Many rapidly growing Online Retailers are taking real hits to their performance because the volume of orders they now face with the rapid growth of eCommerce is overwhelming. They can’t easily find the stock stored in their warehouse and their order fulfillment is slow. This eats into their profitability and their ability to grow due to inefficiency, errors, returns, and reputational damage.
The integration of the Logistics Cloud Co. Cloud Warehouse Management System (WMS) with Shopify provides a way for online retailers to start using a sophisticated inventory scanning and tracking system as soon as they are ready to start scaling up. Even a small warehouse with only 2 or 3 staff can get a significant productivity boost from faster receiving and put-away, picking and shipping because of the gains that come from real time stock tracking and scanning. When you grow big, the WMS will scale with you to any scale and level of complexity.
The LCC-WMS + Shopify solution is best suited to businesses that sell from stock and do not hold backorders when items are out of stock. The reason for this is that the WMS is designed to fulfill orders not manage orders. If you need more complex order management we recommend implementing an inventory management system. We can help you with this also.
Normal paid orders from your webstore will be picked up by the WMS for fulfillment automatically. Unpaid orders will not be picked up by the WMS until they are paid. Pre-orders are fine so long as you don’t release them as paid orders for fulfillment by the WMS until you have the stock.
We have addressed the major shortcomings of Shopify for inventory management with our integration. Our aim was to give you a system that keeps your product availability as accurate as possible so that you never disappoint your customers with unexpected out of stocks and also that you don’t lose sales because your stock availability went to zero when you still had plenty of stock. Some of the headline features for inventory management include:
1. Item Master
– We bring in all your products (with product options) into the WMS automatically including item pictures and barcodes to help you identify items when using the WMS
– We’ve built some clever features to help you:
– Manage sales of carton and eaches as 2 products in Shopify and as a single product in the WMS for more accurate stock control
– Manage product bundles with BOMs in the WMS to pick bundle components on the fly
– Track product categories in the WMS using Shopify tags
– Use product image URLs in the WMS to see product pictures on the mobile workflow.
2. Purchase Orders
– Load your purchase orders in the WMS from a spreadsheet or receive stock without a PO
– Optional custom integrations with your inventory or planning system
The received stock will be added to Shopify
3. Sales Credit Notes – Customer Returns
– Receive returned stock in the WMS and track RMA reference or adjustment reason codes in the WMS and update the stock in Shopify
– Process your refunds in Shopify
4. Returns App Integrations
– Use Return Logic or Return Rabbit to manage the returns process in Shopify with your customer.
– Our integration creates the RMA order in the WMS to receive the stock and update the stock in Shopify
5. Sales Orders
– Paid Sales Orders are loaded to the WMS every 5 minutes
– Use our sophisticated picking and shipping processes to speed your order fulfillment and confirm what you shipped to Shopify with tracking numbers.
6. Transfer Orders
– Load your transfer orders to WMS with a spreadsheet to ship to your retail stores or other warehouses
– Stock will be updated in Shopify for the sending and receiving Locations when you ship the transfer
– Manage stock at offsite storage locations using stock zones under a single warehouse in the WMS
7. Shipping Integrations
– Ship your orders and print shipping labels as you pack your orders
– Integrates with Starshipit, Shippit, and Yojee
– New shipping system integrations welcome
8. Stock Adjustments
– Manage your stock takes, cycle counts and adjustments easily with the LCC-WMS
– Adjustment transactions are updated in Shopify automatically
9. Stock Reconciliation
– Make sure your WMS and Shopify stock always stays in balance with regular stock reconciliations