How to Fulfill Orders on Shopify?

Time to read: 5 minutes

Have you ever wondered how to fulfill orders on Shopify effectively? After all, you’ve got multiple options: opting for your own in-house fulfillment, hiring a third-party logistics partner, or even working with integrated services. Which option is the best, and how can the whole process be organized? Find it out in this article!

How to Fulfill Orders on Shopify? The 4 Methods

Let’s start by discussing the available methods. You have four ways to fulfill orders on Shopify, each with its own pros and cons.

In-House Fulfillment

In-house fulfillment requires a larger initial investment and a good amount of expertise. With this method, you are fully responsible for the whole fulfillment process. It might be more difficult to implement, but it also has some advantages, such as:

• Higher control over the process, including:
  • branding,
  • costs,
  • communication,
  • customer experience.
• Possibility for better optimization of the process.

Nevertheless, creating an in-house fulfillment system that will be more beneficial than the other options is extremely difficult, especially for smaller e-commerce stores. Thus, we don’t recommend this solution unless you know you can handle it.

Outsourced Fulfillment

Another option is to work with a logistics partner and outsource your fulfillment services. The benefits of outsourced fulfillment include:

• scalability,
• lower investments,
• facilities at your disposal. 

However, with outsourced fulfillment, you get significantly less control regarding your logistics. If your logistics partner isn’t carrier-neutral, you may experience delays caused by disruptions to a carrier’s network. Nevertheless, outsourced fulfillment is often chosen over in-house logistics, mainly due to the costs and expertise required to set it up.

Fulfillment Services on Shopify

How else can you fulfill your orders on Shopify? You can use the existing fulfillment services on this and other platforms.

For instance, Shopify Fulfillment Network lets you easily and quickly complete and send orders from your Shopify store—you don’t have to negotiate with a third-party provider. However, this also has a major downside; if you opt for such services, you are usually left with a single-channel option—fulfillment services that work just for Shopify and aren’t integrated with your other sales channels.

What to do if you want to use fulfillment services provided on the platform, while running a multi-channel e-commerce? You can use apps that enable you to integrate your fulfillment, such as ByteStand Amazon MCF Shipping.

Our app enables you to fulfill your Shopify (but also TikTok or eBay) orders via Amazon FBA and to integrate all the data between these platforms. Thanks to it, you won’t only be able to deliver your products easily but also:

• keep accurate, same stock levels in all your channels,
• seamlessly adjust prices across channels,
• create product bundles to promote your goods,
• enable live shipping rates to reduce card abandonment and promote low delivery costs.

All you have to do its own a Professional Amazon Seller account and stock your goods in Amazon warehouses, and you can easily fulfill orders from multiple platforms!

Hybrid Methods

Finally, you can always opt for hybrid fulfillment. This means mixing in-house fulfillment with outsourced services.

For instance, you can own your warehouse and handle picking and packing internally but work with commercial carriers to deliver your products… or vice versa. 

Such a hybrid model might work as part of preparing for the switch from 3PL to in-house fulfillment. Plus, it’s a good choice if you feel strongly about certain elements of the logistics chain or want more control over them. If you understand your and your client’s needs and your business’ capabilities well, you can definitely consider this model.

How Do You Fulfill Orders on Shopify in Practice?

Shopify offers two ways to fulfill your orders: manual and automatic. Let’s delve into them and see what they look like.

How to Fulfill Shopify Orders Manually?

Fulfilling Shopify orders manually starts when the customer purchases a product, and you receive a notification that the product is waiting for fulfillment. This is quite helpful, as it gives you time to review the order, for instance, for:

• indication of fraud,
• manual inventory tracking.

You’ll need to select several properties and a carrier to deliver your product, so this might not be the best option for large e-commerce stores.

How to Fulfill Shopify Orders Automatically?

Automatic Shopify fulfillment is excellent for efficiency. It requires you only to select a fulfillment service/app, and the rest will be taken care of for you. However, with automated fulfillment, you don’t have time to review the orders, so it might not be the best option for high-risk industries.

The Takeaway

Knowing how to fulfill your orders on Shopify and the possible options, you’re ready to kickstart your store. Remember to check out our Amazon MCF app—it’s a convenient way to fulfill your orders, so you ought to test it!

You might also read: Reducing Operational Costs with ByteStand’s Automated Fulfillment Solutions

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