Placing & Tracking Orders
Placing Orders
The one key to remember is that for this feature to function, your settings and inventory rules must be configured in a way that supports drop-shipping.
That means that you must have warehouses and products configured so that they support a 1 day lead time.
Anything with a lead time greater than 1 is not eligible for drop-shipping.
- Proceed to the Ecommerce orders module and click "View" on an order that qualifies for drop-ship.
- Review the order and scroll down to the Order Items area at the bottom of the page. Click the blue Dropship button.
Confirming the Order Information and Completing the Drop-ship
A unique Purchase Order (PO) number will be generated automatically. However, you can edit this if you wish.
The customer address is pre-populated from the customer's order. Please review for accuracy before submitting.
Before submitting, make sure to check the confirmation checkbox acknowledging that you are placing a real order with the distributor. Then click submit.
Purchase Orders
The Purchase Orders are automatically created in Ecommerce for each new drop-ship order. You can track all of your drop-shipped purchase orders from the Purchase Orders Page. Orders > Purchase Orders
Here you can search by a PO number, order id, distributor, or shipped status.
Additionally, you can click "View" on the right-hand side of an order line item and get tracking information.
Order Details View with Tracking
Reminder - a notification is emailed to the customer with tracking information and a note is added to to the order.
This entire process is automatic and you do not need to manually update tracking or notify customers along the way.
Tracking is automatically pulled from the distributors and pushed to the marketplaces!
Ecommerce pulls FTP price/inventory files every morning. It takes 8-12 hours for marketplace listings to be updated. During this time period, there can be instances where something has gone out of stock. Order automation does NOT cure or bypass this. We do not pull real-time inventory prior to placing the dropship order so you may want to consider double-checking that the distributor has stock before pushing the button.
If a distributor has not shipped within 6 weeks, the PO will stop being checked for updates. Please contact the distributor directly is an order remains unfulfilled after this period.
Feature Note - SKU Swapping
In the event that more than one distributor carries a dropshippable product, Ecommerce will give you the ability to switch SKUs and ultimately fulfill from the other distributor via order automation.
