Fulfilment Workflow

Selecting the orders that can be fulfilled

Orders are fulfilled if they comply with the below requirements:

1. Select all orders with the status Paid, Partially Refunded, Partially Paid) according to the product type (Warranty, eBooks, Coupon, Audio File and Fixed Price Warranty)

2. Select all orders with Reshipping status and the same product type above.

Creating the fulfillments

Prior to sending orders to be fulfilled, the system verifies the below:

1. Check if there were any problems last time the system ran the orders, which need to be fulfilled, if any issue is spotted the system will correct the order(s)

2. Remove orders with email such as "test.com"

3. Remove orders with Partially Refunded status

4. Remove old fulfillments that have been set as Reship, as order status, and have a Fatal Shipping Error as fulfilment status

5. Set with a Backorders status, Partially Paid orders in order to request the full remaining payment from the customer

6. Set the order status to Shipping for orders with Paid status, Shipping error, Reshipping and Partially refunded

7. Set the fulfilment status New (1), in order to prepare the system for the next step which is: to assign the warehouse

8. Fix old processed fulfillments – the system has a list of warehouse response errors, so in some cases, the system will automatically recover those fulfillments to the queue

9. Update the Inventory fields: Reserved New and Reserved Sent

Assign a Warehouse

Orders are assigned to a specific Warehouse by following the below rules:

1. Only active warehouses, set as Fulfillment Center and with API Integration will be used

2. Check for fulfillments with status Error (4) that was processed 36 hours ago and enqueue them – the status is set as New (1)

3. Select all fulfillments with the status New (1)

4. Select all Warehouse Products with available quantity [deducting from the quantity reserved for Pre-sale – not paid yet]

5. Check if there is any package group (DFO is the only one that uses it)

Remove orders from the fulfilment queue

Orders that adhere to the below requirements are removed from the fulfilment queue:

1. Ignore fulfillments in which SKU hasn’t been included in any warehouse and without available stock

2. Check shipping countries

3. Send to backorder fulfillments without warehouse (no available stock)

4. Update the inventory by checking the warehouse priority

Include orders from the fulfilment queue

Orders that obey the below requirements are included in the fulfilment queue:

1. Select all fulfillments with the status New (1) and without any previously assigned warehouse, grouping by email/zip code

2. Check if a warehouse is available (according to the shipping countries, available quantity, distance, and priority), then orders can fit one of the below scenarios:

Fulfillments are sent to warehouses three times per day

1. For the warehouses that have automatic stock reconciliation, the inventory is updated and just continues if this process is successful

2. Create packages for fulfilment with the status New (1) and with assigned warehouse

3. Update fulfilment status to Processing (9)

4. DFO is the only one that group packages, which needs to comply with the below rules:

   1. A single package may contain products of multiple fulfilments

   2. It is necessary to limit the weight of the package (according to each warehouse)

   3. If the warehouse limit weight per package is not null, use this value (Kg)

   4. If the warehouse limit weight per package is null, the packages will not be split based on weight

5. The system will also try to group similar SKUs in the same package

6. Before sending the fulfillments to the warehouse, the availability of stock will be checked between the products in the package and the warehouse’s real-time stock quantity

7. When the warehouse's real-time inventory is not sufficient, the system sends these orders to the backorder

8. Right after the shipment, each warehouse returns a response via the API, which is handled according to the documentation for each warehouse

9. The result of the API is updated in the system can be:

   1. If successful, the fulfilment will be set to status Sent (2)

   2. If successful and the warehouse provide the tracking number in the same response, the fulfilment status is set to Processed (3)

   3. If error, the fulfilment status will be set to Error (4)

10. Moreover, for all cases, the processing details field is filled in when available with additional information

11. The inventory is also updated again

12. Ultimately, the system checks the processing details looking for some warehouse’s duplicate answers (security) and in the case finds one or some, it updates the fulfilment process according to the response, so to avoid future errors.

Tracking Numbers information is received four times a day

In order to check with the Warehouses database if any tracking information is available, the system will follow the below steps.

1. Get all fulfillments with status Sent (4) that were sent to the warehouse 12 hours ago

2. Try getting the tracking number by API from the warehouses

3. Updates the system with the return of the warehouse (each warehouse has specific documentation)

   1. If a successful response is returned, then set the fulfilment status to Processed (3), as well as fill in the courier name and other processing details

   2. If a failed response is returned, then, set the fulfilment status to Waiting for Tracking Number (7). The system will try again later.

