How can I manage inventory and fulfillment with Markets?

[jtsuki]

Hi,

On the page for this topic,

Shopify Help Center>  Topics >  Shopify Markets > Inventory and fulfillment with Markets

It shows this:

Early access

This feature is available only to selected merchants upon request.

Is there any way to request for this? Who is this feature available for?

I currently am trying to ship out of Singapore and Malaysia for domestic shipping, so two locations, but the inventory is always combined. even if one is at 0, it will still sell as the total inventory is not at 0. however, i can't ship it because its in another country. I currently am having no shipping options but allowing local delivery which only allows for delivery from each location with their correct inventories within specific locations/postcodes, but am hoping there is a better way because I cant adjust the delivery fee by weight but only by price.

Thank you.

[DesmondNg]

Hi Jtsuki,

Markets is already available, either if your store is based on Singapore / Malaysia. Just make sure you have the main one (along with the shipping information set-up). Then, add the other country into markets.

It's not supposed to be local delivery if the above are done correctly. And Shipping by price / weight is up to you, it's set in the shipping rate section.

[jtsuki]

Hi, thanks for replying.

I’m already using markets, but the order pulls from both inventories even if one location is out of stock. This applies whenever I use normal shipping options.
So if it’s 0 in Singapore but 10 in Malaysia, it shows in stock and will sell it to a Singapore based buyer. But I can’t fulfill this order from Malaysia.

[DesmondNg]

H Jtsuki,

Sorry for the late reply. That is weird, because if the markets, shipping profile and inventory is set up correctly, That shouldn't be the case. If SG already has 0 stock, it most likely cannot go through the shipping stage. 

Do you want me to have a look?

[matiasricci]

Same problem here. Quick example:

Location A fulfills US & Canada (Market A) only > product X is in stock in that location
Location B fulfills European countries (Market B) only > product X is out of stock in that location
A customer from a European country will see the product X in stock, and will even be allowed to complete checkout, ignoring that there's no stock in that location.

This is leading us to oversell. Shopify seems to be aware of this problem because they've launched this feature > https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/markets/inventory_and_fulfillment. But it's only for selected merchants and we're not one of them.

Has anyone experienced the same issue? Any workarounds or ideas? Thank you all very much.

PS: I've spoken to Shopify Plus Support. They weren't able to help.

[DesmondNg]

Hi @matiasricci ,

Would you be interested to jump on a call with me and let me try to figure out a workaround or ideas. I got the gist of the problem, but I would love to just have a look at your store in the call before providing ideas.

[Bernd3]

We are having the same problem. We have two warehouses, one in Germany and one in Switzerland. We have these warehouses exactly for the reason that we can not ship cross borders due to tax and duty problems. I think this is a common problem for resellers in this region or shipping cross borders in general. Should not be that difficult to implement. 

A solution for this would be much appreciated.

[Bernd3]

We are having the same problem. We have two warehouses, one in Germany and one in Switzerland. We have these warehouses exactly for the reason that we can not ship cross borders due to tax and duty problems. I think this is a common problem for resellers in this region or shipping cross borders in general. Should not be that difficult to implement. 

A solution for this would be much appreciated.

[Rosaa]

Has shopify found a solution for this already? We have the same problem and even when there is stock in location A and B an order from location B (with only shipping options to location B) will automatically go to location A fulfilment centre through the API plugin

[Hussein7]

Is anyone from Shopify monitoring this forum? Is this something in the pipeline? Is there a wish list where requested feature demand is being monitored? We are also suffering from this.  

according to this link, it says " This feature isn't available to add to stores. Stores that added this feature before December 2022 can continue to use it" which seems to imply it use to be an available feature and it has now been removed?

[Shay]

Hi @Hussein7 

Thank you for bringing this thread to my attention. I understand that some of you are experiencing issues where order fulfillment is split across multiple fulfillment locations, even when that should not be the case based on your shipping profiles.

To confirm, the fulfillment locations (shipping origins) that are being accessed are not available to those customers based on your shipping profiles. As seen in my screenshot below, customers located in the USA and Africa can have orders fulfilled from all listed shipping origins. 

As each store setup is unique, and there could be a lot of other pieces in play (apps, custom APIs, flows, etc), I do recommend that you reach out to our authenticated support channels to report these instances. If these settings are not working as expected, then we want to investigate that further. 

[Hussein7]

Hi Shay, thank you for replying. However, what you shared is regarding fulfillment routing but that is not really what we are looking for. The issue we are trying to articulate is exactly as outlined in this Shopify support article: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/markets/inventory_and_fulfillment

Specifically :"If a customer sets their country to the United States, Canada, or Mexico on your website, the product is displayed as available for purchase. If a customer sets their country to Spain, the same product is displayed as out of stock. This prevents overselling in the Spain location until it has available inventory to serve those countries or regions again." 

