Assigning a Warehouse to Orders

Companies managing shipment operations across multiple warehouses must to establish rules that determine which orders are fulfilled by which warehouse. These decisions are based on various factors, including channel requirements, stock availability, geographical proximity, and organizational preferences.

Managing Fulfillment Warehouses on the Store Level

Most channels do not dictate the fulfillment warehouse. They allow the seller to independently decide which warehouses to use for order fulfillment. For each store in Goflow, create a list of warehouses that you want to use to fulfill orders of that store. Orders are assigned a warehouse on the basis of inventory availability. Orders are assigned to the first warehouse in the list with sufficient inventory.

To create a list of fulfillment warehouses, follow these steps:

From the left sidebar, go to Directory › Stores.
Click to open the store.
On the Fulfillment Warehouses card, click the pencil icon to edit.
Select at least one warehouse from the list of Goflow warehouses.
To add more warehouses to the list, click on the plus + icon.
Easily copy fulfillment warehouse settings from another store. To do so, follow these steps:
1. Click on the vertical ellipses, and click Copy from Another Store.
2. Select a store that already has the desired settings.
3. Confirm Copy Fulfilment Warehouses.
Optionally, select a fallback warehouse.
Optionally, enable proximity fulfillment.
Finally, click to Save the settings.

Store fulfillment warehouses determine the warehouse assignment upon order import. Orders are not automatically reassigned a warehouse to reflect changes to inventory that occurred after order import. Similarly, if order listings are remapped to another product, or the order products are otherwise changed, the warehouse is not automatically reassigned. Rather, the order warehouse can be manually updated.

Store fulfillment warehouses determine the warehouse for imported or uploaded orders only. Manually entered orders are given a warehouse at the time of order entry.

Using the Fallback Warehouse

Designate one warehouse as the fallback in case none of the regular fulfillment warehouses has sufficient inventory. Using a fallback warehouse can assist you in identifying out-of-stock orders. If a fallback warehouse is not selected, the first warehouse in the list serves as the fallback.

Multi-item orders that cannot be fulfilled entirely from a single warehouse will be assigned to the fallback warehouse. This includes large orders where one warehouse has sufficient inventory to fulfill most order lines, but not all lines.

Orders containing unmapped listings will also be assigned to the fallback warehouse. Because the listing is not mapped to a product, the inventory status cannot be determined.

Using Proximity Fulfillment

In proximity fulfillment, orders are assigned to a warehouse based to the order shipping address, in addition to inventory availability. Proximity fulfillment allows you to assign warehouses based on shipping zones, providing for faster and cheaper shipping.

With proximity fulfillment, ship-to zones are organized into destination groups. To create a new destination group, click on + Add Group.

For each group, specify the covered destinations. Select US states, or US regions such as Midwest, or a list of zip codes. Any destination not included in any particular destination group is automatically covered by the General Destination group. Each destination group maintains its own unique list of fulfillment warehouses and can have its own fallback warehouse.

Destinations must be unique across different groups to avoid conflicts. The same state or the same zip code cannot belong to multiple destination groups. Zip codes do not conflict states, however. Due to their specificity, zip codes take precedence over states. For instance, one group can cover the entire state of New York, while another group can cover the state of New Jersey along with the zip code 10001, which is in New York.

Every order falls within one destination group based on its ship-to zone, and the list of fulfillment warehouses of that group determines the warehouse assigned to the order. An order is assigned to the first warehouse within the destination group that has sufficient inventory. If none of the fulfillment warehouses has sufficient inventory, the fallback warehouse is assigned to the order.

Proximity fulfillment is currently available for destinations in the United States only.

To create an international destination group, place all US destinations into their own groups. This ensures that all non-US destinations are covered by the general group.

Mapping Store Warehouse Codes

Some channels determine the order fulfillment warehouse themselves. With each order, the store provides a ship-from warehouse code. These channels expect to be updated with inventory availability for each warehouse separately. Consequently, the store will only instruct you to fulfill from a warehouse that has sufficient inventory.

Create a mapping between the store warehouse codes and Goflow warehouses. This mapping informs Goflow which warehouse to assign to an order based on the warehouse code provided by the store.

The mapping does not have to be strictly one-to-one. You can map multiple store codes to the same Goflow warehouse. This is useful if several store codes represent the same physical location. You may also map one store code to a list of Goflow warehouses. This is useful when several Goflow warehouses are within the same shipping zone, and the store does not mind which specific warehouse within the zone is used.

To map store warehouse codes, follow these steps:

From the left sidebar, go to Directory › Stores.
Click to open the store.
On the Store Warehouse Codes card, click the pencil icon to edit.
Enter all the warehouse codes that you have with the store.
Go to the Fulfillment Warehouses card, and click the pencil icon to edit.
For each store warehouse code, select a Goflow warehouse.
To select a list of Goflow warehouses, hover to the right of the Goflow Warehouse field, and click on the plus + icon.
Finally, click to Save the mapping.

Channels that support store warehouse codes do not have a designated fallback warehouse. When inventory allocation by warehouse codes works as expected, it is not anticipated that the store would assign orders to a warehouse with insufficient inventory. However, in the event that such an order is received, the mapped warehouse will be assigned to the order, even if the warehouse is out of stock.

When mapping a store warehouse code to a list of Goflow warehouses, the first warehouse in the list with sufficient inventory to fulfill the entire order will be assigned. If none of the warehouses in the list has sufficient inventory, the first warehouse in the mapping will be assigned.

