Your Shopify store is scaling and growing with multiple inventory and fulfillment locations. It’s great to hear that! However, you find it difficult to manage and track your inventory across multiple storefront and warehouse locations. As a result, Shopify Locations, a multi-location management function within the app that allows business owners to assign and monitor inventory in all locations, was created. Without further ado, we will take a deep look at Shopify multiple locations with all the essential information.
What are Shopify multiple shipping locations?
Shopify’s multiple shipping locations are a challenging game for merchants who have different inventory locations. Because the items might be housed in retail storefronts, warehouses, pop-ups, dropshipping facilities, or a home basement, when the customer places an order, but the items are located in different locations, it might waste your time fulfilling them. Therefore, with Shopify Multiple Locations, the store owners will easily control the long spreadsheets and track the time-consuming tasks. Moreover, they can have more time to focus on their business goals and improve efficiency.
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. Also, you can move items from one location to another or place an order with your supplier and have inventory shipped to a particular area.
Why use Shopify multiple locations?
In fact, there are so many different distribution channels, such as retail stores, warehouses, pop-up markets, drop-shippers, etc. Everywhere can stock and handle your inventory. Shopify’s multiple location features help you sell items, ship orders, and keep track of inventory at each venue. Therefore, we produced 5 Significant Benefits of Managing Multiple Shopify Stores to help you have more insight into your inventory and business.
Multiple warehouse management
Retailers rely on maintaining stock levels and ensuring stock flow to deliver to their customers. 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 promptly stored and shipped to customers. As a result, Shopify Multiple Locations assists them in lowering their shipping costs and labor requirements. Furthermore, a multi-warehouse inventory management solution would allow you to keep track of your products in real time with a single dashboard. You will gain the full benefits of a distributed warehouse system when the company expands with an effective inventory management system.
Unique shopping experiences
When you sell to various locations, creating a separate online shop for each location helps your customers have a more customized experience. As a result, you will grab the attention of buyers and stand out from the competition. Also, under the same brand, a general store, a high-end boutique, and a discount outlet will help your segmented customers find exactly what they need at the price they want.
Streamline buying process
Customers may have to navigate through messy menus or click through several category pages with 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
Merchants who have both online and offline stores can now route orders between each store location. It will give your customers the option to shop online and pick up in-store, depending on inventory availability.
Dropshipping opportunities
In addition, Dropshippers can add more supplier catalogs and integrate shipping processes by tracking inventory by location, enabling retailers. So, they can 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:
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- Shopify Lite – 3 locations
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- Basic Shopify – 4 locations
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- Shopify – 5 locations
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- Advanced Shopify – 8 locations
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- Shopify Plus – 20
However, apps that are treated as location do not affect your location limit. The same as deactivating locations.
How to 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 to Fulfill online orders from this location if you want this inventory to be available for online purchases.
5. Click ‘Save‘.
How to fulfill orders with multiple locations enabled
Step 1: Select Orders
First of all, From Shopify Admin, select Orders. Then, the list of your orders will appear on your screen.
Step 2: Choose the order number of the unfulfilled order
Now, you can see all of the Unfulfilled Orders, let’s select them.
Step 3: Choose to Create shipping label
In this step, to buy the shipping labels for the order, your store online needs to be located in Canada or the United States. Next, choose to Create a shipping label from the option bar.
When you use Shopify Shipping, you should buy the shipping label. It is one of the best recommendations for your store. In contrast, if you use another shipping method, let’s come to the next step.
Step 4: Go to Mark as fulfilled
From the options bar, click Mark as fulfilled
Then, the message box will appear. If you want to send the detailed email for your customer, tick Send a notification to the customer -> Click Mark as fulfilled
Opt for Fulfill items and click Buy shipping label
On the other hand, you can fulfill items in a detailed order. After you click on any order, you will navigate to the order page, select Fulfill Items
Orders are assigned to a distribution location based on a priority list and available inventory when they are placed via any online sales channel. So, you need to specify the priority sequence for order fulfillment.
