A Step-by-Step Guide on How We Fulfill Orders by 3PL Warehouses & Faire
Over the past couple of years, I've received several questions about how we manage order fulfilment when working with a Third-Party Logistics (3PL) warehouse, especially in the context of Faire. So, I thought it was time to break it down and share exactly how it works in our business.
If you’re using a 3PL warehouse and Faire marketplace to manage your wholesale orders, this guide will walk you through the process of syncing everything. It covers everything from accepting an order to shipping it out. So, let’s get into it!
Step 1: Accepting Orders on Faire Marketplace
When a retailer places an order on the Faire platform, it triggers a series of actions. The first thing we do is accept the order in the Faire system, just like you would with any other platform. Once accepted, we input the date, and that’s when the magic starts happening.
We use the Shopify integration with Faire marketplace, which pulls the order into Shopify as a wholesale order. Once the order is pulled into Shopify, we use Shopify Flows to tag it appropriately. Specifically, we tag these orders as “wholesale” so we can easily distinguish them from our other orders. This tagging system is crucial for automating the next steps in our fulfilment process.
Step 2: Syncing with the Warehouse Management System
Once the order is tagged in Shopify, it syncs with our Warehouse Management System (WMS) via an API. This system is connected to Shopify and automatically reads the tags we’ve applied. The warehouse doesn’t know whether the order came through Faire or another channel. All it knows is that it’s a wholesale order because of the tag.
The WMS then processes the order according to its own internal rules. These rules dictate how orders are grouped, prioritised, and routed through the warehouse system. This means our wholesale orders are handled differently from our B2C (business-to-consumer) orders, which go through separate workflows.
Step 3: Shipping and Courier Selection
When the warehouse receives the wholesale order, it knows that it needs to be shipped using specific shipping methods for wholesale clients. For example, in our case, UK wholesale orders are typically shipped using DPD or Fedex, a trusted courier service. This is different from our B2C orders, which might be shipped with other couriers like Royal Mail.
Once the warehouse picks, packs, and ships the order, a tracking number is generated. At this stage, we get the tracking number in the portal, and that’s when we move to the next step.
Step 4: Updating Faire with Tracking Information
Here’s where the process requires a bit of manual input. Faire marketplace doesn’t currently pull the tracking number from Shopify automatically. This means that we need to manually enter the tracking information into the Faire system.
To do this, we copy the tracking number from our Shopify portal, go into the Faire app, and then input the tracking number, select the courier, and mark the order as fulfilled.
While this is a straightforward process, I do wish that Faire could automatically pull the tracking number from Shopify. This would save time and reduce the chance of errors or delays. So, if you're reading this, Faire, this would be an amazing feature to add in the future!
Step 5: Handling Shipping Costs
One of the challenges we’ve faced when fulfilling orders through Faire is the shipping cost calculation at checkout. While Faire wholesale marketplace estimates shipping costs at checkout, these estimates are often inaccurate, especially for international orders.
To manage this, we’ve set up our own system for shipping costs. For UK orders, we don’t charge shipping unless the order is under a certain threshold. If the order exceeds that threshold, shipping is free. For orders under the threshold, we charge a fixed amount.
However, the shipping estimates provided by Faire have sometimes been off, which leads to confusion and lost sales. But there’s good news on the horizon! Faire is currently testing a new shipping cost feature. This beta test will give merchants more control over the shipping calculations at checkout, allowing us to set fixed shipping prices instead of relying on estimates.
We’re excited to see how this new feature pans out and will update you once we’ve had more time to test it.
Step 6: Why We Don’t Use Faire’s Shipping Labels
You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned using Faire’s own shipping labels for fulfilment. While we did explore this option, it wasn’t a good fit for our business for a few reasons.
The primary issue is that using Faire’s shipping labels would disrupt the automation of our warehouse system. When an order comes in through Shopify, it’s automatically processed by our warehouse management system, which handles everything from picking and packing to shipping.
If we used Faire’s shipping labels, it would require us to pause the workflow in our warehouse system, manually retrieve the shipping label from Faire, and then send it to the warehouse. This adds extra manual steps and touchpoints, which is the opposite of what we want in our fulfilment process. We want to reduce admin, not increase it!
So, while Faire’s shipping labels may work for some businesses, we’ve found it more efficient to handle our own shipping and use our preferred couriers.
Step 7: Automation and the Future of Fulfilment with Faire
Overall, the fulfilment process we have with our 3PL warehouse and Faire wholesale marketplace is working well. It’s efficient, and once we input the tracking information, our job is done—unless there’s a follow-up question from the customer.
That said, we’re always looking for ways to improve and streamline things. The next big step would be for Faire to automatically pull the tracking number from Shopify into their system and mark the order as fulfilled without requiring any manual input from us.
We’ve been using this system for over three years, and it’s been working well. However, the more automation we can have, the better.
Final Thoughts
If you’re considering using a 3PL warehouse to fulfil your orders on Faire, I hope this post gives you a clearer idea of how the process works. We’ve had great success with this system, and despite a few minor manual steps, it’s an effective way to handle wholesale orders.
If you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to drop us an email at hello@candidfounders.com; we’ll respond as quickly as possible. We’ve summarised all the points in this blog on this video.
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