If an order contains a store warehouse code that has not been mapped yet, the order will be placed in Review until the code is mapped.

For certain channels, such as Walmart Dropship, orders can only be imported for mapped store warehouse codes. It is important that you map all store warehouse codes to get all orders into Goflow.

Managing Fulfillment Warehouses on the Listing Level

In addition to global fulfillment warehouse settings at the store level - which determine warehouses for all orders of a store - you can customize fulfillment warehouses for individual listings. This is useful in handling overstock situations in a particular warehouse or if a warehouse places restrictions on the fulfillment of certain products.

To manage fulfillment warehouses at the listing level, follow these steps:

From the left sidebar, go to Listings › Listings.
Click to open the specific listing you want to edit.
On the Fulfillment Warehouses card, click the pencil icon to edit.
To create custom fulfillment settings, uncheck the box next to Use Store Warehouses.
Add one or more warehouses to the list.
Decide whether to use store warehouses as a fallback.
Finally, Save your settings.

Understanding Listing Fulfillment Warehouses Options

By default, all listings inherit their fulfillment warehouse settings from the store-level. Before you can create custom fulfillment settings for a listing, you must first remove its default settings by unchecking Use Store Warehouses. Only after doing so can you proceed to create custom settings for the listing. When you wish to revert a listing to its store-level settings, simply reapply the check to Use Store Warehouse.

When you create custom settings for a listing, you still have the option to use store warehouses as a fallback. If you choose this setting, in situations where none of the listing-level warehouses have sufficient inventory, the order will cascade through the store-level warehouses, as if the listing does not have any special settings.

For instance, you typically fulfill orders by proximity. However, there is a particular product that's overstocked in the East warehouse, and you've determined that it's more cost-effective to sell off the East stock, even though it might not the closest warehouse. You would apply custom fulfillment settings to the listing that includes the East warehouse only. This custom setup will remain active for as long as East has sufficient inventory. Once the East stock is depleted, the listing will automatically revert to the store-level settings, and orders for that product will resume fulfillment based on proximity.

If you uncheck the option to use store warehouses as a fallback, only the listing-level settings will be ever considered. If none of the listing warehouses has sufficient stock, the first warehouse in the list serves as the fallback warehouse.

Because of their specificity, listing-level settings take precedence over store-level settings, even for multi-item orders. If an order includes a listing with custom fulfillment settings, the entire order will adhere to the settings of that listing. For orders where two lines have different listing-level settings, the first listing with custom settings determines the fulfillment warehouse for the entire order.

Listing-level fulfillment warehouse settings does not support:

Store warehouse codes.

Proximity fulfillment.

Separate fallback warehouse.

Managing Listing Fulfillment Warehouses in Bulk

Use the file upload feature to manage listing fulfillment warehouses in bulk. To do so, follow these steps:

From the left sidebar, go to Listings › Listings.
In the upper right corner, click on the upload icon, and select Import Fulfillment Warehouses.
Review the Columns tab to understand the required and optional fields.
Click to download a sample CSV template.
On the CSV file, fill in the Store name.
Identify a listing by one of these three methods: SKU, Listing ID, or the listings' UPC Code.
Enter the names of the fulfillment warehouses in order of precedence. Use the pipe character | to separate between warehouse names.
Decide whether to use store warehouses as a fallback.
Save the file.
Click on Choose File and then Import the file.

To revert a listing to its store-level settings, leave the Warehouses field empty.

In the below sample upload file, the first row sets the listing-level warehouses to East and then West for SKU ABC123. The second row reverts the settings to the store-level for SKU ABC456.

Store	SKU	Product ID	Listing ID	Warehouses	Use store warehouses as fallback
Target	ABC123			East \| West	Yes
Target	ABC456

Changing the Order Warehouse

Fulfillment warehouse settings play an important role in assigning orders to a warehouse with sufficient inventory. However, these settings operate only at the time of order import. If there were changes in the inventory situation, you may need to manually change the order warehouse.

To change the warehouse for the whole order, do so on the order page:

On the order status card, find the Warehouse.
Click on the pencil icon to edit.
Select a new warehouse, and Save.

For a quick assessment of the inventory status for each order product, use the clipboard icon on the order line. Click on the clipboard to view the On-Hand and Available inventory in each of your warehouses. You can also see the inventory status for each vendor.

The color of the clipboard icon indicates the overall inventory status in the currently assigned order warehouse:

Green indicates sufficient inventory is available to fulfill all current orders for this product.
Red indicates insufficient inventory on-hand to fulfill any of the current orders for this product.
Gray indicates sufficient inventory on-hand to fulfill some of the current orders for this product, but not enough inventory is available to fulfill all orders of this product. You can decide whether to change the warehouse on this order, or whether to change the warehouse on another order containing this product.

Orders already in a pick list must first be pulled from the pick list before their warehouse can be changed.

Changing the Order Warehouse in Bulk

Use the bulk action feature to change the warehouse for multiple orders at once. To do so, follow these steps:

From the left sidebar, go to Orders.
Optionally, apply order filters to find orders in the open status, for a specific store, containing a specific item number.
Select all orders in the results page.
Click on Actions, and then Change Warehouse.
Select the warehouse, and Save.

You may change the order warehouse for up to 10 thousand orders at once. However, to prevent inadvertent bulk actions, confirmation is required when selecting more than 100 orders.

Changing the Warehouse for Part of an Order

When you need to fulfill part of an order from one warehouse and part of it from another warehouse, use Manage Fulfillment.