Fulfillment setup

Stage 1: Self-fulfillment

You pack orders yourself from a home, office or small unit. Order volume fits in your own hours, and you know every parcel that leaves.

1. Make the location real in Shopify. Settings, then Locations: name it after the place orders actually leave from, with a real address. This address drives calculated rates and customs paperwork.
2. Put real weights on every variant. Carrier calculated rates and customs declarations both read the variant weight, and a zero or guessed weight is wrong at both ends.
3. Match shipping profiles to what you can actually pack. One profile is fine while every product ships the same way; split the moment a product needs a different box, courier or lead time.
4. Decide your dispatch promise and write it where buyers see it. A two day dispatch you always hit beats a same day promise you miss.

Watch out
A location address that does not match where parcels leave. Calculated rates quote from the address on the location, so a wrong one misprices every order.

Then → stage 2: hybrid with a second location

Stage 2: Hybrid with a second location

Some stock ships from you and some from a partner, a prep centre or a second unit. Orders start splitting across locations and inventory has to be right in two places.

1. Add the second location in Shopify with its real address before you move any stock. The write panel on this page can create it after your confirmation.
2. Set fulfillment priority under Settings, then Locations, so orders route to the location you want to draw down first.
3. Move inventory deliberately. Transfer stock in Shopify rather than editing counts, so the audit trail shows where units went.
4. Give each location the shipping profiles it can serve. A location that cannot ship a market should not offer rates into it, or orders land there and stall.

Watch out
Inventory counted in both places at once. Overselling starts the day a second location goes live without a transfer discipline.

Then → stage 3: handing fulfillment to a 3pl

Stage 3: Handing fulfillment to a 3PL

A third party logistics provider stores and ships most or all of the catalog. Your job becomes keeping Shopify and the warehouse agreed on stock, locations and lead times.

1. Create the 3PL as a location in Shopify with the warehouse address. Customs declarations and calculated rates should reflect where goods actually ship from, which is now the warehouse.
2. Confirm how stock syncs. Most 3PLs connect through their own integration and update inventory per location; agree who owns adjustments before go live.
3. Set fulfillment priority so new orders route to the 3PL first, with your own location as the fallback you control.
4. Rebuild shipping profiles around the 3PL reality: their carriers, their dispatch cut off, their packaging sizes. Rates priced on your old self-fulfillment costs will be wrong.
5. Update the delivery promise on product and shipping pages. A 3PL dispatch window is different from yours, and the storefront should say the true one.

Watch out
Keeping your home address as the shipping origin after stock moves. Paperwork and rates follow the location address, and the wrong origin is a customs problem, not just a pricing one.