The right address on every slip
Customers often pay with one address and deliver to another. The packing slip always shows where the goods are actually going, not who is paying for them.
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Case study · WooCommerce fulfilment & business automation
Routing Online Orders to the Right Warehouse Automatically
How automatic WooCommerce order routing stopped a seed supplier picking apart mixed orders by hand.
An established UK seed supplier sells through its WooCommerce shop, but its products are dispatched from two different locations. A customer can buy from both in a single order, and the shop treats that as one order like any other.
Behind the scenes, one of the warehouses needed dispatch instructions for its own products only, and nothing else. Without automation, that meant someone opening each order, working out what belonged where and writing up instructions for the warehouse.
Discuss automating your orders- Environment
- WooCommerce shop with products dispatched from two locations
- Challenge
- Mixed orders that had to be picked apart by hand
- Requirement
- A designated warehouse sent only the instructions it needs
- Approach
- A focused automation built into the shop, not a new system
The situation
One order, two warehouses, and a manual step in between
A typical order might contain five products, only two of which are sent from one of the warehouses. Every order like that needed someone to:
- Open the order and check every product in it.
- Work out which items that warehouse was responsible for.
- Write up the dispatch instructions and send them on.
- Make sure the warehouse wasn’t asked to send something it doesn’t stock.
It worked, but it took time on every order and relied on people getting it right, especially when the busy sowing season arrived.
What we built
From online order to warehouse instructions, automatically
Everything happens inside the shop as part of normal order processing, so there is no extra system for the team to learn or log in to.
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01
Every product knows where it is sent from
Each product now has a dispatch location, set on the product itself. If a product moves to the other warehouse, staff simply update it, with no spreadsheets and no developer needed.
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02
Each order is checked automatically
When an order is ready for processing, the shop looks at every item and picks out the ones that warehouse is responsible for. The customer’s order stays whole, so payments, refunds, accounts and sales reports all work exactly as before.
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03
A branded packing slip, ready to print
A PDF packing slip is created listing only that warehouse’s items, with the order number, delivery address, product codes and quantities, carrying the company’s own branding.
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04
Sent straight to the warehouse
The packing slip is emailed to the warehouse automatically, with copies to the right people in the office so everyone can see what has gone out.
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05
Protected against duplicates
Orders change status several times, and some of those changes can repeat. Each order is marked when its instructions are sent, so the normal order process doesn’t send the warehouse duplicate instructions for the same order.
Getting the details right
The small things that make it dependable
Automation only helps if people can trust it. Careful testing turned up several details that would have caused problems in day-to-day use.
Recognised however it was entered
Testing showed some products had their location saved in slightly different ways depending on how they were edited. The system now recognises them all, so no product is quietly missed.
Tested on real orders, safely
We built a way to run the process against past orders, so changes could be checked thoroughly without placing new orders each time.
A professional document
The company logo and layout were refined so every packing slip looks consistent and prints cleanly.
A clear trail on every order
Each order records when its warehouse instructions were sent, so staff can see what has happened without asking anyone.
Nothing left behind
Packing slips are tidied away once they have been sent, so files don’t quietly pile up on the server over time.
The result
The warehouse gets exactly what it needs, when the order is ready for processing
Orders no longer need opening, checking and writing up by hand for that warehouse. It receives a clear packing slip listing only its own items, and the office is kept in the loop automatically.
The risk of a warehouse being asked to send something it doesn’t stock, or receiving duplicate instructions for the same order, has been greatly reduced. And because dispatch locations live on the products themselves, the business can change its arrangements whenever it needs to.
Automatic
Mixed orders picked apart
Only its items
On the warehouse packing slip
Protected
Against duplicate instructions
1 order
Kept whole for the customer
Why it matters
Your website should fit your business, not the other way round
Most online shops assume every order is sent from one place. Plenty of real businesses don’t work like that: they have more than one warehouse, a supplier who sends some items direct, or trade and retail orders handled differently.
A standard shipping plugin works out delivery charges at checkout. It doesn’t sort out who sends what once the order is placed. That needed something built around how this business actually operates, and we kept it focused rather than bringing in a large system the team would have to work around.
This is part of a long-term working relationship. Because we look after the shop day to day, the automation is looked after alongside everything else and can be adjusted as the business changes.
Is your team doing by hand what your shop could do for you?
Tell us how orders, stock or customer information move around your business today. We will suggest where automation would save time and reduce mistakes.
Call 0333 444 0283 or contact Digital Flair.