How to coordinate orders between two manufacturers?

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment

Topic summary

Two manufacturers must coordinate per Shopify order: manufacturer 1 receives the order, then passes it to manufacturer 2, who completes, fulfills, and ships. Both need the customer’s order details; tools like Orderdesk were asked about.

Proposed solutions:

  • Notion as a shared task tracker: staff add new orders and update status, aligning handoffs without exposing full Shopify data.
  • Order Automator app: auto-send order details to supplier 1 based on product rules; include a remote fulfillment link so supplier 2 adds tracking and marks the order fulfilled.
  • Grant manufacturers access to the Shopify Orders page: simplest operationally but exposes all customer data; may require policy updates and careful access controls.

No decision made; suggestions offered to test workflow using a task tracker or Shopify automation before granting full access. Discussion remains open, with privacy and clear handoff steps as key considerations.

Summarized with AI on January 26. AI used: gpt-5.
1

My business model requires two manufacturers to complete the product. The customer orders online through Shopify, then that order goes the first manufacturer who will then send that on to the second manufacturer to complete the item, fulfill the order and ship to the customer. So both companies need to have the customer’s order so it goes out correctly. I’m new to this and trying to figure it out. Would this be more of a question for someone like Orderdesk or similar. Any insights would be much appreciated.

2

Couple ideas:

  1. You could use some kind of task manager like Notion, and have your staff add new orders there and mark them in a status. I use Notion to manage business tasks, new features, etc.

  2. You could use Order Automator app to send the order details to supplier 1 (you can pick the order conditions, for example send order info to Supplier 1 if it has certain products in it), then when supplier 1 is done they forward the email to supplier 2. With Order Automator you can include a link in the order details to fulfill the order remotely (so supplier 2 could add the tracking info, that would then update the order to send to the customer and mark fulfilled).

  3. If you have a close relationship with your manufacturers, and not worried about them seeing your data, you could give them access to the Orders page in Shopify. Though this could be tricky because they would then have access to all of your customers, might be something you’d have to analyze / add to your privacy policy.