Order Splitting Across Warehouses

How order splitting across warehouses works and its use cases.

IN THIS TOPIC

• When is it Used?
  • How to Enable
• How it Works
• Limitations

The default behavior for orders submitted to Flexe is that all lines on the order must allocate to the same reservation. If no single reservation has sufficient inventory for all lines on the order, it will not allocate until inventory becomes available.

Order splitting across warehouses alters this behavior by allowing different lines within the same order to allocate to separate warehouses.

When is this used?

Customers interested in order splitting must have at least two reservations. To make full use of this feature inventory would be segregated amongst separate warehouses. Companies that have all items regularly available in all warehouses in their network will not necessarily have a need for this feature.

Note: Flexe does not guarantee that order splitting will reduce shipping costs or transit time. Customers should perform their own analysis to determine if shipping the same order from multiple locations is the best option for them.

How to Enable

Order splitting is a feature that can be turned on at the account level. This means that if/when it is turned on for a company, all orders are eligible to be split if they cannot be fulfilled out of only one location. This feature must be enabled by Flexe.

Once order splitting is enabled, all orders will show a system label indicating that cross-reservation splitting has been enabled and therefore the order is eligible to be split if needed.

How it Works

When a customer order enters the Flexe system, it will first attempt to allocate both items to the closest warehouse to the end customer. This allocation will be based on the distance between the reservation and the delivery address.

If unable to do so, due to inventory not being available for both items at one reservation, the order will be split. Each line will then allocate to the closest reservation with inventory available. 

Each warehouse per reservation then fulfills the shipment created for their inventory. Once both shipments are complete the order will show as closed.

Limitations

While an order with two or more lines can split those lines, a single line with a quantity of two or more cannot be split. In this case the order line would allocate to the reservation which has entire quantity of inventory needed.