How do I ship Shopify orders from more than one location?
Shopify assigns each order to a location using your order routing configuration and available inventory, then creates one fulfillment order per assigned location. You fulfill each one where its items are, so a split order produces two fulfillments with their own tracking numbers. Move a fulfillment order to another location when the assignment is wrong and work has not begun.
How Shopify decides where an order goes
Orders placed through any online sales channel are assigned to a location based on your order routing configuration and available inventory. The default rules aim to minimize split fulfillments by choosing locations that can fulfill all items, stay within the destination market when possible, and ship from the closest location to reduce delivery times.
If no single location can fulfill the order, it is split across multiple locations or the highest priority location oversells the product.
Fulfilling a split order
Open the order and note that it has more than one unfulfilled section, one per assigned location.
Fulfill the section whose items are in front of you, with that box's tracking number.
Leave the other section alone until that location ships.
Fulfill the second section from its location with its own tracking number.
The order moves to Fulfilled when the last item ships.
Each fulfillment sends its own shipping confirmation, so the customer hears about each parcel.
Setting up the locations themselves
A location is any physical place where you sell products, fulfill orders or stock inventory, which covers warehouses, retail stores and pop ups. The maximum number depends on your Shopify subscription plan. Stock each item where it really is before you tune any routing, because the routing decision is made from the inventory records rather than from what is on the shelf.
Keeping the ship from address honest
Every location has its own address, and that is the address the carrier should see as the origin. Shipping from the wrong origin distorts transit expectations and puts the wrong return address on the parcel. Any system printing your labels should read the assigned location on the fulfillment order and use its address, not one store wide default.
| Question | Where the answer lives |
|---|---|
| Which location ships this? | The assigned location on the fulfillment order |
| What is the origin address? | That location's address |
| Why did it split? | Inventory available per location |
| Can I move it? | Only while work has not begun on that fulfillment order |
Ranking your locations
If you want specific locations to fulfill orders before others, configure order routing rules to rank them. That is the supported way to express that your main warehouse should be asked first, or that a retail store only ships when nothing else can. Keep the minimize split fulfillments behaviour unless two parcels is genuinely what you want.
Key takeaways
- A location is any physical place where you sell, fulfill or stock.
- By default, if any location can fulfill the whole order, inventory is taken from there.
- Orders split automatically when no single location has enough inventory.
- The ship from address should follow the assigned location, not a store default.
Orders arrive grouped by the location that ships them
The Shopify connection is in early access. We read your locations and the assigned location on each fulfillment order, so The Workbench groups the day's work by where it ships from and the label origin follows that location rather than one store default. Rate USPS and UPS across the batch, print one merged PDF with pick lists and packing slips, and each purchase writes its fulfillment back with tracking so Shopify notifies the buyer.
Related questions
Not absolutely, because an order can only be filled from stock that exists. What you can do is use order routing rules that minimize split fulfillments, keep inventory counts accurate at every location, and hold enough of your fast moving items at your main location. Splits that keep recurring on the same item are usually an inventory record problem.
Change the location on the unfulfilled part of the order, adding a reason so the order timeline records it. Shopify refuses the move when the fulfillment order is closed, when progress has been manually reported, when the destination does not stock the item, or while a fulfillment service has been asked to act on it. Already fulfilled line items always stay with the original location.
No. What each location needs is a correct address, because that is what the label uses as its origin. A single account can print labels from several origins. Where locations do differ is service availability and transit time, which is why the same service can quote differently from two of your locations.
Shopify states that the maximum number of locations depends on your store's subscription plan, so check your plan rather than a number quoted elsewhere. Most sellers hit a practical limit first: every location is a place inventory has to be counted correctly, and a location with drifting counts sends orders to the wrong bench.