What are the best apps for drop shipping order notifications?

[Bryan1311]

Hi,

I am looking for some guidance on any apps that automatically send order notifications to different suppliers of products that we want drop shipped. We currently have a fulfilment partner that stores and ships all our products. However we now want to drop ship higher value products from our Shopify site, to avoid the risk and cost of taking them into stock.

We want to send notifications with customer order details to the relevant supplier, as well as correctly calculate fair shipping costs for the customer for split orders etc. eg. Customer orders 6 items - 4 are fulfilled from our own warehouse, 1 from Dropshipper A, and 1 from Dropshipper B.

NB. We are UK based, and not all suppliers will be using Shopify.

Thanks in advance!

Bryan

[GhostApps]

Hi, my app Simple Purchase Orders can definitely meet your shop's needs. It allows you to set up suppliers and import products and set cost prices. You can then automatically generate purchase orders from orders your customers make and it will import all of the items they order and their address and email it to your supplier. It can also handle splitting orders into multiple POs where the items have different suppliers. This should help you reduce time spent fulfilling orders and eliminate mistakes.

Please check it out and let me know if you have any questions

[JoesIdeas · Accepted solution]

Hey @Bryan1311 quick heads up, be careful with the first poster Cork Labs, they've been caught breaking Shopify terms of service, violating FTC laws, and posting fake positive reviews on their apps and fake negative reviews on other apps. Reference: https://speedboostr.com/fraudulent-shopify-partners/#copyright-cork

When you install apps they can access your store's data, I personally wouldn't want a shady company that commits fraud to access my business, so giving a friendly heads up.

For your solution, since you're getting into dropshipping it might be worth searching dropshipping apps in the Shopify app store to see if something provides more solutions for your system: https://apps.shopify.com/search?q=dropship

Aside from that, our app Order Automator has a strong history of helping stores work with dropshippers by sending order data to them (in emails or csv). 

For calculating shipping costs, you'll want to do that before they place the order... a solution that comes to mind is to set each vendor's product's weight to be unique, then calculate shipping by weight.

Another idea is to make each vendor have its own location - by default Shopify charges shipping for each location in the order, so if you have an order with 2 separate locations, they'll get charged shipping for each.

A 3rd idea is to average your shipping costs and charge a flat rate. This is my preferred method because it's easier for everyone + it's straightforward for the customer. You'll likely have a higher conversion rate when the shipping is known, rather than a surprise (in studies I've read about 30% of abandoned carts are because of unexpected shipping charges).

[Inspira_Digital]

hey @Bryan1311 I'm wondering if a new service like this would be able to help you https://alvio.online/ one of our clients is working with them to build out a retailer network on Shopify. See what you think jsut a thought.

Hope it helps 

Cheers

Mike

[delwin_twc]

Hi @Bryan1311 that is exactly what Duoplane is built to do.

If a customer orders Product A + Product B and they need to be fulfilled from different locations, Duoplane will split the order into two and send it to each supplier/warehouse individually for them to fulfill. Once fulfilled, the supplier/warehouse can also automate the process of sending the tracking information back to you, which automatically goes to your Shopify store and notifies your customer. It is simple and saves you a mind-blowing amount of time and resources.

The terminology for this process is "order routing." It's Duoplane's main functionality. You might also want to know that Duoplane has additional features such as automated shipping feeds, inventory syncing, and financial & operational analytics. You can also customize precisely how each supplier receives their order. They also have integrations with shipstation, shippingeasy, shippo, skuvault, QuickBooks, and Xero.

Best of all, their customer support is excellent, and you can get a free trial before making any commitment. Do your research to see what best suits your needs. Don't just take my word for it - check out Duoplane on the Shopify app store and read their reviews.