Fulfilling to multiple warehouses

[Abigail81]

Hello there

I'm hoping someone might have some help and advice for me.

I manage a Shopify website and orders are fulfilled by our warehouse/distribution partner in the UK. (Warehouse A)

We are lining up a warehouse partner in the EU (let's call warehouse B) so wanted to know the best solution that orders can be fulfilled according to location. 

1. So a person based in the UK places an order for a UK address- we want that order to sync with Warehouse A for fulfilment.
2. A person in the EU places an order for an EU address - we want that order to sync with Warehouse B for them to fulfil

Is there a way that we can automate that from one single Shopify website, or would it require a separate site?

Thanks!

[Jesse-James]

Hi!

I think you're talking about order delegation (and you are not alone!)..

It would be nice if Shopify actually had more options then simply preferencing 1 location over another I feel..

Though, if your front-end shipping options/rates are relatively simple (ie: flat rate) and just looking to (on the back-end) split or move the item(s) in an order from warehouse a to b based on closest recipient country when the item(s) are stocked at both, then let me know and we can add an automated task to our SplitOrder app https://apps.shopify.com/splitorder to accomplish just that.

Thanks

[Abigail81]

Hi there
That does sound like a good solution…. Can you give me a bit more detail, please?

[Abigail81]

That does sound like a good solution.... could you give me more details, please? 

[Jesse-James]

Sure,

I think there are (2) options..

On the front-end, you could:

 - In your shipping profile, have 2 different zones; 1 for the EU and 1 for the UK 

 - For each zone, under the Shipping from section, only select the corresponding warehouse location rates (see above)

 - That way, when an EU customer checks out, they will only be presented with the EU warehouse shipping options, thus assigning the items to that location for fulfillment

Of course, you would have to have all items listed online stocked at both for this to work, as otherwise, certain checkouts just wouldn't show any shipping options if the item(s) aren't available in the corresponding warehouse location

On the back-end, it would be just as simple as automatically re-routing any items to the closest available warehouse for fulfillment - which is a new Task we are adding to our app SplitOrder  Of course, the only caveat is that the Shopify checkout wouldn't pre-delegate closest ship from location, so this solution would work best if you have variable inventory at each, and offer free, simple or flat rate shipping options. 

Anyway, hope one of those solutions helps, and if the later does sound interesting, I can post some more info on when that would be available, thanks

[Tira]

Hey, @Abigail81. 

Tira here to help. Thank you for these details, this is helpful and thank you @Jesse-James for chiming in with your insight, which was also very helpful! 

It sounds like you want to make sure that you can delegate your order fulfillment by the location of which it was ordered from. Is that correct?

I believe @Jesse-James's solution should work for you. Here are some help docs that include the steps to set-up free shipping or flat rates for your store. Free shipping rates would allow you to show free shipping at checkout and the flat rates would show a specific shipping rate at checkout. You can also edit and fulfill the order based on the location of the inventory. Our help doc has the steps to create an set-up shipping zones. 

Have you set-up shipping profiles before? Shipping profiles help you charge accurate rates through product-based shipping rules. By default, when you create a new shipping profile, all your locations that can fulfill orders online are added to the profile in the same group. Any locations that can fulfill online orders become possible fulfillment locations for the products in your profile and all share the same rates and zones. Locations that don’t fulfill online orders do not appear in your shipping profiles.

You can learn more about shipping profiles from our help docs here: Shipping profiles & Manage your locations.

Another option to consider would be to create a separate store like you have suggested earlier but this may be more time consuming on your end. 

I would love to know if this helps!

[Jesse-James]

Thanks @Tira ,

I have a quick Question, you said: 

"Shopify is set-up to pull inventory for the closest warehouse."

Is this true???  As, in the admin > settings > locations screen, it appears that all you can do is have a preference order for 1 location to fulfill over another.  Though, I think many people would like to know if there is an upcoming update to allow items to be delegated to the closest warehouse vs the first warehouse on the list.

I ask, as, we created a new App, called SplitOrder , to start to fill the gap in order delegation on the back-end - whereas items being split and/or relocated for fulfillment is so often needed.   On the other hand, the selected ship-from location for the items affects checkout (ie: the corresponding shipping rates) - whereas right now there isn't a way to interact with checkout (even with Shopify+ checkout scripts!) - or is there?!

Anyway, would love to know your thoughts on this, thanks

Jesse

[Tira]

Hey, Jesse. 

Thanks for following up. I dug into this a bit further and you’re correct, when Locations are set-up in the Shopify admin where you have described, if an order comes through and the customer selects shipping, shipping will be redirected to the prioritized address from the Locations page. I apologize for incorrectly stating this before and have amended my previous post. 

What I can do is send this as a suggestion to our developers so that they are aware that this would be helpful for our merchants to succeed in their business. If we move forward with prioritizing the nearest location for fulfilling orders, we will post an update in our changelog or announcements page.

We’re open to all feedback should you have anything else to add and I can send any further feedback to our developers to look into for you.

Cheers,

[Jesse-James]

Thanks @Tira for that clarification.

Just figure id put this one out there - well, (if anyone's listening, ha) - and is interested in automatically relocating [or splitting] fulfillment for eligible orders based on a closer location - please press the like button below.  Once we hit 10, well add it it to SplitOrder !