Warehouse and fulfilment integration keeps the store in step with whoever picks, packs and ships: your own warehouse, a 3PL, or the carriers. It covers stock levels, orders sent for picking, tracking numbers sent back, and returns booked in. I connect Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce to Linnworks, Unleashed, ShipStation, Mintsoft and 3PL systems, and to carriers such as Royal Mail, DPD and Evri.
The systems, by name
Where the parcels leave from decides what the store has to be connected to. These are the ones that come up most.
Inventory and orders
Linnworks holds one stock figure across every channel and warehouse, takes orders in, and sends dispatch details back. For a Shopify store its channel integration covers the basics; the work is in bundles and composite products, multiple locations, and anything the order must carry to the packing bench.
Inventory management
Unleashed is cloud inventory software for businesses that make or assemble what they sell, with bills of materials, batches and serial numbers. Connecting it to a store means stock of finished goods reaching the site accurately, and sales orders reaching Unleashed in a form production can plan from.
Shipping labels
ShipStation pulls orders from the store, prints labels across carriers and pushes tracking back. Most of the integration is configuration; custom work appears with split shipments, multiple warehouses and orders that need data on the label the standard connection doesn’t pass.
Third-party logistics
When a 3PL ships for you, their warehouse management system is the source of truth for stock and dispatch. Many run Mintsoft or a similar WMS with an API; others take orders and return stock and tracking as files on a schedule. Either way the store must send orders promptly, accept stock corrections, and never oversell while a file is in transit.
Switching 3PL is a common reason for this work, and the most important part is the cutover: when orders stop going to the old warehouse and start going to the new one.
Carriers
Direct carrier integration books the collection, prints the label and gets tracking without a shipping platform in between. Royal Mail Click & Drop, DPD and Evri all have their own APIs. It is usually worth it only at volume or when a platform can’t handle a special service.
Several warehouses
Magento has Multi-Source Inventory and Shopify has locations, so both can hold stock per warehouse. The integration decides which location fulfils which order and what the customer sees as available, so a product isn’t shown in stock because of units in a warehouse that can’t ship to them.
Changing warehouse or 3PL
SKUs, locations, service levels and return reasons matched between the store and the new system before anything moves.
A staging store sending real-looking orders to the 3PL’s test account, with stock and tracking coming back.
Orders stop going to the old warehouse and start going to the new one at an agreed time, with stock counted at the switch.
Every order checked through to tracking, and the old route kept available until the last of its orders has shipped.
Fulfilment questions
Yes, through their WMS API where they have one, or by scheduled files where they don’t. The rules for stock, orders and tracking are agreed with the 3PL first.
Stock comes from one source, updates within minutes on fast lines, and a buffer holds back a few units where a delay is likely. The buffer is written down so it isn’t forgotten.
Yes. The integration routes each order, or each line, to the location that can ship it, and the customer gets tracking for each parcel.
Returns are booked back into stock at the right location, with the refund triggered in the store once the warehouse confirms.
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