As a Shopify retailer, I can create a Purchase Order and enter the supplier’s name, company, address and email. However, the email field currently doesn’t actually send the PO to the supplier, and the supplier has no Shopify-side workflow to receive, manage or fulfill that order.
I think Shopify could take this much further by creating Buyer & Supplier profiles/connections.
For example:
Retailer creates a PO → Shopify notifies the connected supplier → Supplier receives the PO in Shopify → Supplier confirms the order, adds their SKU/fulfillment information and tracking → PO status changes to In Transit → Retailer is automatically notified.
This would essentially turn Shopify Purchase Orders into a real B2B purchasing and fulfillment system, rather than just an internal document.
Shopify already has the foundation — it just needs a supplier-side workflow to connect the two.
It would be great to see this addition in the near future!
You’re right about the current boundary. Shopify’s native purchase-order workflow can record the supplier and export the PO as a PDF for supplier review, but Shopify’s own migration guidance says the admin does not email that PO. After the supplier confirms, the merchant marks it ordered and a linked inventory transfer tracks movement and receiving; there is no supplier-side confirmation portal in that native flow.
A workable interim flow is: export the PO → send it in a controlled email thread using the PO number → capture confirmed quantity, expected ship date and tracking → record only exceptions → mark the PO ordered and link the transfer. I would test that with one supplier and one partial shipment before adding an app.
How many active suppliers do you use, and do their confirmations currently arrive by email or through separate supplier portals? That determines whether a small template plus exception tracker is enough, or whether a connected workflow is actually justified.
honestly the supplier-side workflow would make POs way more useful. right now it feels like the PO is mostly a record for the retailer, while the actual communication still happens through email and spreadsheets.
even a basic supplier portal would be a big improvement. supplier gets the PO, confirms quantities, enters their own SKU or expected ship date, then adds tracking once it leaves their warehouse. having those updates flow back into the retailer’s PO would remove a lot of the manual chasing, especially once you’re dealing with multiple suppliers.
My idea was more of in the same section under products, considering our store is linked to our myshopify… it can act as username in order to add a supplier, which is also potentially registered to shopify, the SKUs are the SKUs the supplier enters, us as retailers are just selling those SKUs / needing to re-order them. they should be uploaded by the Supplier
For the moment i only deal with one, i am a small upcoming store, selling vitamins/supplements in Canada. usually the supplier would give me a call to let me know its inbound or text me the tracking, so i follow it through the website provided, or what i can do is enter the tracking on the Puchase order, but it would be WAY simpler if the supplier can purchase the label directly online too, kind of like what retailers do when fulfilling orders on our end. Keep in mind, this is all speculation, maybe there’s a reason they have it this way… or maybe they just didn’t see it … yet.
I feel like this would be a giant step for Shopify, including this in the Purchase order would be greatly beneficial for both parties, especially for inventory tracking, custom POs done through email and phone, this creates a professional template easily manageable for tax purposes, history etc…
I think this highlights an interesting distinction between a commerce platform and an operational platform.
A purchase order is only one part of the process. The moment suppliers start confirming quantities, changing dates, shipping partial orders, updating costs, providing invoices, or sending tracking information, you’re no longer managing a document you’re managing a workflow between two organizations.
That’s why many retailers eventually end up tracking confirmations, shipments, receipts, invoices, and exceptions outside the original PO.
Even if Shopify eventually adds supplier-side collaboration, I’d expect merchants to still need workflows around:
• Partial shipments
• Receiving against the PO
• Backorders
• Cost variances
• Invoice reconciliation
• Inventory transfers and put-away
The interesting question is where Shopify chooses to stop and where operational systems begin.
Curious how many merchants here are actually receiving multiple shipments against the same PO today versus mostly working with single-delivery orders.
I love this because you think like I do and how our client stores do. We thought, “Is emailing the supplier a PO not just something that should happen given we have their email address?” Then we were asked by our clients to add this functionality… So, with suggestions and guidance from our client stores - one in particular (Hi Brian!) - I put it in FyreTrail along with a few other great suggestions.
Not only that, but you can now fully white-label the PO, send attachments and even customize the columns of data that are sent with it. We also offer connected email accounts as an authorized application via Microsoft 365, Google and even SMTP so there’s that too. It’s not quite the process you laid out, but when you create the PO, you have the option to email it to the Supplier - include a custom note and even inject fields into the verbiage you craft with the press of just a few buttons.
At any rate, if you find waiting for it to be added in Shopify is something you just don’t have the patience for, you can always turn to FyreTrail and have every box checked (and even suggest a few new ones).
This would be a valuable improvement to Shopify’s current purchase order workflow. A connected buyer–supplier workflow could reduce manual follow-ups and give both sides better visibility into order confirmation, fulfillment, and tracking.
At that point the challenge isn’t sending the PO anymore it’s keeping inventory, operations, and finance aligned as the order progresses through its lifecycle.
