What is order consolidation?
Order consolidation was developed to decrease shipping costs by minimizing the number of shipments. With this feature, two orders with the same delivery address will be merged automatically.
How does it work?
If two orders come in with the same Shipping Address--including the same recipient name--all the items on the order get added onto an informational record (this record is hidden from users). While the two original orders still exist separately, the informational record is what's evaluated for fulfillment. This typically results in fewer shipments created.
So if both orders have items from your local inventory, those will get added onto the same shipment. If both orders have items from the same external vendor, those will get added onto the same shipment as well.
How do I enable order consolidation?
This feature can be enabled through the System Config menu. Check the box for “Enable order consolidation for identical addresses”.
Can I disallow specific orders from consolidating?
Yes! You can do this by marking the Ship Service as ineligible to be consolidated. To learn more, check out this article: Prevent order consolidation for select Ship Service Levels
Two orders were merged but I want them un-merged; OR two orders were not merged but I want them merged. What do I do?
Though order merging happens automatically, you can still manually merge and unmerge orders through the Order screen. This gives you more granular control to accommodate special circumstances you may encounter. Refer to this article for more info on manually merging and unmerging orders.
Comments
3 comments
Can this feature be enhanced to take into consideration the Marketplace as well as shipping address?
Thansk, Matt
Also, this would need to evaluate if the same ship service is selected for the orders being considered for consolidation.
Thanks, Matt
Hi Matt! Upcoming versions of order consolidation will be likely be enabled at the channel/subchannel level. We're considering some options regarding shipping, such as allowing you to have orders to consolidate and upgrade to the highest selected shipping service, or using ship service as a consolidation consideration- meaning that if the orders come in with two different ship methods, they will not consolidate. Any thoughts on that?
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