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Partial Shipment: What, When, and How? What is a Partial Shipment? The word partial means incomplete or anything done in smaller parts or fragments. In the context of shipment, partial shipment refers to an order whose items are shipped separately. This is done to ensure timely delivery. For instance, if an Amazon seller partially ships an order, some items will be shipped from their warehouse while some will be fulfilled by Amazon (FBA). So, when an order is shipped in multiple parts it is termed as Partial Shipment. Now, as a seller, keeping the record of such orders or tracking the backend operations might seem to be a daunting task. For instance, how to track the various items, how to make sure that the orders are marked complete only after all the items in an order are dispatched and the list is so endless. We have covered all the details about the same for you. Stay hooked and read the complete article! Let us begin from the scratch, as mentioned above a partial shipment refers to an order fulfilled post multiple shipments. This becomes particularly important when the items are available at different warehouses, shipping them in fragments ensures timely delivery. Another scenario could be when a particular item from the order isn’t available at the warehouse. Let us understand the whole concept with the help of an example. For suppose you are a pencil wholesaler and you need to fulfill an order of 1000 pieces of #2 yellow pencils. While getting the order ready you realize that you have just 600 pieces at the moment. How to handle the scenario? The first step is to talk to the customer, if the person agrees on a partial shipment of the order, ship the first 600 pieces and when you have the remaining 400 pieces, and ship them in the second shipment. Understanding the Importance of Partial Shipments Why Merchants Need A Partial Shipment Setup The first and foremost reason is that it leads to a better customer experience, as in the example above, the merchant could have lost the whole order due to lesser inventory. This would have resulted in a loss to the business and possibly losing the customer forever. But, since, the vendor could opt for partial shipping, an unforeseen situation was avoided. There are cases when the various items of an order are shipped from different warehouses. So, waiting for all the items to arrive at a particular warehouse and then shipping the complete order at once won’t ensure timely delivery. This is where the concept of partial shipment comes into play, depending on the availability of the products and the distance from the customer, separate packages can be sent to the buyer so that the complete order reaches on time. Another situation where the concept of partial shipment is useful is when some items of an order aren’t available at the moment, delaying or holding the complete order because one or two items aren’t wise. Instead, ship the available items, the customers will readily wait and understand the reason for unforeseen delay if they have most of their order delivered in time. Thus, keeping up with the customer’s expectations is of utmost importance to a business to maintain its reputation and build trust amongst its audience. How to Resolve Partial Shipment Requests Why Partial Shipments Are Difficult To Fulfill? From the customer’s point of view, this is a necessity. But, some merchants might seem challenging situations at the backend in dealing with partial shipments because it isn’t that simple and straightforward always. Some noticeable challenges that the business’s face are as follows – Shipping and tracking all the individual items in an order. Only after all the items in an order are delivered, the order can be marked as complete. Sending notifications to the customers about the order status, pending items, partial shipping, and so on. Before processing the new incoming order, complete the order that is incomplete and open. Sending the sale invoices for the partial shipments to the customers. With so many things to manage, the seller needs to have an in-depth idea about the inventory and the fulfillment processes inclusive of the ERP, accounting system, and eCommerce platform. The challenges become even more intense if all these tasks are managed manually. The chances of error increase exponentially. For instance, marking the order as complete despite some pending items or forgetting to ship some of the items from the order. Not being able to share the tracking details of the various items timely. Mismatch in terms of inventory quantities. So, it is always better to seek the help of the technology to automate the entire process as errors like these not only cause monetary losses to a business but spoils its reputation too in the long run. Improve Business Workflow Efficiency with Automation How To Automate Partial Shipments Technology helps in splitting your order with ease i.e., automated treats and processes each item as a single order. This allows the generation of separate shipment labels and tracking details. This doesn’t mean that the system loses track of the parent order, only after fulfilling the complete line of items in an order is marked as complete. ShipStation is popular software that small merchants use to manage their partial shipment orders. This tool helps to split the order into multiple parts, each containing its respective details, notes, packing slips, tags, and notifications. For mid-sized or bigger organizations, tools like NetSuite, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, etc can be used within their ERP systems. Now, the challenge in this process is all the updates regarding the order need to be regularly updated on the eCommerce platform after fetching from the shipping software. This helps the customers to know the exact status and the progress of their order. To automate this process as well, nChannel can be used, it is an integrated platform that manages your order as well as inventory data. By using this tool, the entire process ranging from- order workflows, updating inventory quantities, approving an order, tracking partial orders, marking complete orders can easily be automated.
