Shopify Order Routing Is Here

If you're a Shopify merchant with multiple warehouse and retail locations then you know the headache of handling orders from these different places. You need to figure out which spots have products in stock while determining which location is the closest to the customer.

Making sure orders go to the right warehouse is super important for online sales. By ensuring your products are shipped from the nearest or most efficient location, you can optimize your logistics and pass along savings to your customers. Luckily, Shopify now supports smart order routing. Shopify will automatically check which fulfillment locations have available inventory, then apply order routing logic to determine order fulfillment is optimized.

Keep reading to learn how to use this new feature and watch our new YouTube video to see how we put it all together.

What is Order Routing?

Order routing is an internal ecommerce merchant process that focuses on the logistics of order shipments and warehousing. This process involves selecting the most efficient path to send a customer's order. This is typically based upon a set of preconfigured rules such as delivery time, shipping costs, inventory levels, and more. This means customer orders are optimized to ensure speedy delivery, lowest cost and optimal efficiency.

Shopify now supports smart order routing capabilities. This is a powerful new tool that helps you optimize your fulfillment process, reduce shipping costs and deliver orders faster. Order routing will automate your fulfillment process across multiple locations, helping you scale more easily. You can expect great benefits for your store and customers.

Benefits to the Customer

Utilizing proper order management can lead to a few benefits for your customers.

1. Faster Delivery Times: The biggest advantage for customers is the quicker delivery times. By selecting the nearest distribution point, smart order routing will decrease the time it takes for an order to reach the customer.

2. Reduced Shipping Costs: Shipping costs are directly related to the distance between the warehouse and the customer. By optimizing the routing, customers will see a reduction in shipping fees.

3. Environmentally Friendly: Shorter shipping distances also mean less carbon footprint. Eco-conscious customers will appreciate the reduced environmental impact of their purchases.

Benefits to the Shopify Merchant

Smart order routing is not only for the benefit of the customer. As a Shopify store merchant, you will also see some great things by optimizing this process.

1. Cost Efficiency: Shipping orders via the most optimal path ensures significant savings on shipping and handling costs. Over time, these will add up to more money in your pocket.

2. Customer Satisfaction: Happy customers are repeat customers so offering them faster delivery times and reduced shipping costs will lead to increased customer satisfaction.

3. Improved Inventory Management: Reduce the chances of overstocking or stockouts, leading to more efficient inventory turnover.

4. Flexibility: Having multiple warehouses or external drop shipping locations allows you to fulfill orders in a more efficient manner.

5. Reduced Cart Abandonment: High shipping costs or long delivery times are common reasons for cart abandonment. By optimizing both, you can expect a decrease in cart abandonment rates.

6. Scalability: As your business grows, the complexity of order management will also rise. Improving your order routing will allow for greater scalability without compromising efficiency as you can ensure inventory is coming from the correct locations.

Order Routing Rules

The Shopify Order Routing features comes standard with four main rules. You can add, remove and prioritize these rules to match your business needs.

1. Ship from the closest location - Shopify calculates the delivery distance based upon the order's shipping address and chooses the closest location for fulfillment.

2. Stay within the destination market - Keep the order within the geographic market as the shipping address.

3. Use ranked locations - Create a list of prioritized locations for fulfillment. Orders will be shipped based upon your ranked priority.

4. Minimize split fulfillments - Route the order to the location that fulfill the most (or all) inventory without having to split the order between locations.

Thanks to Shopify and the launch of its smart order routing feature, Shopify merchants can streamline the logistics process. With tangible benefits for both the store owner and the customer, it's an investment that promises significant returns. As consumers become more accustomed to swift, hassle-free online shopping experiences, using a smart order routing strategy should be an essential part of your ecommerce toolkit.

Need help configuring your shipping and logistics? Contact our experts and you'll start seeing more profits in no time!

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