Besides, if any location has enough inventory to fill the entire order, the location’s inventory is used. A split order is generated and distributed among several areas if no single location can satisfy the whole order. 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 delivered to a customer’s address, inventory is allocated based on delivery priority rather than store location.
Shopify Bigcommerce Integration
Shopify Woocommerce Integration
Shopify Insightly Integration
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 difficult because of the limitations of multi-location fulfillment. So, this obstacle might limit retailers in a few ways as it becomes not easy for them to:
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- Enable customers to shop based on what’s in stock at each store.
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- Enable pick-up in-store and use each brick-and-mortar store as a fulfillment location
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- Monitor inventory by the retailer, dropshipper, or warehouse position.
Each of these features is critical for multichannel retailers to have a seamless customer experience. They also want to reduce delivery times and costs through their fulfillment operations. So, real-time inventory notifications should be implemented to track the inventory efficiently across several stores. It 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 fulfillment
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 order management. The following feature will offer you a solution for Product Inventory Management (PIM):
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- Real-time inventory synchronization
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- Processing and tracking sales promptly
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- Orders tracking for multiple addresses
When processing orders from a single device, you can sell from several stores, which is critical for managing inventory and sales effectively through multiple Shopify stores.
Managing customer services
When running several Shopify shops, you should make an effort for your clients. It’s a lot to manage support for several stores with different pricing and marketing strategies. Moreover, if you want to support your customers in resolving problems efficiently and accurately, you should have specific solutions. For example, consolidate consumer requests and order information from your distribution channels into a single shared inbox. Therefore, you must have consistently excellent customer service across all of your Shopify stores, including:
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- Quickly reacting to inquiries and satisfactorily addressing them
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- Delivering products on time and in good condition
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- Providing discounts and exclusive offers to loyal customers
Best apps for Shopify multiple location enhancement
In 2022, many apps for multiple locations were launched and updated with different valuable features. We researched to identify the 10 best apps on the market. The following information will give you detailed features and their pricing.
ProMap – Store Locator
Firstly, one of the top apps is appreciated by Shopify users – ProMap. This is an amazing app that helps you to add as many store locations on Google Maps. Your customers also can find your store easily and quickly. Moreover, they will give all information about the address, phone, opening hours, etc, of the closest store when entering their current location. In addition, the Support Team is always available to respond to every question.
Feature
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- Manage unlimited stores simply.
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- Promote stores with a custom pin, banner, embedded form, etc.
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- Display Distance and Directions
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- Bulk Import Unlimited Stores
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- Create API Key easily with our clear instructions.
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- Contact each store directly via address, phone, email.
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- Remove all locations in only 2 clicks.
Price
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- One store – 14 days free trial
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- 2 to 50 stores – $9.99 per month
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- 51 to 500 stores – $19.99 per month
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- Unlimited stores – $39.99 per month
Stockist Store Locator
On November 20, 2021, Stockist launched the apps to support Shopify Multiple Locations, and it was updated on February 20, 2022. The positioning and web interface will be combined in the stockist store locator. This app is suitable for stores, dealers, distributors, and more. Stockist Store Locator is designed to be simple and user-friendly, which helps you increase your in-store sales.
Feature
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- Results update automatically as the map is moved
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- Instantly show nearby locations based on IP address
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- Supports multiple languages/translations in a single shop
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- Tag your stores so visitors can filter them instantly
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- Drag & drop map pins to their exact locations
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- Show a logo or image for each store
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- Google Maps offers unmatched accuracy, even when customers misspell things
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- Works with any site, not just Shopify – show your Stockist Store Locator on your blog, partner pages, or anywhere else
Price
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- 14 days free trial
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- $10 per month – Up to 100 locations
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- $20 per month – Up to 500 locations
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- $40 per month – Up to 2000 locations
Product Inventory Information
Another, Product Inventory Information is one great way to display inventory information per location to your customers. Also, sort your locations by closest to the customer, or only show an inventory of suitable locations. Get more traffic to your physical stores.