Recovering Fulfillment Information

Recover Shipments Information

• Fulfillments with status Error (4) will be set as New (1), after 3 hours.

• This process will be carried out in twelve attempts.

Recover Tracking Information

Once a week, the system tries to recover all pending tracking numbers from the last 3 months.

Recover Orders that have not been Processed

If something happens during the process of sending the orders to be fulfilled to the warehouse, and they have their fulfilment status set to Processing (9), the system will recover their status to New (1) so that it resumes processing on the next shipment.

Backorder Workflow

Below are some of the reasons orders get status backorders.

1. Insufficient stock quantity at the Warehouses.

Sometimes fulfillments sent to the warehouses are rejected because of insufficient stock quantity, system failure or rejection, and so on.

Therefore, the system will set those fulfilments with the fulfilment status Backorder (8), as well as group them to backorders and update their order status to Backorder (26), and leave a note in the order notes.

2. Reconcile the Inventory

For warehouses that have stock conciliation, the available quantity is updated.

3. Update Pre-Sale Inventory

Update the Warehouse Quantity Reserved PreSale field by deducting future sales backorders.

4. Process unpaid partially paid orders

Feed the Future Sale Backorders table with orders that are Partially Paid, not yet charged, with stock available for that, so that we can request payment.

Processing the orders that are in backorders status

• In cases, we had a problem during processing, the system ensures that we will proceed correctly.

• Remove any eventual backorders that do not have fulfillments with status fulfilment status Backorder (8)

• Add to backorder table fulfillments with status Backorder (8) that eventually is not already in backorder

• Updates the order status to Backorder (26) for orders that are in fulfilment status Backorder (8) and whose orders are not yet in Backorder

• Whenever the create fulfillments process fails, recreate the reshipments

Create fulfillments

Process orders with priority first, then the others.

Select all backlog backorders

1. Grouping rule

• Try to find a warehouse available to deliver the products.

• Remove Pre-sale orders which have already a warehouse that can deliver them.

• Set fulfillments status to New (1) and assign the warehouse

• Update the inventory

• Update quantity reserved for pre-sale

• Checks that there is no negative value for the Pre-Sale reserved quantity and the available quantity

• Remove fulfilments from the backorders table

• Update order status to Shipping (3)

2. Remove from queue test orders

Set the fulfilment status to Removed (6) from the queue where the customer name is an Automation or Tester or a dummy one.

3. Check duplicates

For security reasons, check if there are any fulfillments with the same shipping reference with the status not equal to Removed (6) from the queue.

4. Assign the warehouse

5. Process orders with stock availability of 100%

Backorders group by email and all products available for delivery

6. Reconcile inventory

For warehouses that have stock conciliation, the quantity available is regularly updated

50% Rule - Orders with stock availability greater than 50%

This process is responsible for processing all pending orders in a specific situation and this is why it is described separately from the above.

For example, the main order has 3 units of EarPods on it and it has 2 upsells with one unit of EarPods each. By applying the 50% Rule, this order is fulfilled ONLY if at least 3 units of EarPods are available to be shipped in the first package. Then a second package will be sent, once the rest of the items are in stock.

How the fulfilment works with orders complying with the 50% Rule

Group all backorders by order number and related upsell order.

• Check the increases in the warehouses since the last time that this process runs, to avoid process orders without available stock.

• Check if there is an available warehouse, which must:

  • have stock availability

  • delivery in that country

• If the delivery country is the US, CA or MX and the warehouse is in the US or CA the system will accept it as a valid warehouse

• Check warehouse distance

• Confirm that inventory is available in that selected warehouse

• If the products have:

  • Stock availability for which there is more than 50%

  • The SKU is in the exception list and with inventory available

  • Then, the fulfilment will be sent.

• Set the fulfilment status to New (1) and add a note to the orders notes section about this process

• Remove the order from the Future Sales Backorder if necessary

• Update order status to Shipping (3)

• Update CRM inventory

• Remove from backorder

• Check for any SKU exceptions that were not sent using this current warehouse. However, if it exists, the system will choose the best warehouse according to the same rules above and process it with the same actions to send this fulfilment.