The word partial means incomplete or anything done in smaller parts or fragments. In the context of shipment, partial shipment refers to an order whose items are shipped separately. This is done to ensure timely delivery. For instance, if an Amazon seller partially ships an order, some items will be shipped from their warehouse while some will be fulfilled by Amazon (FBA). So, when an order is shipped in multiple parts it is termed as Partial Shipment.
Now, as a seller, keeping the record of such orders or tracking the backend operations might seem to be a daunting task. For instance, how to track the various items, how to make sure that the orders are marked complete only after all the items in an order are dispatched and the list is so endless. We have covered all the details about the same for you. Stay hooked and read the complete article!
Let us begin from the scratch, as mentioned above a partial shipment refers to an order fulfilled post multiple shipments. This becomes particularly important when the items are available at different warehouses, shipping them in fragments ensures timely delivery. Another scenario could be when a particular item from the order isn’t available at the warehouse.
Let us understand the whole concept with the help of an example. For suppose you are a pencil wholesaler and you need to fulfill an order of 1000 pieces of #2 yellow pencils. While getting the order ready you realize that you have just 600 pieces at the moment. How to handle the scenario? The first step is to talk to the customer, if the person agrees on a partial shipment of the order, ship the first 600 pieces and when you have the remaining 400 pieces, and ship them in the second shipment.
The first and foremost reason is that it leads to a better customer experience, as in the example above, the merchant could have lost the whole order due to lesser inventory. This would have resulted in a loss to the business and possibly losing the customer forever. But, since, the vendor could opt for partial shipping, an unforeseen situation was avoided.
There are cases when the various items of an order are shipped from different warehouses. So, waiting for all the items to arrive at a particular warehouse and then shipping the complete order at once won’t ensure timely delivery. This is where the concept of partial shipment comes into play, depending on the availability of the products and the distance from the customer, separate packages can be sent to the buyer so that the complete order reaches on time.
Another situation where the concept of partial shipment is useful is when some items of an order aren’t available at the moment, delaying or holding the complete order because one or two items aren’t wise. Instead, ship the available items, the customers will readily wait and understand the reason for unforeseen delay if they have most of their order delivered in time. Thus, keeping up with the customer’s expectations is of utmost importance to a business to maintain its reputation and build trust amongst its audience.
From the customer’s point of view, this is a necessity. But, some merchants might seem challenging situations at the backend in dealing with partial shipments because it isn’t that simple and straightforward always. Some noticeable challenges that the business’s face are as follows –
With so many things to manage, the seller needs to have an in-depth idea about the inventory and the fulfillment processes inclusive of the ERP, accounting system, and eCommerce platform. The challenges become even more intense if all these tasks are managed manually. The chances of error increase exponentially. For instance, marking the order as complete despite some pending items or forgetting to ship some of the items from the order.
Not being able to share the tracking details of the various items timely. Mismatch in terms of inventory quantities. So, it is always better to seek the help of the technology to automate the entire process as errors like these not only cause monetary losses to a business but spoils its reputation too in the long run.
Technology helps in splitting your order with ease i.e., automated treats and processes each item as a single order. This allows the generation of separate shipment labels and tracking details. This doesn’t mean that the system loses track of the parent order, only after fulfilling the complete line of items in an order is marked as complete.
ShipStation is popular software that small merchants use to manage their partial shipment orders. This tool helps to split the order into multiple parts, each containing its respective details, notes, packing slips, tags, and notifications. For mid-sized or bigger organizations, tools like NetSuite, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, etc can be used within their ERP systems.
Now, the challenge in this process is all the updates regarding the order need to be regularly updated on the eCommerce platform after fetching from the shipping software. This helps the customers to know the exact status and the progress of their order. To automate this process as well, nChannel can be used, it is an integrated platform that manages your order as well as inventory data. By using this tool, the entire process ranging from- order workflows, updating inventory quantities, approving an order, tracking partial orders, marking complete orders can easily be automated.