Changing fulfillment location via API

[petjunkie]

Hello,

I'm trying to change the fulfillment location of some orders via the API and running into some issues. Based on other threads, I'm not entirely sure if this is possible or what the best way to do it would be.

Here is the scenario:

• Some of our products use a 3PL. This company has its own app, and inventory is managed by this app, not Shopify. For these products, we used to have to go in and hit "Request Fulfillment." I've built a private app to monitor orders and automatically request fulfillment from our 3PL through the API. This works as expected.
• Other products are fulfilled by us and inventory managed by Shopify. We'll call this location "Home."
• There is a 3rd scenario where someone orders a 3PL product, but it's shipping to our home state or a neighboring state. In this case, it's usually cheaper for us to fulfill ourselves. Because inventory is managed by the 3PL app, we cannot hit the dropdown arrow and change the fulfillment location on these orders. I must change how inventory is managed on the SKU, edit the order to remove the SKUs, re-add the same SKUs, then change the inventory management on the product back to the 3PL. Now I can fulfill the order myself without requesting fulfillment from the 3PL.

This 3rd scenario is what I'm trying to automate. So far I tried creating a fulfillment request on these orders but using our "Home" location ID instead of the 3PL location ID. This resulted in an error from the API saying there's no inventory available at the specified location. I believe this is because inventory is managed by the 3PL app, so "Home" has 0 available.

Does anyone know of a way to accomplish this? My next thought is to re-create all of the manual steps that I outlined in the 3rd bullet point above but using the API. While this may be possible it seems overcomplicated and also opens up the possibility of another order coming through at that exact second and going to the wrong location. Is there a better way?

Thanks for the help,

Tim

[alymoursy]

Can someone from Shopify weigh in here? This is something that a lot of app developers need right now to improve the overall customer and merchant experience.

[moiashvin]

Hi - did you manage to solve the problem?

[petjunkie]

I did not. It's been a while since I tried, but last I looked it did not seem possible. We're still doing it manually, which is a pain, but for us, it's a rare need so it works out ok.