Shopify Flow Option for Stores on the Shopify Basic Plan

[Ben_O_Brien]

Hi Team!

I use a third party warehouse to fulfill my orders (have for 4 years) and the warehouse have just changed my store over to the new fulfillment API. However when doing so they came across an issue. The warehouse uses the Shopify APP called Flow to auto create the fulfillment requests but because I am on the basic shopify plan the Flow app doesn't work. The App is only available on bigger plans.

The problem I have now is I have to manually select each order and click 'request fulfillment' for the orders to flow to my warehouse. Is there an equivalent App that can enable the 'fulfillment requests' to happen automatically? Paying for the next level shopify plan nearly triples the plan costs for me and is not viable (and to be honest delivers almost no better features than the basic plan I am on).

And why is Flow not available to all stores? 

Appreciate any help. Im assuming others have come across this issue with the recent shopify fulfillment changes.

[Digico]

@Ben_O_Brien Hi, it's weird because I confirm it's the opposite : Shopify Flow was locked only for Shopify Plus stores in the past, but now it's available free on all Shopify plans (even Shopify Basic).

You can test it yourself and confirm by setting up Shopify Flow app on your store. Check if you can do it here, it won't do any damage to your store, even if you don't use it:

https://apps.shopify.com/flow

Keep me posted, it could be related to recent fulfilment changes in API. And you should get in touch with your app provider.

[Ben_O_Brien]

Unfortunately the Flow app does not work on the basic plan. Ive been in touch with shopify support and they confirmed it wont function on the basic plan. As you can see on the app page itself it says "Flow is only available to customers on the Shopify, Advanced, or Shopify Plus plan".

I can download the app but it won't provide any functionality.

Im sure there must be other stores in my same situation so am very keen to understand some workarounds.

[paul_n]

Hi, currently Flow is available to Basic merchants only if they are using SFN or if the use case is Marketing Automation (the editor is available through Marketing / Automations in the Admin, but likely won't work for your use case). 

[Ben_O_Brien]

Ok thanks. Yes I can't see any way to 'request fulfilment' in the marketing automation.

Given Shopify has made this new new fulfillment API mandatory - can Flow be made available on all plans to rectify this for problem for those of us on basic plans? Its a major issue facing many stores right now who use third party fulfilment warehouses 

[paul_n]

I'm not sure exactly what fulfillment API is mandatory and why that would force you into needing to use Flow. I'll do some research on that first. 

[Ben_O_Brien]

Thanks, id really appreciate it. My warehouse manages the integration with my store and shopify released an update recently that has meant the order integration between my store and the warehouse has changed. My warehouse uses the Flow App to integrate orders. The notes in the shopify email about the update are below:

• Some customer fields have been deprecated from the Admin REST API's Order resource. View change.
• Multi Managed Inventory introduced a breaking change to the Order.line_items.fulfillment_service field. This field is due to be deprecated from both the Admin GraphQL and the Admin REST APIs. When using the GraphQL API, consider using FulfillmentOrder.assigned_location. When using the REST API, see FulfillmentOrder.assigned_location. View change.
• The Fulfillment API has been deprecated and replaced with Fulfillment Orders. View change.
• The `total_price_usd` field on `Order` has been deprecated from the Admin REST API's Order resource. View change.
• The `origin_location` and `destination_location` fields on line items have been deprecated from Admin REST API's Order resource. View change.

[Ben_O_Brien]

Hi Paul - Did you have any luck looking into this issue?

[paul_n]

I can't tell from above - what fulfillment service are you using that requires Flow? The only one that I'm aware of is SFN. 

[paul_n]

To recap today's announcement, Flow is now available to the Basic plan.

[Ben_O_Brien]

That's great news thanks for letting me know Paul.