Order Routing
Order Routing is enabled only when it's connected to a WMS system.
Order Routing page comes with 3 sections, Warehouse/Facilities List (read from WMS), Order Routing Rules and Customized Routing Rules.
Warehouse/Facilities List: can re-arrange the ranking of a facility by drag and drop.
Order Routing Rules: A set of default fulfillment rules that can help user optimizing their fulfillment process, reduce shipping costs, and deliver products faster to their customers. These rules include: ship from the closest location, stay within the destination market, minimize split fulfillment, and use ranked locations. Once the rules are chosen, they can be ranked in order of priority with a drag and drop. As an order comes through, We automatically check which fulfillment locations have that inventory available, then applies the order routing logic set to determine the location that orders get sent to for fulfillment.
Customized Routing Rules: A set of assessment value based rules, by Channel, Item QTY, Carrier and Shipping Method.
- Channel: Include or Exclude
- Item QTY: Greater Than, Less Than, Equal to
- Carrier: Include or Exclude
- Shipping Method: Include or Exclude
Use Case: Warehouse A is only capable of shipping small parcel, did not integrate with USPS, does not process Overnight shipments and only fulfills Amazon orders. User will need to set Include from dropdown and Amazon as the value, Less than 3 for Item QTY, set Exclude USPS for Carrier and Exclude 1 Day Shipping for Shipping Method.
Order Routing Rules
Ship From the Closest Location
Use case: A new order notification with different fulfillment options based on total miles to customer destination.
With this rule, we automatically calculate the distance between your customer’s delivery address and your warehouse location, then prioritizes the location with the shortest distance. The benefit of this rule is, the shorter the transit distance, the lower the shipping costs will be. If you cover the cost of shipping, you are decreasing your costs. If your customer covers it, a lower shipping rate at checkout will more likely convert that customer, drive customer loyalty, and lead to repeat purchases in the future. A shorter transit time also means a shorter delivery time, which leads to a better customer experience.
Stay Within the Destination Market
Use Case: A delivery from the Ohio warehouse to a customer in California. A delivery from the Ontario warehouse to a customer in Quebec.
One exception to the above rule is if the closest warehouse to your customer resides in another country. In this case, you may want to add the "stay within the destination market rule" first. Shipping internationally often comes with paying duty or taxes, increasing the cost of shipping for you or your customer. Additionally, many shipping carriers need to hand off the packages to another shipping carrier in the other country, which can increase the likelihood of a package being lost or of unreliable tracking information. If you do operate in multiple geographies, you may want to prioritize this rule in order to avoid these issues.
Minimize Split Fulfillments
Use Case: Different inventory in different warehouse locations. The warehouse selected for fulfillment has all inventory items for the order in one place.
With multiple warehouses, you will have inventory split across multiple locations, which means you may not have all the products in one place to fulfill an order. With this rule, the order will be routed to the location that does have most of, if not all, of the order items in one place. By minimizing split fulfillments, you are paying to ship an order just once instead of paying for multiple shipments for split orders.
Use Ranked Locations
Use Case: A warehouse location chosen over a retail store location
This order routing rule lets you rank your fulfillment locations. For example, if you have both warehouses and storefronts, you may want to prioritize your warehouse locations over your storefronts. If the items are not available in your warehouse, then it may make sense to fulfill that order from your storefront as a last resort. Another way to prioritize your fulfillment locations may be based on your warehouse costs. If one warehouse charges more to store inventory, you may want to get that inventory off those shelves more quickly.
View Order Routing Rules
1. A list of Order Routing Rules will appear at the top of the screen.
2. Reorder the Rules according to priority by clicking on the 6 dot icon and dragging them into the desired order.
Add Rules
There are two options for making rules, Order Routing Rules, and Custom Rules.
Order Routing Rules
1. Click on Add Rule.
2. Select between the following options:
- Ship from the closest location.
- Stay within the destination market.
- Minimize split fulfillment.
- Use ranked locations.
Customized Routing Rules
1. To add a custom routing rule, click + Add New Rule.
2. Enter a Rule Name.
3. Select a Warehouse to apply the rule too.
4. Define optional parameters:
- Channel
- Item Qty
- Carrier
- Shipping Method
