Getting orders from your store into fulfillment.
Three worked workflows — Shopify, WooCommerce and a direct API or feed — covering what data leaves your store, what status comes back, how stock levels stay honest, and what to agree before the first live batch.
The short version
An integration is an agreement about four things: which SKUs mean which physical goods, what an order payload contains, how often it flows, and what status comes back. Get those right and a shared sheet works. Get them wrong and the most sophisticated connection still produces picking errors and unreconcilable cash.
Three ways orders reach the warehouse
The mechanism differs. The loop — orders out, confirmation, dispatch, outcome back, stock reconciled — does not.
Shopify
Orders leave Shopify on an agreed schedule, fulfillment status comes back onto the order.
- Map your Shopify SKUs to the stock held in the warehouse, one to one, before the first order flows.
- Confirmed orders are sent through on the agreed cadence — an export, a scheduled feed or a connection built against Shopify's admin API.
- MFT confirms with the buyer, picks, packs and dispatches, and records the outcome against the order reference.
- Delivered, refused, uncollected and returned outcomes flow back so the Shopify order is marked fulfilled, cancelled or returned rather than left open.
- Available quantity is reconciled against warehouse stock on the agreed cycle, so the storefront does not oversell what the shelf no longer holds.
WooCommerce
The same loop, driven from the WooCommerce order list rather than a hosted admin.
- Match WooCommerce product SKUs to warehouse SKUs; variations need their own SKU or picking will guess.
- Orders in a processing state are handed over on the agreed cadence, carrying address, item lines and the COD amount.
- MFT runs confirmation, pick and pack, dispatch and cash collection against those lines.
- Order status is written back — completed, cancelled or refunded — so your WooCommerce reporting matches what physically happened.
- Stock levels are reconciled against warehouse counts, including returned units that inspection put back into sellable stock.
Direct API or feed
For a custom storefront, a marketplace, an ERP or a spreadsheet operation.
- Agree the order payload: order reference, buyer name and phone, delivery address or collection point, item lines with SKUs, COD amount and currency.
- Agree the transport: a scheduled file drop, a spreadsheet on a fixed cadence, or a direct call into an endpoint agreed at onboarding.
- Agree the status vocabulary that comes back — confirmed, dispatched, delivered, refused, uncollected, returned — and map it onto your own states.
- Agree the reconciliation file: collected value per order reference, on the settlement cycle for that market.
- Test with a small live batch before switching your full volume onto the feed.
What flows out of your store
- Order reference that stays stable through delivery, return and settlement
- Buyer name and a reachable phone number for confirmation
- Delivery address, or the collection point where the buyer chose collection
- Item lines with the SKUs held in the warehouse, and quantities
- COD amount and currency, or a marker that the order is prepaid
- Any handling note the picker or rider genuinely needs
What flows back to you
- Confirmation outcome — confirmed, unreachable, cancelled by the buyer
- Dispatch, with the route or collection point the parcel is on
- Delivery outcome, including the reason on a failed attempt
- Collection outcome for parcels sent to a point
- Return intake and the disposition inspection recorded
- Collected value per order reference for reconciliation
Where order sync usually breaks
None of these are exotic. All of them are cheaper to fix before the first live batch.
- SKUs that differ between the storefront and the warehouse — every mismatch becomes a picking error.
- Variations without their own SKU, so colour and size are decided at the shelf.
- Pushing unconfirmed orders straight through, which turns the feed into paid failed attempts.
- Order references that change between systems, making a payout line impossible to trace.
- Stock reconciled monthly, so the storefront oversells for weeks before anyone notices.
- No agreed status vocabulary, so 'completed' means something different on each side.
Orders only work as well as the operation behind them — see the COD operations guide for what happens once an order lands.
Integrations: common questions
Platforms, data, stock accuracy and setup.
Tell us your platform and volume, and we scope the order flow with the quote.
SKU mapping, payload, cadence and status vocabulary are all agreed at onboarding, before any live volume moves.