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Automatic Drop-Shipping is a function in Volusion that you can use to automate your store's order fulfillment process if you happen to ship your products directly from a series of vendors.

For instance, if your store is a reseller of a factory-direct product which ships directly from the manufacturer, you can configure your Volusion store to sell and process orders for this product, even though your business will not physically handle the product.

Getting Started:

The set-up process for this type of configuration in Volusion is relatively simple. You will need to have a vendor rule set up which you can assign to the product you wish to auto drop-ship. Additionally, you will need to configure a few settings within the product to complete the set-up. When finished, whenever an order for the product is placed, your Volusion store will automatically send an order invoice email to the appropriate vendor, along with the ship-to address for the order and other details the vendor will need in order to fulfill the order. This article will walk through all of the steps needed to configure these settings in Volusion W09.

Creating a Vendor:

The first step in this process is to set-up some vendor information in your Volusion store. Here, you will want to enter information on the group or company that will actually be shipping the product your store will drop-ship. Here's how to create a vendor within the W09 store Admin Page:

• Log into your Volusion store's Admin Page and hover over the Inventory tab and click on Vendors in the blue menu bar. (Version 5 )
• If you haven't already, add a new vendor by clicking the Add tab near the top of the page.   (Version 5 )

When creating a new vendor for drop-shipping purposes, you won't necessarily be required to enter values for every setting for the vendor however you must configure the following settings:

• Assign a numerical value for the Vendor_ID.
• Enter a name for the Vendor_Title.
• Check both the Active and Allows Drop-Shipping values.
• From the Vendor_PO_Template menu, select PO_To_Vendor.asp.
• Select e-mail from the Vendor_PO-SendVia menu.
• In the Vendor_EmailAddress field, enter the email address the vendor will receive your invoice at. (Version 5 )

When finished, click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page and you will have created your new vendor setting. Remember the ID of the vendor you just created - you will need to have that number ready for the next step - setting up your product's Vendor Rule.

Creating Vendor Rules:

To auto drop-ship a product, you will need to assign the product to an active vendor that is set to drop-ship orders. This is done by configuring vendor rules within your product, using the following steps:

• In the Volusion Admin Page, click on the Inventory tab and click the Products link in the blue menu bar. (Version 5 )
• In the product's settings, scroll to the bottom of the page until you see the heading, "Vendor Rules for product code". Click this header to view its settings.
• In the Vendor Rules area, enter the ID number of the vendor you just created in the previous section.
• Also enter a product code into the Vendor PartNo field. This is the code or number your vendor has assigned to the product - as opposed to your product code.
• Finally, enter a value for the minimum quantity that can be drop-shipped for this product and a price (note, this is the vendor's price for the product, not the price that you sell the product for). (Version 5 )

When finished, click the "Save Changes to Vendor Rules" button. You should then see your vendor information loaded into your Vendor Rules table.

You'll almost done - finally, you'll need to configure the following settings in your product under the Vendor Information header to make the auto drop-shipping function work:

• Enter zero or a negative value for your product's Stock Status field.
• Ensure the DoNotAllowBackOrders option is not enabled.
• Enable the AutoDropShip option.
• Click the Update button when finished. (Version 5 )

Summary:

Once you've completed these settings, your product will be fully configured to auto drop-ship. Whenever an order is placed, once the payment is either authorized or received, (or the vendor PO is manually sent from the order's details page), your product's vendor will receive an email for product on order, along with the information they will need to fulfill that order.

For additional information on the Vendors section of the Volusion online store, including some tips and tricks on how to use this portion of Volusion, please see the Volusion V5 online manual chapter on Vendors.