What is a shopify location?
There are some aspects that the online world does for store owners, such as making fulfillment and scaling easier. In our online experience, location is becoming even more relevant. When the company expands, so will the places where you perform inventory operations. A location is a physical location like warehouses where you can sell merchandise, ship or fulfill orders, and store inventory, among other things.
What is Shopify multiple shipping locations?
As businesses scale and grow, managing and tracking inventory and fulfillment across multiple storefronts and warehouse locations can be challenging. That is when Shopify Locations comes in, a multi-location management function within the app that enables business owners to assign and monitor inventory in all locations where inventory is stored or fulfilled. Whether your inventory is housed in retail storefronts, warehouses, pop-ups, dropshipping facilities, or a home basement, this feature allows you to monitor inventory at all locations on desktop, web, and Shopify POS, making tracking and fulfillment much easier. Store owners no longer have to worry about long spreadsheets and time-consuming manual tracking processes. With Shopify Multiple Locations, they’ll be able to easily track their inventory across all locations and have more time to focus on growing their business.
In your Shopify store, you can set up several locations to track inventory and fulfill orders at various locations. You can now see which stores are overstocked and understocked on specific products, as well as whether you need to move items from one location to another or place an order with your supplier and have inventory shipped to a specific location.
Why use multiple locations?
In today’s industry, there are so many different distribution channels! Retail stores, warehouses, pop-up markets, drop-shippers, and every other place where inventory is stocked and handled are all possibilities. Shopify’s multiple location features let you sell items, ship or fulfill orders, and keep track of inventory for each venue. Below are 5 Significant Benefits of Managing Multiple Shopify Stores. You’ll have more insight into your inventory and into your business now.
Multiple warehouse management
Every retailer relies on maintaining stock levels and ensuring stock flow. It is, without a doubt, not easy because it requires various processes and components that must be treated correctly. When the company has several warehouses, products will be stored in a warehouse and shipped to customers in a timely manner. This lowers the cost of shipping as well as the amount of labor needed to deliver the products to the customer. A multi-warehouse inventory management solution would allow you to keep track of all of your inventory products in real-time through a single unified dashboard. You will achieve the full benefits of a distributed warehousing system when scaling up your operations as your company expands with an effective inventory management system.
Unique shopping experiences
If you sell to a variety of locations, creating a separate online shop for each location helps you to give your customers a more customized experience. You will grab the attention of buyers and stand out from the competition by prefacing your sales copy with local references and different tastes. Under the same brand, a general store, a high-end boutique, and a discount outlet will help your segmented customers find exactly what they want at the price they want.
Streamline buying process
Customers may have to navigate through messy menus or click through several category pages before finding the product they want and placing their order if you have a large inventory. By splitting the inventory into different shops, you can reduce friction in the process and make it easier for consumers to buy from you.
Local pickup and delivery
Sellers with both online and offline stores can now route orders between each store location, giving customers the option to shop online and pick up in-store, depending on inventory availability.
Dropshipping opportunities
Dropshippers can add more supplier catalogs and integrate shipping processes by tracking inventory by location, enabling retailers to handle more suppliers and provide a greater product assortment.
How many Shopify locations can you manage ?
The maximum number of locations you may have is determined by the Shopify subscription plan you choose for your store:
- Shopify Lite – 3 locations
- Basic Shopify – 4 locations
- Shopify – 5 locations
- Advanced Shopify – 8 locations
- Shopify Plus – 20
Notice, apps that are treated as location do not affect your location limit. The same as deactivating locations.
How to fulfill order with multiple locations enabled
Orders are assigned to a distribution location based on a priority list and available inventory when they are placed via any online sales channel. You need to specify the priority sequence for order fulfillment.
If any location has enough inventory to fill the entire order, the location’s inventory is used. In case no single location is able to satisfy the entire order, a split order is generated and distributed among several locations. On the order details tab, you can change the fulfillment location for each order.
Orders placed through Shopify POS are based on available inventory at the point of sale. When orders are placed to be delivered to a customer’s address, inventory is allocated based on delivery priority rather than store location.
Set-Up and Prioritize location
1. In your Shopify dashboard, go to Settings > Locations.
2. Click Add location.
3. Enter the name and address of each location. You must enter the full address of the warehouse if you are using shipping rates in Shopify.
4. Check Fulfill online orders from this location if you want this inventory to be available for online purchases.
5. Click ‘Save‘.
After entering a location, it is added to your fulfillment priority list as the last location. If you want to change that, click Edit fulfillment priority. It has a drag-and-drop functionality that allows you to change the order.
In this example, the Dien Bien Phu warehouse at the top of the list is the primary location. If the Dien Bien Phu warehouse is sold out, fulfillment priority will bump to the Q1 location, and so on down the line.
Change Inventory Quantities
When you make a product, it is only stocked in one location: the shipping origin of your store. If your store has several locations, the inventory at each location is shown on the product information tab. To ensure that your inventory quantities are accurate, you must update the specific inventory quantities at all of your locations. On the Inventory page, you can update the quantities individually or export and import inventory with a CSV file or by using the bulk editor.
