Fullfill order with nearest inventory location based on the customer shipping address

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

Goal: Automatically fulfill orders from the inventory location nearest to the customer’s shipping address.

Current capability:

  • Shopify fulfills by location priority, not proximity. Merchants can manually change the fulfillment location per order or split fulfillments across locations.
  • No native setting to link customer geolocation, shipping zones, or Markets to fulfillment locations.

Status/update:

  • Shopify Support has logged a feature request; no timeline or changes announced. Latest reply reiterates no update and points to the Changelog for future news.

App options mentioned:

  • Suggested: Advanced Shipping Manager, Easyship, Location Based Fulfilment, Product Inventory Information (shows multi-location inventory and geolocation for pickup).
  • Community feedback: Mixed/poor reviews; apps don’t reliably automate proximity-based fulfillment or handle multiple warehouses as needed.

Merchant pain points/use cases:

  • Global warehouses (e.g., US/EU/Thailand/Belgium) need zone-to-location mapping to avoid costly cross-border shipping.
  • Shopify can accept orders using stock from a different region, causing local inventory to go negative and forcing expensive international fulfillment—even when no cross-border shipping rates exist. It may also choose a primary location with higher rates over a local one with free shipping, increasing cart abandonment.

Workarounds and sentiment:

  • Multiple stores (often Shopify Plus), costly IMS (Skubana, Cin7, BrightPearl), or manual updates; dissatisfaction persists. 3PLs (third‑party logistics) commonly used.

Outcome: Unresolved; feature request remains open; one user’s app promotion was challenged; a technical question about location selection without defined rates remains unanswered.

Summarized with AI on January 13. AI used: gpt-5.
2

Hello, @radhakrishnan .

Elias here with Shopify Support. That’s a great question!

I understand you want to fulfill the order based on the nearest inventory to the customers. If you’re fulfilling orders from multiple locations, you can fulfill parts of the order separately based on their locations. By default, the system will fulfill them based on your fulfillment priority; however, when you fulfill an order, you can manually change the fulfillment location so that it’s being fulfilled based on the nearest inventory to the customer.

Is this what you were looking for? If you have any other questions on locations and order fulfillments, don’t hesitate to let me know in this thread!