Inventory, Warehouse, and Shipping Overview

Before you start setting up warehouses, shipping, and inventory, there are a few important concepts to understand:

• Inventory: Product variant stock, which is assigned to warehouses.
• Warehouses: Physical locations where inventory is stored and shipped from.
• Shipping Zones: Define which countries a warehouse can ship to. A Warehouse can have multiple Shipping Zones.
• Shipping Rates: Define the cost of shipping based on weight or price of the order. Shipping rates are attached to shipping zones and determine the available shipping methods and rates available to buyers, based on the shipping address

The following diagram illustrates how variant inventory, warehouses, and shipping zones intersect:

• A product variant with SKU ABCD1231-1000042 has 50 units of stock assigned to the Americas warehouse
• The Americas warehouse has three shipping zones: North America, Central America, and South America that define the countries this warehouse ships to
• Each shipping zone has multiple shipping rates, either based on the price of the order or weight of the items

With this setup, when a customer from Canada purchases the product, their shipping rate will be assigned based on the weight of their order, with the rates available in the North America shipping zone.

Tasks involved in setup

To set up warehouses, shipping, and add inventory, you need to perform the following tasks:

1. Add a warehouse
2. Add one or more shipping zones to that warehouse for the countries you ship to
3. Attach the shipping zone to the warehouse
4. Add shipping rates to the shipping zone
5. Assign variant stock to the warehouse

note

You need the Manage shipping permission to create warehouses and shipping zones, and the Manage products permission to update product inventory.