With the following conditions, you can change the list of locations that stock the product and alter the product’s inventory levels at each location:
- All goods must be stocked in at least one area.
- Unstocking goods from locations with unfilled orders or transfers that include inventory of that commodity is not possible.
You can also prevent a location from fulfilling online orders by removing any inventory assigned to the location from a product’s online quantity.
1. Go to and select the desired product or variant.
2. In the Inventory section, click the quantity for a location in the Available column.
3. You can adjust or set the quantity of your inventory with positive or negative numbers.
4. Click Save.
Shipping rates
Your shipping rates are determined based on the location that is set as the shipping origin after you allow multiple locations. Any of your active locations can be designated as the shipping origin.
While fulfillment location, not the shipping origin, determines the rates for purchasing shipping labels from the Shopify admin.
You can also take advantage of shipping profiles. Set multiple shipping profiles to allow you to ship from different zones without keeping the same rate. Learn more about shipping rates.
How to improve multiple location solutions in Shopify?
Although multi-location fulfillment gives your order fulfillment process more versatility and differentiation, there are some things to remember before diving in.
Managing products across warehouses
Tracking different elements across warehouses is quite a problem. Multi-location fulfillment limitations made it difficult to update and track inventory accurately. This limits retailers in a few ways as it becomes difficult for them to:
- Enable customers to shop based on what’s in stock at each store.
- Enable pick up in store and use each brick-and-mortar store as a fulfillment location
- Monitor inventory by retailer, dropshipper, or warehouse position.
Each of these features is critical for multichannel retailers that want to have a seamless customer experience while reducing delivery times and costs through their fulfillment operations. Real-time inventory notifications should be implemented if you want to track the inventory efficiently across several stores. This will help you avoid overselling and other distribution nightmares that can cost you money, harm your brand’s credibility, and irritate your customers.
Managing orders and fulfillments
Another disadvantage of the multi-store strategy is that it makes order management more challenging. Confusion, delays, and errors may occur when customers place orders for the same pool of products from different sources. You’ll have an easier time meeting and tracking orders and returns if you centralize the order management. Here are several features to look for in A product inventory management (PIM) solution:
- Real-time inventory synchronization
- Processing and tracking sales promptly
- Orders tracking for multiple addresses
You can sell from several stores when processing orders from a single device, which is critical for effectively managing inventory and sales through multiple Shopify stores.
Managing customer services
When running several Shopify shops, there’s one area you can’t afford to overlook: your clients. It’s a lot to manage support for several stores with different pricing and marketing strategies. Investing in a solution that consolidates consumer requests and order information from all of your distribution channels into a single shared inbox, on the other hand, would aid the customer support team in resolving problems efficiently and accurately. You must have consistently excellent customer service across all of your Shopify stores, including:
- Quickly reacting to inquiries and satisfactorily addressing them
- Delivering products on time and in good condition
- Providing discounts and exclusive offers to loyal customers
The ten best apps for Shopify multiple location enhancement in 2021
Product Inventory Information
Product Inventory Information is one great way to display inventory information per location to your customers. Also, sort your locations by closest to customer, or only show inventory of relevant locations to them. Get more traffic to your physical stores.
Features
- Display Inventory information per location on the product page
- Show the exact amount, or only an “in stock” / “out of stock” message per location
- Display store pickup selection on the cart page
- Sort locations by distance to customer
- Integrates with Stocksync, Multi-location inventory, Zapiet Store pickup, Shopify Local Pickup
Price
- 14 days free trial
- $9.99/month: All Shopify plans
- $29.99/month: Shopify Plus plans
Store Locator Map
Store Locator Map helps you to add as many Store/Dealer locations as you want and let your customers find you quickly. Customers who enter their current location will be located to the closest store with the details such as an address, phone, opening hours, etc., and get instant directions on Google Maps. You can also add as many stores as you want by just uploading your CSV file within minutes.
Features
- Export and import unlimited store locations.
- Add all necessary store information such as address, contact info, website, tags, images, etc.
- Customize search box, location list, and map
- View full store list with a custom pin icon on Google map.
- Get instant directions from a location to any store
Price
- 14 days free trial
- Free: 1 store only
- $9.99/month: 2-50 stores
- $19.99/month: 51-500 stores
- $39.99/month: unlimited stores
Multiship
Another great way to generate more sales is by sending items to different shipping addresses within the same order. With Multiship your customers can set an address for each individual item in their cart, as well as select a unique shipping rate per destination. They can easily group items going to a single address and control over where they would like their items delivered.
Features
- Toggles between shipping to multiple addresses, and the regular Shopify checkout
- Let your customers choose from their saved addresses, or simply fill out a new one.
- Calculates shipping and taxes for each item in your cart
- Calculates taxes and shipping based on your shop settings
Price
- 7 days free trial
- $29.99/month: Multiple addresses
- $39.99/month: Multiple addresses + USA Sales tax
- $59.99/month: Multiple addresses + USA Sales tax + Google Shipping Address
Multi Vendor Marketplace
If you’re looking for an app to track inventory on multiple locations and manage orders accordingly, Multi Vendor Marketplace can help you. Both you and your seller will get the option to track the product inventory on the selected location while adding a new product.