If a product is not available in the fulfillment warehouse (location we set in Shopify) for a particular country it shows to the customer as "out of stock". We cannot fulfil international orders, so we do not want customers to purchase items if they are not in-stock in their country/market (even if we have stock in other markets/countries). What you have shared does not seem to address that, and is only about routing orders after the fact- but as several of us has stated, we cannot ship internationally. 

[Shay]

Thank you for following up with me on this. I did some additional digging to ensure that I fully understand the current flow available to merchants, and the changes you are asking for. 

In the example you linked to, that is referring specifically to merchants who had the option to enable this functionality (Inventory and Fulfillment in MARKETS) as a beta when it first rolled out. If you did enable this feature when it was available then you can continue using it for now. It is not available to re-enable, or enable on stores that aren't using it currently.

This means that the standard experience is that the storefront shows inventory based on availability across all warehouses, which could lead to customers being able to checkout with inventory not available to them at this time. Our team is aware of this limitation and how it can affect some merchants and their customer experience. We are continuing to work on this and improve the tooling we have available. 

Ensuring that you have the correct shipping profiles setup though will help stop customers from being able to checkout with inventory not available to them at this time, which is where setting up shipping profiles comes into play. 

If I am missing anything, or off the mark, please let me know! Shipping and fulfillment for international orders can be a tricky subject and I am happy to continue looking into this if I can. 

[Hussein7]

Yes I think you got it now, re:

---

@Shay wrote:

Our team is aware of this limitation and how it can affect some merchants and their customer experience. We are continuing to work on this and improve the tooling we have available. 

So how can we track the progress of this work/feature request. It is very important to many of us, is there a way you can gauge input and prioritize this according to demand AND is there a way to know if this is something being actively worked on?

---

@Shay wrote:

Ensuring that you have the correct shipping profiles setup though will help stop customers from being able to checkout with inventory not available to them at this time, which is where setting up shipping profiles comes into play. 

 I am not following how the shipping routes apply to out of stock items. It seems from what you have shared, shipping routes are global rules and not impacted by stock availbility in any given location. It tells Shopify to fulfill all orders from a certain location (or high level criteria) from a certain location. But how would that help blocking them from checking out if a certain item is out of stock in their market/country? Lets use the example from the support article. If we had an item Y that we sell in all three markets (USA, Canada, Spain). The US location has 100 pieces, Canada has 50 pieces, but Spain currently has 0 pieces.  We also have item X which does have stock in all three countries. If a customer sets their location to Spain, and they add both item X and item Y to their cart, what would the routing rules do in this case to address the issue being raised? 1- How do we set up the routing rules to address this (as I see no place to address this scenario in what you have shared) 2- What does the customer then see/experience at the time of check out?

[Shay]

@Hussein7 

You asked:  I am not following how the shipping routes apply to out of stock items. It seems from what you have shared, shipping routes are global rules and not impacted by stock availbility in any given location. 

Shipping profiles setup to limit warehouse availability based on customer shipping address can help eliminate orders where a customer has accessed inventory unavailable to them. Using the example I shared earlier (see screenshot below) we can see that both shipping zones have access to 6 different shipping origins (warehouses). But we can split those apart and set limitations on what shipping address each warehouse can fulfill an order to. 

Using the example from the Help Center with product X and Y -

Item Y is available in all three markets (USA, Canada, Spain).

• The US location has 100 pieces
• Canada has 50 pieces
• Spain has 0 pieces 

We also have item X

• The US location has 100 pieces
• Canada has 50 pieces
• Spain has 50 pieces 

If a customer manages to add both item X and Y to their cart and then chooses Spain as their shipping destination, what happens and what does the customer experience?

• When a customer changes their country or a product becomes unavailable during checkout, these unavailable items are removed from the cart. An error message appears, preventing them from proceeding until the item is removed or available again.

These expectations would be setup by your shipping profiles and what warehouses can fulfill which orders. You can read more about setting this up here: Combining shipping rates from different shipping profiles at checkout. 

[Bernd3]

Hi Shay,

Thanks for your reply. I am following this conversation for quite a while, and I am very happy about your attention!
Let me explain the issue from the real-life perspective of us merchants:
I see the sales to different markets directly connected with the fact of having various warehouses. Most companies maintain multiple warehouses in other countries BECAUSE they sell to multiple markets. Each additional warehouse has its additional costs and inflates the tied-up capital in inventory. So, the reason to have multiple warehouses is the advantage of dedicating each warehouse to a specific market to avoid excessive shipping costs, but first and foremost, avoiding problems with customs and taxes. Customs and taxes are by far the primary reasons why we do NOT have the flexibility to ship a product from another warehouse if the products in the first warehouse are exhausted. If customs and tax issues would not exist when sending from one country to another, we would be happy to have only one warehouse!
That said, I think the logic of multi-market selling also calls for the ability to restrict the usability of a warehouse to specific markets.
I am sure many merchants are missing this functionality in Shopify and will decide against using Shopify.

