If you ship your orders through a fulfillment service, you can still use ShipStation to manage your shipping needs.
ShipStation integrates directly with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Shipwire so you can send orders to either service directly in ShipStation (we even provide an automated way to do it!). For fulfillment providers ShipStation doesn't integrate with, you have a few options available when using ShipStation as well.
Review the sections below for details on using both fulfillment methods.
Before sending orders to fulfillment, you must first add Shipwire or FBA as a Fulfillment Provider, and ensure the SKUs associated with your products match the SKUs listed in your fulfillment provider account.
Note
If you don't have an Amazon FBA or ShipWire account yet, review our Amazon FBA or Shipwire integration articles to learn more!
Before you can send orders to FBA or Shipwire for fulfillment, you must connect your FBA or Shipwire account to ShipStation. Follow the instructions in one of the following articles to get your account connected:
-
Connect an FBA account to ShipStation
At this time, you can only add one FBA account per country to a single ShipStation account. For example, you can add one FBA (US), FBA UK, and FBA CA account to a single ShipStation account, but you cannot add two separate FBA (US) accounts.
Once connected, the account will be available as a Ship From Location for your orders. You can then send orders manually to the fulfillment provider or create an automation rule that will send them automatically when they import.
Select the order(s) from the Order Grid.
-
Select FBA or Shipwire as the Ship From address.
Choose a Service to ship with.
-
Click Get Rate, then click Send Order(s).
Use Automation Rules to Set the Service
Avoid the manual process by setting up Automation Rules to automatically set the service when the order imports.
This will send the Order to the Fulfillment Service and update the status in ShipStation to the Pending Fulfillment status.
Limited Time to Cancel Fulfillments Once Sent
If you sent the fulfillment with incorrect information or created the fulfillment in error, you have a limited amount of time to cancel the fulfillment.
To automatically send orders to either FBA or Shipwire as soon as they import from your stores, you'll need to create an automation rule. An automation rule will apply to orders based on the criteria you set in the rule, so before taking this step make sure you've determined what criteria the rule should be based on.
Note
To learn more about how Automation Rules work, review our Automation Rules article.
To create a Send to Fulfillment automation rule, do the following:
-
This will open the new automation rule pop-up where you determine the rule's criteria and actions.
-
Set the criteria for your rule.
This is how ShipStation determines which orders to send to fulfillment. If all your orders will be sent to fulfillment, select the option to Apply these actions to EVERY order that is imported.
Common criteria include orders that have products with specific tags, orders that import from specific stores, and orders that ship to specific states.
-
Click Add an Action and choose Set Fulfillment Provider...
Set the Ship From drop-down to either FBA or Shipwire and choose the appropriate Service.
Check the box to Automatically send fulfillment request to the fulfillment provider.
Click Save Rule.
Going forward, orders that match the criteria set in the rule will automatically be sent to the fulfillment provider with the selected service. Repeat the above steps to create additional automation rules for different fulfillment scenarios.
To apply this new rule to orders that have already imported and are Awaiting Shipment, click the Reprocess Automation Rules button under the list of automation rules.
Warning
The above rule will apply to the entire order, sending all items in the order to fulfillment. If some items in an order go to fulfillment, but others do not, or the items need to be fulfilled by separate fulfillment centers, do not use this process as the creation of multiple shipments for an order cannot yet be automated.
Whether you send orders manually or via an automation rule, ShipStation will then create a shipment record in the Fulfillments section of the Shipments tab and move the order to the Pending Fulfillment status.
The status will be Pending until FBA or Shipwire update ShipStation that the order has been shipped.
Once ShipStation receives this update, the status of both the shipment and the order will be updated to Shipped. You'll be able to view these fulfillment records in the Recent section, as well as any other applicable statuses like In Transit or Delivered.
Keep in mind that the Recent status displays the past 30 days of fulfillments by default. To view fulfillments older than 30 days, go to the Ship Date filter and set a custom date range.
