Products fulfilled by a 3rd Party (who is not currently directly integrated with Shopify)

[DanteVit]

We are looking to sell products which will be fulfilled by a 3rd party. This 3rd party is not one of those big established POD (print on demand) service companies, but instead another small business that also uses Shopify for their store. 

Is there a way to easily send notifications/orders for only certain products to this other shopify store, allow them to fulfill it, and enable them to send the fulfillment data (status, tracking, etc.) back to our store? 

Again, this other 3rd party will only fulfill a small number of our stores total catalogue. These items may be purchased alongside our other items. Is there a way to automatically pay this other store as well? 

[Skye · Accepted solution]

Hi, @DanteVit.

Greetings, and thanks for posting! I hope your day is going well.

That is completely fine if you are fulfilling through a private, small company. To set this up you will want to use Custom Order Fulfillment. This allows the fulfillment company to receive emails whenever they need to fulfill an order.

To set this up, you will simply need to:

1. Head to Settings > Shipping and delivery.
2. In the Custom order fulfillment section, click Add fulfillment service.
3. In the form, enter:
   • the title of your custom fulfillment provider
   • the email address of your custom fulfillment provider.

Once this is complete, you will then need to set your products inventory and fulfillment service. 

1. From your store's Products page, select the product to be fulfilled by the custom service.
2. In the Inventory section, select the fulfillment service that you want to use from the Inventory will be stocked at drop-down menu.
3. Click Save to save your changes.

Then, you are all set! When you receive an order that is fulfilled by the other business, they will receive an alert via email once you select to fulfill the order. 

In the meantime, I would love to learn more about your business! What type of products are you selling? Do you have a marketing strategy? 

[DanteVit]

Thanks @Skye - Sounds easy enough to me. Followup question would be how we would get *back* fulfillment data like tracking numbers or status from the provider. Once the fulfillment provider receives the order, would that be the end of our Shopify internal communication as it relates to that order? This other business is also using Shopify. It would be most ideal from a customer service perspective if we had some type of confirmation, status update on our side once the order is received by the provider and processed. 

All the research I have done so far has lead me to the conclusion that we must develop a custom app to create this functionality, but I feel like many other Shopify stores have to have encountered this challenge before so I wonder how they are addressing this kind of fulfillment challenge. 

[Skye]

Hi, @DanteVit.

That's a great question! You are correct in you would need to develop some sort of communication between yourselves and the fulfillment business once the order has been completed. Are you currently in contact with the business? You will want to ensure this store is on board as well.

When it comes to building a custom app, there are already some great options that could suite your needs. For example, Leap Multi Store Sync allows for real time inventory sync between stores, order forwarding, product sync, and more.

Additionally, another app is Syncio, which provides the same options above but at a higher price. That being said, don't always compare the price. Take a look at the features, read the reviews, and test out the app during the trial periods to come to your own conclusion on what would work best! 

Keep in mind, if you decide to go with the apps above both stores will need to install the app in question.