If you had a beta version with this functionality, why did you not continue with it and make it available for all customers? It would increase the value of your service a lot!

Thanks for giving it a push!

Best regards

[Shay]

Hi @Bernd3 

You noted: So, the reason to have multiple warehouses is the advantage of dedicating each warehouse to a specific market to avoid excessive shipping costs, but first and foremost, avoiding problems with customs and taxes.

Which is absolutely valid! And setting up your shipping profiles so that specific warehouses can only fulfill orders to specific areas in the world is the best way to do this. Please see my reply to @Hussein7 above for more information on how to do that. 

You also asked: If you had a beta version with this functionality, why did you not continue with it and make it available for all customers? It would increase the value of your service a lot!

Upon further review of how this beta experience integrated with the platform and merchant demands, our developers found it wasn't quite what was needed. It is still in development though and I imagine we will release a different tool to address this in the near future. Updates on changes like this can be found on our Shopify Changelog.  

Please let me know if I missed anything or if you need more information on any of these topics. I am happy to help if I can!

[Bernd3]

Hi Shay,

Many Thanks for your reply.

Shipping zones:

I understand your workaround using the shipping setup. I think it is not a good solution because it will confuse and frustrate customers. First it seems that the product is available and at checkout the product will be removed automatically from the cart. It would be much better to be informed already on the product page. We would allow customer pre-ordering, giving them a specific shipping date in the future (e.g. Shipping on September 3rd). 

2. This setup does not work in my case:

We have set up shipping that way that the Swiss warehouse only has the shipping zone Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The same way, our German warehouse does not have a shipping zone for Switzerland and Liechtenstein. This should inhibit the shipping from the German warehouse to a Swiss destination. However, the product which is out of stock in the Swiss warehouse is not removed during checkout and the customer can order the product with a Swiss shipping rate! 

Can you help me with this? Thanks

[Shay]

Hi @Bernd3 

Thank you for the screenshot and the details about your current setup.

For the solution provided using shipping profiles to limit customer checkout, I absolutely understand that the customer experience could be improved. Our developers are working incorporating this functionality in a way that gives merchants more control and customers more understanding about their order. 

For your second concern regarding orders still allowing checkout even with the correct shipping rates applied, I recommend connecting with our authenticated support team so that we can get our shipping and fulfillment team to review your setup and order history. Each business is unique and I don't have access to all the information I would need to properly troubleshoot this. Directing this concern to our shipping team will be the best course of action. 

 To access our authenticated support, please follow this link: Shopify Help Center. 

[Lorenz22]

Has this problem been solved? We're facing the same issue and have two warehouse. warehouse X only serves market x, while warehouse y only serves market y. We cannot ship from one warehouse to the other market. 

[Bernd3]

This newly released feature seems to be doing exactly this.

Is it really true that this is only available for Shopify Plus?

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/shipping/setting-up-and-managing-your-shipping/fulfillable-invent...

 

[Shay]

Hi @Bernd3 

Thank you for the link and screenshot. Yes, this feature was announced along with many others in our Shopify Editions Winter 2024 announcement. This can be found here: Shopify Editions | Winter ’24. 

At this time this feature is only available to merchants on the Shopify PLUS plan. I will be happy to continue providing feedback to our developers that this is a highly requested feature for merchants on our standard plans as well. 

[Stev0]

Its great that you have created a solution, however this really isnt great from someone getting started with shopify or any small business to be honest, especially considering you really are fixing a gap in the current platform and improving the user experience. I feel like someone has decided if a company has multiple locations / distribution centers then they are an enterprise customer, which Im pretty sure isnt the case, especially with how easy it is to spin up multiple 3PL's these days.

I am looking to launch a business as I have an audience of users through US, UK, Aust, South Africa and Canada, we make no money as of now and really just need to test the waters the margin we would need to make jsut to breakeven because of those fee's is nuts. To have to spend $27k USD just to get this capability, compared to $1200 is absurd and will force me to look at other solutions, e.g. woocomerce has a module for $60 that will perform the same funciton.

[joeybab3]

Hi Shay, can you confirm that the feature is currently available to Shopify plus members? We are on a plus plan and do not have access to this feature unless I am mistaken.

[matbu87]

Hallo Bernd

Hier ein weiterer Schweizer, der in die EU verkaufen will (schon macht, aber mit einem 2. Store) und das Feature eigentlich benötigt.

Hast du zwischenzeitlich eine Lösung gefunden oder ist das wirklich wieder mal nur für Shopify Plus Users limitiert?

Momentan führen wir wegen dem Problem 2 Shopify Stores: 1x für CH, 1x für EU.. aber das bedeutet auch, alles doppelte Arbeit.. 

Hoffe, dass es zwischenzeitlich eine Lösung gibt.