How to send order information to a second email?

[Beebumsom]

We are setting up a partnership with a product maker where we will "sell" the product on the site and they will fulfill the order themselves (sort of like a marketplace setup but we'll handle all the product entries). How can I get the order information sent to our partner? The closest thing I can find is to send them the "view order" web link but that will require them to log into a staff account to view the customer info and I want to avoid that since I can't limit their permissions to ONLY view orders (giving them order permission but not edit permission is not enough to prevent deletion or creation of new order data). My only other alternative is to do a screen capture and email it, but that's a little gitchie. I'd love to be able to set the system to automatically send a copy of order confirmations to the defined email address IF that order contains items with a certain keyword. Anyone able to advise? Thanks.

[Olivia]

Hi, @Beebumsom!

Olivia here from the Shopify team.

Thanks for your question. We actually have a custom fulfillment option that will do exactly what you need. You continue to set up the products on your end as per usual, and then set some or all of those products to be fulfilled by your custom service. Follow our custom fulfillment set-up guide or the instructions below.

Activate a fulfillment service

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery.
2. In the Accounts and integrations section, click Manage integrations.
3. In the Custom order fulfillment section, click Add fulfillment service.
4. In the form, enter:
   • the title of your custom fulfillment provider
   • the email address of your custom fulfillment provider.

   When you mark an item or complete order as fulfilled in your Shopify admin, the fulfillment service is sent an email with all the order information so that they can fulfill it for you.

5. Click Save.

Set your products to be fulfilled by your custom service

Steps:

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 managed by drop-down menu.

3. Click Save to save your changes.

Note: 

If you use a third-party fulfillment service for a product, then you can't also stock the product in the locations that you manage.

That should do exactly what you need, but let me know if any further questions come up.

Warm regards,

[Beebumsom]

Excellent, I'll look into that, thanks.

[Beebumsom]

Ok so I set up and looks fine, but I'm wondering how to set it up to collect shipping on behalf of the fulfillment company?

[Beebumsom]

@Oliviaany further insight on how I can properly account for shipping charges for my 3rd party partner orders?

[Olivia]

Thanks for following up, @Beebumsom.

These products would be set-up the same way as items you ship, just that the supplier will be fulfilling them. This means that shipping is also set-up the same as your other products. 

Note: 

Payment for the product or shipping charges through this custom fulfillment method are not forwarded to your supplier by Shopify, and should be arranged separately.

Let me know if that makes sense, or if you have further questions.

Warm regards,

[Beebumsom]

@OliviaRight but I'm confused on how the system actually calculates the shipping to charge since the 3rd party vendor setup doesn't appear to have any way to enter address information, it only asks for an Email to send the orders to.

Also if someone buys something from our store and something from the other vendor, does it charge shipping based on those items locations separately? One charge for our store and one charge for theirs?

[Olivia]

Hey again, @Beebumsom.

Thanks for following up. To re-iterate, shipping is set up the same as your other products, which means that it isn't calculated based on your vendor location. The function of a custom fulfillment service is only that it will send the order information to your supplier for them to fulfill.

Originally I mentioned that If you use a third-party fulfillment service for a product, then you can't also stock the product in the locations that you manage. Hence, you would not be assigning these custom fulfillment products to a location. Since payment for the product and shipping paid to your supplier should be arranged outside of Shopify, I highly recommend you consult with your supplier on accurate product and shipping costs that allow for a profitable margin for your store. 

This is how a typical third-party fulfillment order flows:

A. Customer purchases product
B. Store arranges payment for product (including shipping) to supplier
C. Supplier fulfills product

Some suppliers offer discounts or flat rates depending on orders. These costs should be accounted for when setting up your product + shipping pricing. 

Shipping Strategies: 

Due to the nature of this set-up consider some shipping strategies often used for dropshipping scenarios like yours.

Let me know if you still have questions.

Warm regards,

[Beebumsom]

@Olivia Well that's pretty unfortunate and frankly a pretty lazy way of doing it especially since shipping charges vary radically all around the world. It costs $5 to send it a few states away but $25 to ship it to Australia. So you are basically saying that 3rd party sales cant be shipping rate calculated? That's kind of absurd really.

[Olivia]

Thanks for your reply, @Beebumsom.

If you wish to automatically send order information to your vendor, while limiting their access to your store, through the suggestion we discussed in this thread then yes you cannot pull live rates based on your vendor address. 

With that being said, there are apps that promise to provide vendor based rates while keeping the above setup that you can explore below:

• Bespoke Shipping 
• Better Shipping
• Advanced Shipping Manager

Feel free to explore some of those alternative options, and make sure to connect with the App Developers for any app-specific questions. For everything else, I'd be glad to support however I can.

Warm regards,

[rweinstein]

Hi @Olivia, is there a way to add a second email address for our custom fulfillment provider? Our fulfillment provider would like us to send the order to two different emails. Thanks for your help in advance.