Re: How to allow multi-managed inventory for a fulfilment app

How to allow multi-managed inventory for a fulfilment app

ShopWeDo
Tourist
3 0 4

I want to update our fulfilment app to use multiple locations managed inventory so that Shopify stores can use our fulfilment app aside other locations and fulfilment apps for other locations.

 

In Shopify's public help documentation I can read that there is something called multi-managed inventory to manage inventory in multiple locations. I can enable that manually in my development store by adding another location, but it doesn't include app locations. 

 

Unfortunately I can't find any reference on how to update my app scopes, locations or fulfilment service to allow this multi location inventory. 

 

So my question is, how do I allow that?

Replies 8 (8)

Lachlan2
Shopify Partner
10 0 2

Hi, did you end up solving this?

There is so much documentation on Shopify, yet none of it clearly articulates Locations vs App Locations.

 

I'm having the same problem - I've created a fulfillment app and whilst it shows against the list in the product setup, it doesn't show up in the Multiple Locations list (even though the description says it will).

mrdavl
Shopify Partner
5 0 0

Same here... I think it would be good enough to let us specify the location_id when creating the fulfilment service via API. My current workaround is to manually create the locations and then check for the assigned location_id when an order arrives. I hate this solution because my app needs to handle both paths which is not so straightforward.

Nicholas_P
Shopify Partner
30 3 28

I've noticed this too. This has been a pain point for sometime when onboarding clients because we have to flip all of the "Inventory managed by" on all of their products, and is even more of a problem for clients who want to sell from both types of locations.

 

I suspect it has to do with the fulfillment_orders_opt_in flag at https://shopify.dev/api/admin-rest/2022-04/resources/fulfillmentservice#resource_object

 

Have you updated your app to FulfillmentOrders yet? Because I haven't yet, it's on my list but I had to get the DSCO and Amazon MWS sunsets out of the way. (Really wish these vendors could just put an API out into the world and support it, it's not like we're doing real exotic stuff here, but I digress....)

chrispipe
Shopify Partner
9 0 1

I'm curious about this too. We did build our fulfillment service on top of fulfillment orders but it appears to have the same restrictions where a SKU can only be fulfilled by our app. Merchant want flexibility in this area and it's possible with custom apps on the Orders API but does not seem possible with Fulfillment Orders yet.

 

I've noticed the Shopify UI for some stores seems to already indicate support for this (see screenshot) and there's a developer preview for it so am going to try that.

chrispipe_0-1646418120281.png

 

Lachlan2
Shopify Partner
10 0 2

I already see the "Multiple Locations" dropdown, but it doesn't include "App Locations" - only locations that you manually create in settings, so it doesn't actually provide any value.

Can you advise what you mean about a developer preview?

jcboyer
Shopify Partner
6 0 4
Nicholas_P
Shopify Partner
30 3 28

I've started work on testing this via a development preview store, but it doesn't work correctly with fetch_stock.json. I've asked a question over at https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-apis-and-sdks/fulfillment-service-sku-sharing-developer-prev... that hopefully someone at Shopify will be able to answer.

Anna1_1
Shopify Partner
6 1 0

Looks like it now includes Custom App locations too. Here's is what I did;

 

Needed to update the fulfillment service associated with my custom app with a flag "permits_sku_sharing": true
Can now select 'Multiple Locations' in the dropdown on the products page, then can 'Edit Locations' to add another one to the product, and priority for which service/location it auto selects to fulfil from when an order comes in is set in Settings > Locations > View or edit location priority

 

Briefly tested with 2 different fulfillment services from 2 different custom apps and it seems to work