Curious whether merchants here are typically receiving complete deliveries against a PO, or whether partial receipts are becoming more common.
Agreed, although its going to become quite “logistical” if that even makes sense, its not a logistics software, but they could definitely work in that direction and be ahead of the game, lot numbers, everything. I’m just talking a straight fulfilment from the supplier, the SKU comes out of inventory, retailer gets a notification for tracking, inventory gets moved from supplier → retailer.
it shouldn’t be more complicated, unless they put an advanced feature, which would need to be implemented
For many smaller retailers, a straightforward supplier → shipment → receive → inventory update workflow would cover most day-to-day needs.
The complexity usually starts once suppliers begin shipping partial orders, multiple shipments against the same PO, or when actual received quantities and costs don’t match what was originally ordered.
It would definitely be interesting to see how far Shopify chooses to go down the operational workflow path versus leaving those more advanced processes to inventory and operations platforms.
Yes because the products being imported in Shopify are as if you were a retailer, technically Shopify isn’t used for distribution, if i’m not mistaken… i could be wrong, but with the PO section, eventually you could start distribution with that section if developed properly, thats the way i see it.. My supplier hadn’t even noticed that section until i showed him, and he was saying it was super cool! although when i had asked him to check his emails to see if the Puchase order got sent to his email, he hadnt, hence me bringing up this topic, i had to make the PDF, which it does generate quite professionally, although he has to create an “order” on his page, to move the inventory out… either way with or without this he has to create his own PO , weather its in Shopify, or out, but this way he can work with shopify ONLY, to cater to his clients retailers selling on this platform.
What you’re describing is less about inventory management and more about connecting the retailer and supplier workflows together.
Today the PO is mostly a document that gets exported and emailed. In your example, the PO becomes the starting point of a shared workflow where the supplier can acknowledge the order, ship it, provide tracking, and keep both sides updated from the same process.
For a retailer working closely with a small number of suppliers, I can definitely see the appeal of keeping that entire interaction inside a single platform rather than bouncing between PDFs, emails, and separate systems.
From the retailer side, I think the missing piece is what happens after the supplier confirms the PO.
In our case the final supplier invoice is often the document that confirms the actual cost and sometimes the actual delivered quantities too. Those can differ slightly from what was originally ordered.
So ideally the flow wouldn’t stop at supplier confirmation / tracking. I’d want:
PO → supplier confirmation → shipment → actual supplier invoice → reconcile what was really delivered and what it really cost → update Shopify.
Otherwise you still end up doing the final reconciliation manually.
We’ve been running Shopify retail for years and this last step is where a surprising amount of admin still happens.
Hi there @vitaautentica
A layer where you connect with the supplier would make PO’s a lot more useful. The current PO process is very much retailer side however suppliers are still reliant on email or manual updates for confirmation and fulfilment information.
A pragmatic intermediary solution is to standardize the PO process on your end with supplier contact information, dates, and receiving lay out, then update your inventory and fulfillment status as confirmations are received.
Homogenous supplier profiles, PO acknowledgments, tracking updates, and automatic status changes would be a powerful enhancement for companies that deal with routine wholesale purchasing.
I built Replenly around the retailer side of this. You can manage supplier POs, email the PO to the supplier, receive full or partial deliveries, track landed costs and sync received inventory back to Shopify.
We don’t have the full supplier login, acknowledgement and tracking workflow you’re describing yet, but I can definitely see why that would be useful.
From the supplier’s side of the desk, the portal is the part they will not use.
A supplier with forty retail customers already runs their own system, so asking them to log into yours makes your order the one that takes longer than everybody else’s, and it sinks to the bottom of the pile. That is not a technology objection. It is a queue. What they want is a document that arrives by email and generates no phone call: their SKU beside yours, quantities in the units they actually ship in, your account number, the ship-to address, payment terms printed on the page.
Get those five right and confirmations come back the same day.
The gap salor_works described sits on your side anyway. Their invoice against your receipt, line by line, differences highlighted for a person to approve.
@vitaautentica John, your one-supplier setup gives this a manageable starting point: agree on a confirmation containing the supplier SKU, accepted quantity, expected arrival and tracking, then test what happens when only part arrives. That would make the missing steps concrete before anyone builds a portal.
Skubase is an inventory-planning app for Shopify merchants. It uses sales, stock on hand and supplier lead-time settings to flag stockout risks and prioritize reorders, helping with the buying decision before the PO goes out. The supplier login and automatic acknowledgement workflow you’ve described is a separate gap; I can’t claim Skubase already supports it.
We can work with you to understand that workflow and explore a practical solution, including identifying which missing feature would save the most manual work. Would capturing the supplier’s confirmed quantities and arrival date be the most useful first step for your store?
Skubase is currently in Shopify’s review process and is not yet listed in the Shopify App Store.
… yet.