operates transparently, and keeps every order visible from creation to shipment, real time order visibility is the foundation. It is how modern brands stay confident in their operations and deliver the experience customers now expect.