Features
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- Display Inventory information per location on the product page
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- Show the exact amount, or only an “in stock” / “out of stock” message per location
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- Display store pickup selection on the cart page
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- Sort locations by distance to the customer
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- Integrates with Stocksync, Multi-location inventory, Zapiet Store pickup, Shopify Local Pickup
Price
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- 14 days free trial
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- $9.99/month: All Shopify plans
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- $29.99/month: Shopify Plus plans
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
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- Both admin & seller will have the details about the number of products available at each location.
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- Admin can sync the location details of the admin’s store with the multi-vendor app.
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- The seller can update the inventory location from where the order gets fulfilled.
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- Admin can set a fixed default Inventory Location for each Seller separately.
Price
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- 15 days free trial
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- $10/month: 3 stores
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- $30/month: 10 stores
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- $45/month: Unlimited Sellers/Products + Seller Shipping + Shipping Labels
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 in 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 picked up at what location, date, and time.
Features
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- Multi-location pickup and delivery inventory
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- Shipping rates availability
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- Schedule in-store pick up, local delivery, and date-based shipping orders from the Shopify POS
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- Automatically tag orders with their delivery date, time, and location
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- Live chat, telephone, and email support
Price
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- 15 days free trial
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- $29/month: 1 – 3 locations
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- $49/month: 1 – 20 locations
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- $79/month: 1 – 200 locations
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- $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 which provides customers with the best driving directions and search results.
Features
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- Add unlimited locations
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- Adjust locations by dragging and dropping pins
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- Bulk import/export
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- Real-time distance calculator
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- Multiple search options
Price
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- Free: 1 store
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- $9.99/month: 1 – 50 stores
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- $19.99/month: 51 – 500 stores
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- $39.99/month: 501-2000 stores
Gorgias ‑ Live Chat & Helpdesk
Gorgias is a customer support app 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 see all messages amassed in one place.
Features
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- Support for multiple stores
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- See the full customer live chat and message history across different channels in one dashboard
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- Manage conversations from email, live chat, phone, and social in one helpdesk
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- See customer support details and orders right next to the ticket
Price
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- 7 days free trial
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- $60/month: 300 tickets
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- $300/month: 2000 tickets
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- $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
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- Support for multiple stores
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- See the full customer live chat and message history across different channels in one dashboard
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- Manage conversations from email, live chat, phone, and social in one helpdesk
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- See customer support details and orders right next to the ticket
Price
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- 14 days free trial
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- $6.99/month: Starter plan
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- $10.99/month: Smart plan
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- $16.99/month: Advanced plan
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- $24.99/month: Premium plan
ProPickup: Store Pickup
ProPickup is an app that helps you easily manage your delivery with multiple locations. It enables you to set certain products on specific store locations and limit the delivery area by zip code. With Propickup, customers can choose the delivery time and shipping methods they prefer.
Features
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- The number of locations on the app can be greater than your Shopify location.
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- Set up your date/time rules so customers can schedule their preferred pickup date and time
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- Conditional pickup based on order total or quantity.
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- Limits the number of pickup orders per slot.
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- Limit your delivery area by postal code or zip code.
Price
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- 14 days free trial
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- $8.99/month: 1 store only
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- $12.99/month: Local delivery only
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- $12.99/month: Store pickup only
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- $18.99/month: Both local delivery and pickup
Map | Store Locator
POWR.io produced an app to help you set up and manage your multi-store. The customer can find your store locations, events, and product on a fully customizable map from the Shopify site. Also, you can customize your design, such as fronts, boulders, backgrounds, and more. It’s easy to set up and very mobile-friendly
Feature
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- POWR Map + Store Locator is fully functional in seconds.
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- POWR Map + Store Locator supports text in any language.
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- Add a search bar to your Map + Store Locator.
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- Get instant access to 50+ POWR apps.
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- Add your own custom pins to Map + Store Locator.
Price
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- 5 locations – free
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- Up to 10 locations – $5.49 per month
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- Up to 50 locations – $13.49 per month
Conclusion
Shopify Mutilple Locations 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. Please take advantage of our tips to leverage your business practices.