Features
- Both admin & seller will have the details about the number of products available at each location.
- Admin can sync the location details of the admin’s store with the multi vendor app.
- The seller can update the inventory location from where the order gets fulfilled.
- Admin can set a fixed default Inventory Location for each Seller separately.
Price
- 15 days free trial
- $10/month: 3 stores
- $30/month: 10 stores
- $45/month: Unlimited Sellers/Products + Seller Shipping + Shipping Labels
Multi‑Store Sync Power
If you want to synchronize inventory and products across multiple Shopify stores, Multi‑Store Sync Power is a great app for managing inventory from any store with all the changes appearing in other stores. Sync Power automatically updates inventory in all linked stores whenever there is a new order, refund, or cancellation.
Features
- Synchronize inventory levels across stores / locations.
- Synchronize products’ fields across stores / locations.
- Create products automatically in all connected stores / locations.
- Complete multi-location support.
Price
- Free: Stores with 0 – 25 products
- $5.99/month: Stores with 26 – 100 products
- $10.99/month: Stores with 101 – 1000 products
- $15/month: Stores with 1001 – 5000 products
Store Pickup + Delivery
Whether you have one local pickup location or thousands, this app has advanced and customizable features, that help boost your conversion rate and offer your customers fantastic flexibility of picking up their orders in-store. For example, customers can view product inventory and location to see if they are eligible for delivery. You can control which products can be shipped, delivered, or pick up at what location, date, and time.
Features
- Multi-location pickup and delivery inventory
- Shipping rates availability
- Schedule in store pick up, local delivery and date-based shipping orders from the Shopify POS
- Automatically tag orders with their delivery date, time and location
- Live chat, telephone and email support
Price
- 15 days free trial
- $29/month: 1 – 3 locations
- $49/month: 1 – 20 locations
- $79/month: 1 – 200 locations
- $79/month: 1 – 1000 locations
Bold Store Locator
Bold Store Locator makes it easy to add unlimited locations. It lets you add a “Store” or “Dealer” locator section to any Shopify website. Customers enter their postal code, it locates the closest store, gives all the details, hours, etc, and driving directions are built right in. In addition, Bold Store’s dashboard is integrated with Google Maps that provides customers with the best driving directions and search results.
Features
- Add unlimited locations
- Adjust locations by dragging and dropping pins
- Bulk import/export
- Real-time distance calculator
- Multiple search options
Price
- Free: 1 store
- $9.99/month: 1 – 50 stores
- $19.99/month: 51 – 500 stores
- $39.99/month: 501-2000 stores
Gorgias ‑ Live Chat & Helpdesk
Gorgias is a customer support app, also known as help desks, that lets you gather customer messages from all your contactable areas. It’s so much easier to stay on top of customer service when you don’t have to log in and out of social channels, email accounts, and other places, but can just see all messages amassed in one place.
Features
- Support for multiple stores
- See the full customer live chat and message history across different channels in one dashboard
- Manage conversations from email, live chat, phone, and social in one helpdesk
- See customer support details and orders right next to the ticket
Price
- 7 days free trial
- $60/month: 300 tickets
- $300/month: 2000 tickets
- $750/month: 6000 tickets
In Store Pickup Local Delivery
In-Store Pickup is a locator app you can use to set different local delivery and pickup date/time slots. Also, multiple locations are available along with flexible delivery rates based on zipping/postcode, order value, weight.
Features
- Support for multiple stores
- See the full customer live chat and message history across different channels in one dashboard
- Manage conversations from email, live chat, phone, and social in one helpdesk
- See customer support details and orders right next to the ticket
Price
- 14 days free trial
- $6.99/month: Starter plan
- $10.99/month: Smart plan
- $16.99/month: Advanced plan
- $24.99/month: Premium plan
Store Pickup & Local Delivery
Store Pickup and Local Delivery is an app that helps you easily manage your delivery with multiple locations. It enables you to set certain available products on certain store locations and limit the delivery area by zip code. With Store Pickup, customers can choose the delivery time and shipping methods that they preferred.
Features
- The number of locations on the app can be greater than your Shopify location.
- Set up your date/time rules so customers can schedule their preferred pickup date and time
- Conditional pickup based on order total or quantity.
- Limits the number of pickup orders per slot.
- Limit your delivery area by postal code or zip code.
Price
- 14 days free trial
- $8.99/month: 1 store only
- $12.99/month: Local delivery only
- $12.99/month: Store pickup only
- $18.99/month: Both local delivery and pickup
Summary
Shopify’s multi-location system allows you to easily establish new distribution points, manage inventory, maximize inventory levels, and work on sales demand all from a single screen. With a few mouse clicks, you can prioritize and allocate inventory. Still, managing multiple Shopify locations can involve more work. Keep track of your inventory levels in real-time, assign orders, sync inventory, pick-and-pack, and much more. Take advantage of our tips to leverage your business practices.