What Is Order Fulfillment?
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Talk to our experts- Order fulfillment
- Order fulfillment is the work of getting a customer's order out the door: picking the items, packing them, shipping them and recording the order as fulfilled, with a tracking number where there is one. A business can fulfill orders itself, use a fulfillment service that stores its inventory and ships for it, or combine both.
How it works
Shopify describes the choice of fulfillment method as what determines how orders are picked, packed and shipped. When you fulfill orders yourself, you pick and pack the products, then buy shipping labels and hand the packages to carriers. With a fulfillment service, the service stores your inventory and ships orders on your behalf. You can even use different methods for different items in the same order.
How an order moves through fulfillment in Shopify
Items that can ship together are grouped in one Unfulfilled section; others are split into separate fulfillments.
Marking the order in progress starts preparing it, such as when picking and packing.
After you fulfill it, the status changes to Fulfilled, and a tracking number can go in the shipping confirmation email.
Carrier tracking can set the delivered status; without tracking, you can mark it delivered after the buyer receives it.
Partial and split fulfillment
One order can become several shipments.
- Split by location. If no single location has enough inventory to fulfill an order on its own, Shopify splits it into multiple fulfillments, and each one is fulfilled separately. You can set location priorities for the sequence in which locations fulfill orders.
- Partial fulfillment. If an item is out of stock or on preorder, you can fulfill only some of the items and ship the rest separately, entering the quantities you want to fulfill.
- Change the shipping location. You can move a fulfillment to another location because of stock availability or shipping costs, or to expedite a delivery.
- Merge shipments. You can merge fulfillments from the same location into one to simplify the work and reduce shipping costs.
Each fulfillment in an order is fulfilled separately, so a buyer can receive more than one shipping confirmation email for one order.
Fulfillment and payment terms
In Shopify B2B, fulfillment can decide when payment is due. Among the payment terms you can set for a company location or a draft order, "due on fulfillment" means payment is due after all items in the order are fulfilled. On a partially shipped order, that is after the last item is fulfilled.
Example
A plumbing distributor receives a contractor's order for 40 valves and 200 fittings. Its main warehouse has the 200 fittings but only 25 valves; a branch has the other 15.
The order splits into two fulfillments. The main warehouse ships 25 valves and 200 fittings today, and the branch ships 15 valves tomorrow: 25 + 15 = 40 valves in total. The contractor can get two shipping confirmations. The order sits on due-on-fulfillment terms, so payment comes due after the branch shipment, when all 240 items are fulfilled.
On Shopify
- Third-party services. You can connect a fulfillment service with an app, or set up a custom fulfillment service that receives orders by email. If an order is assigned to a third-party service, the service controls the status and marks the order in progress when it accepts your fulfillment request.
- Tracking. You can add a tracking number during fulfillment or after it, and it appears in the shipping confirmation and shipping update emails.
- Fulfilled vs. delivered. If you ship an order without a tracking number, you can mark it as delivered after your customer receives it, which updates their order status page and customer account.
How Uncap helps
For distributors, Uncap Connect syncs orders from Shopify into the ERP in real time and pushes fulfillment status back to the storefront. Nothing gets re-keyed, and nothing drifts.
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Frequently asked questions
What does order fulfillment mean?
It means picking, packing and shipping a customer's order and recording it as shipped, with a tracking number where there is one.
Does order fulfilled mean it has been delivered?
No. In Shopify, an order's status changes to Fulfilled when you fulfill it. Delivered is a separate status that comes from carrier tracking, or that you set yourself after the customer receives an order shipped without tracking.
What are the steps in the order fulfillment process?
When you fulfill orders yourself, you pick and pack the products, then buy shipping labels and hand the packages to carriers. In Shopify, the order's status then changes to Fulfilled, and a tracking number can go in the shipping confirmation email.
What are the different types of order fulfillment?
Shopify describes three: fulfilling orders yourself, using a fulfillment service that stores your inventory and ships orders on your behalf, or combining both methods. You can even use different methods for different items in the same order.
