Glossary
Fulfillment service
A fulfillment service is a third party connected to Shopify that holds your stock and ships your orders automatically.
It shows up in Shopify as a location like any other, and behaves nothing like one.
What is different about it
- Orders route to it and are fulfilled without anyone in your team touching them
- Stock levels are reported by the provider, not counted by you
- You cannot adjust the quantity from the Shopify admin
- You cannot walk to the shelf and look
That last one is the real change. Every question about a number becomes a support ticket with a third party.
Ask before you sign
How often do they count, and do they share the results? What happens to a delivery that arrives with no advance shipping notice? Who pays when they ship the wrong size?
The answers vary far more between providers than the price does.
Where it goes wrong
Their number and your number drift and nobody owns the difference. Your stock accuracy is now theirs, reported at whatever interval they choose, and you find out at the year end.
The other one is splitting a line across a 3PL and your own stockroom. Shopify will fill from one location, so a customer ordering three when each side holds two gets an order that cannot be filled from either.
Related terms
3PL
Also called: Third-party logistics
A 3PL is a company that stores your stock and ships your orders, so you do not run a warehouse yourself.
Location
Also called: Shopify location
A location is a place Shopify holds stock, such as a shop, a stockroom, a warehouse or a third party who ships for you.
Fulfillment
Also called: Fulfilment
Fulfillment is the step where you tell Shopify an order has been picked, packed and sent, which closes it and releases the stock.