After creating a fulfillment, there is a limited amount of time to cancel the request successfully. If the fulfillment process has not yet started, follow the steps below to cancel the fulfillment.
Click Fulfillments in the left-hand sidebar.
-
Select the fulfillment(s) to cancel from the fulfillment grid and click Cancel Fulfillments.
The order will move to the Pending Cancellation status until the cancellation is confirmed by the fulfillment provider. If the order cancellations was successful, it will move back to the Awaiting Shipment status.
The SKU ShipStation sends to your fulfillment provider must match the SKU the provider has listed for that product. If the SKU that imports from your store matches the FBA or Shipwire SKU for that item, you have no further steps to take!
If the FBA or Shipwire SKU is different than the SKU from your store, however, you must enter a Fulfillment SKU in ShipStation before you can successfully send orders for fulfillment.
To enter a Fulfillment SKU for a product in ShipStation:
Click the SKU of the product to open the Product Details pop-up screen.
Click the Shipping tab.
-
Enter the fulfillment SKU into the Fulfillment SKU field.
This field can currently contain only a single SKU.
For FBA products, Amazon typically requires the MSKU value as the fulfillment SKU.
-
Click Save Changes.
To ensure this change applies to orders that have already imported, be sure to check the option Apply changes to open orders before clicking Save Changes.
For products with a Fulfillment SKU, ShipStation will send this SKU to the fulfillment provider instead of the SKU imported on the order.
Update Fulfillment SKU for Multiple Products
To update the Fulfillment SKU for multiple products at once, use the Product CSV import process. Enter the Fulfillment SKU into the FillSku field in your CSV.
If you use a fulfillment provider other than FBA or Shipwire, or if you drop-ship your products, and would still like to manage your shipments in ShipStation, you can use one of two methods:
-
Export order data to a CSV to upload or email to your fulfillment provider or drop-shipper.
You can then use the bulk Mark as Shipped feature when you receive the shipment service and tracking information back from your fulfillment provider. See the details below for a quick summary on this process.
-
Create a restricted login to your ShipStation account for your fulfillment provider or drop-shipper.
The idea here is to restrict the user to view only the orders assigned to that user. The user can then login and process orders directly in ShipStation without viewing or affecting any orders not intended to that provider. See the details below for more information.
If you do not wish to provide access to your ShipStation account to your drop-shipper, or if their workflow requires a CSV with a list of the orders they fulfill for you (perhaps because they generate labels outside of ShipStation), use the following method.
Create a tag for the products fulfilled by your provider.
Use a filter to display only orders that contain this tag.
Export the orders to a CSV file.
Once your drop-shipper has shipped these orders and sent you the tracking information, you can then bulk update these orders with a CSV import so they move to the Shipped status, and the tracking information uploads into ShipStation. ShipStation can then notify the selling channel these orders have shipped.
You can provide your drop-shipper access to your ShipStation account by creating a user login for them with restricted abilities.
Click Add a User Account.
Set the username, a full name and email address for this user.
Set the permissions to the appropriate level of access you’d like for your drop-shipper.
-
In the Restrictions tab, select the option to Restrict this user to only see orders assigned to them and Restrict this user to only see shipments created by them.
These restrictions will prevent the new user from being able to see or alter any orders you do not wish them to see.
-
Click Save.
An email will be sent to this address containing the username and temporary password.
You'll then want to assign orders to the new user you just created. Your drop-shipped can now login to your ShipStation account to view and ship the orders they need to process.
Assign Orders with Automation Rules
Use Automation Rules to automatically assign orders to your drop-shipper user by tagging the drop-shipped products and using the tag as the rule criteria.
To view the fulfillment status, head over to the Shipments tab, then select the Fulfillments from the left hand sidebar.
We receive incremental updates from Shipwire or FBA regarding the order status> However, you can also select one or many orders and click Update Status(es) for the most up to date status.
Once the fulfillment updates as Shipped, ShipStation transmits the shipping information back to the original sales platform.