Running orders with marketplace and shipping integrations

In a store that starts with a few orders a day, you can do everything by hand: note down the marketplace order, reduce the stock, type the shipment into the carrier's website and send the tracking number to the customer. As orders grow, each of these steps becomes a source of mistakes. The same product sells on two channels at once, a tracking number goes to the wrong customer, and the stock count no longer matches reality.

This post covers what to watch for when you bring marketplace, stock and shipping work together in one admin.

One stock, several channels

If you sell the same product both on your own site and on a marketplace, stock should be kept in one place and sent to the channels from there. Keeping two separate stock counts sooner or later means selling something you do not have.

When you look at a marketplace integration, check:

• How often do stock and prices go to the marketplace?
• Is category and attribute mapping done once and saved?
• Can your existing marketplace products be imported?
• Is every sync logged, and do you know where to look when something goes wrong?

All orders in one list

When marketplace orders land in the same list as orders from your own site, packing runs from one queue. The warehouse team packs the order without caring which channel it came from, and once it ships, the tracking number and status are written back to the marketplace.

Clear order statuses matter here. When the admin only suggests the next steps that make sense, mix-ups like an order marked “shipped” before it was packed become rarer.

Carrier integration: labels, tracking and emails

Once your carrier is connected to the admin, you create shipments there and print the carrier's label. The tracking number is added to the order automatically and tracking events are read regularly. Customers get “on the way”, “out for delivery” and “delivered” emails without you lifting a finger.

A carrier integration usually depends on your contract with the carrier and the API access they give you. Check in advance whether services like cash on delivery and courier pickups are part of your contract.

Several warehouses: where should an order ship from?

When you add a second warehouse, two questions come up: which stock will shoppers see, and which warehouse will the order ship from?

A healthy setup looks like this:

1. Shoppers see the combined stock of every warehouse that serves their country.
2. Warehouses have a priority order, and orders are filled from the first warehouse first.
3. Whatever the first warehouse is short comes from the next one in line.
4. No warehouse goes negative while stock is available.

Nothing changes for the shopper: even if the products leave from two warehouses, they see one delivery option and one shipping price.

Who sets the shipping price?

The shipping price you show shoppers and what the carrier charges you are not the same thing. You set the shopper's price by shipping profile and delivery zone, and follow the carrier's actual cost in a separate report. Comparing the two numbers regularly is the easiest way to catch shipping losses early.

For products with correct dimensions and weight, box selection and volumetric weight can be worked out automatically. Wrong dimensions mean the wrong volumetric weight and the wrong shipping cost, which is why it is worth checking the measurements on your product records.

Cash on delivery and the carrier

Cash on delivery should only be offered if the carrier delivering the order provides that service. For an order shipping from several warehouses, every carrier involved has to support collecting payment at the door. If they do not, it is better not to show the option at checkout at all than to cancel the order afterwards.

Daily operations checklist

• Are there errors in the marketplace sync log?
• Have the orders due to ship been packed?
• Is any shipment still missing a tracking number?
• Have products with low stock alerts been reordered?
• Have return requests been answered?

How it works on Milofly

On Milofly, Trendyol orders come into your admin, and stock and prices go to Trendyol on a regular schedule. With Yurtiçi Kargo, DHL eCommerce Türkiye and FedEx, shipments, labels and tracking run from the admin on your own contract, and without a connected carrier you can still enter tracking numbers by hand. The details are on the marketplaces and sales channels, shipping and delivery and inventory and warehouses pages.