When should I send my inventory so it’s ready for peak?

[Shopify]

With peak quickly approaching we advise all merchants to send their inventory as soon as possible - carrier networks are expecting delays in advance of the peak period so if you need to replenish inventory in advance of BFCM it is important for you to hurry and send your inbound transfers. 

Did you know? If you are a merchant using more than one SFN fulfillment center,  you can benefit from balancing your inventory across multiple fulfillment centers so that your inventory is located closer to your customers and can arrive to your customers faster, and more affordably. 

Whether you are using one or more SFN fulfilment centers, make sure your inbound transfers are compliant -  use these instructions on the help center to make sure your inbound transfers are processed without delays, or additional costs.  You can share these instructions with your suppliers; many suppliers will prepare your inventory so that it is compliant to the standards required by SFN and so that your inbound transfer can be shipped directly from your supplier to the SFN fulfillment center.

It is really important to rebalance your inventory as soon as possible so that it can be properly inbounded and is prepared to fulfill in time for peak.

You can request that your inventory is moved from one SFN fulfillment center to another by following these steps.

Remember to be aware of the inventory you have available and you can also mitigate issues with ‘selling out’ inventory by setting stock out settings and you can also prevent split fulfillments during the inbound transfer process by following the following tips: 

• Create transfers for each individual package. This way the labels and tracking would be accurate to each package and could be received separately as they come in.
• Ship palletized shipments instead of individual shipments. A palletized shipment is more likely to not be separated and can be organized under one tracking. The BOL states how many pieces are in the shipment and provides greater transparency to avoid split shipment issues.

You can also manage how orders are shipped using the fulfillment request feature in the SFN app.

For more information about sending an inbound transfer, transferring products between fulfillment centres, or managing fulfillment requests visit the Shopify Help Center.

[jessica0318]

I'd like to know too, and I don't know how to prepare for this question either!