Store order fulfillment

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Efficiency and optimization of processes are important in all industries but even more so in fast-paced retail organizations. Retail businesses are looking for ways to optimize their operations and order fulfillment. A simple-to-implement step toward such optimization is allowing retail stores to fill orders. With that ability, they can solve additional challenges like overstock scenarios for a certain store. Additionally, retail businesses can take advantage of the extra capacity that a store might have or its closer shipping distance to the customer’s address to optimize the cost-efficiency of order fulfillment.

To respond to this need, Commerce allows a unified order fulfillment operation at the Store Commerce, which provides a single work area to process orders. From the Order fulfillment operation in the Store Commerce application, users can accept or reject orders for fulfillment and mark order lines as picked or packed. Additionally, users can complete shipments for orders that are shipping from the store or initiate pick-up operations for orders that are being picked up by the customer in the store.

The organization might optionally use the notifications framework that is available in Store Commerce to show order fulfillment notifications. These notifications can ensure that employees are aware of orders that they need to fulfill. You can also configure the Order fulfillment button in your Store Commerce screen layout to show several orders that are waiting to be fulfilled. The Order fulfillment button can also be configured to filter by method of fulfillment (shipping or pickup), which allows the organization to show a segregated view of orders that need to be fulfilled for pickup in the store versus fulfilled for shipment from the store, if desired.

The Order fulfillment operation in Store Commerce only displays orders that are either picked up in, or shipped from the user’s store.

Manually accept an order in the store

To determine whether orders might be manually accepted or rejected in the store, a configuration setting named Manual accept is available at the level of each store. To set this check box, follow the Retail and Commerce > Channels > Stores > All stores path and select the store where you want to configure this setting, as shown in the following image.

Screenshot showing the manual accept setting on the Stores page.

If the Manual accept option is not set, then all order lines have a fulfillment status of Accepted by default and the store associates cannot reject the order, they must fulfill the order.

If the Manual accept is set, the users in the store must have the Store Commerce permission Allow accept order set to Yes so that they can manually accept orders before the store is assigned as the location to fulfill the order. To set the Allow accept order check box, follow the Retail and Commerce > Employees > Permission groups path and select the permission group where you want to configure this setting.

The fulfillment status of the order moves from Pending to Accepted when the user accepts the order for fulfillment from the Order fulfillment screens in Store Commerce.

If an order exists for customer pickup (for example ordered online, pick up in store), this order is never in a fulfillment status of Pending. This process is to help avoid issues that could occur if the sales associate does not have the necessary permissions to accept the order and the customer comes to pick up their goods.

After the order has been accepted, users can then proceed to pick, pack, and ship or implement a pickup on the order from Store Commerce. An accepted order line can also be selected and picked up or shipped immediately in Store Commerce without requiring pick and pack steps.

Manually reject an order in the store

The Manual accept store configuration also gives the option to reject orders for fulfillment in case the store does not have enough stock or capacity to fulfill it. Users are given this option by setting the Allow reject order permission to Yes on the Store Commerce permissions for the user. To set this check box, follow the Retail and Commerce > Employees > Permission groups path and then select the permission group where you want to configure this setting, as shown in the above image.

While rejecting a line, the retailers might want to require their workers to provide a reason for rejection. This requirement can be achieved by using information codes of Info code activity type or Order fulfillment and assigning the information code to Reject order line in the functionality profile that is associated with the channel. Lines might only be rejected if they have not been picked or packed. If the lines have been picked or packed, they must first be unpicked or unpacked in Commerce HQ before they can be rejected. The rejected lines can be reviewed in the HQ workspace named Store order processing and inquiry.

When an order is rejected at the store, if DOM processing has been configured, this rejection action sends a signal to HQ that it is not fulfilled at this store and the order is processed again automatically for reassignment to another store or warehouse.

Rejected order lines can also be manually reassigned in Commerce HQ from the Sales order page by changing the warehouse on the sales order line and selecting the Update line drop-down menu and then selecting Reset fulfillment status. After this step, the respective store employees from the newly assigned location can see the order for fulfillment by their store.

Pick an order

After an order has been accepted, lines can be selected and marked with a fulfillment status of Picking. This approach is a way to show that the picking process is already being run for that line, and it is useful in avoiding situations where multiple sales associates attempt to pick the same lines at the same time.

To assist the workers, you can optionally print picking lists from Store Commerce. The layout of those picking lists can be defined in the Receipts layout designer for Store Commerce. Selecting the lines and printing the picking list updates those lines automatically to a fulfillment status of Picking.

After picking has been performed, the lines can be updated by the user to a fulfillment status of Picked by selecting Mark as Picked from the Order fulfillment picking menu. Marking an order line as picked sends a real-time callback to HQ to allow the inventory transaction to be marked as picked to reserve that inventory. The updated available inventory levels for the store warehouse can be immediately reflected in HQ when the line is marked as picked. When picking lines, users can partially pick lines if necessary. If a quantity was incorrectly marked as Picked, the unpick process can only be performed in Commerce Headquarters and not in Store Commerce.

Pack an order

Order lines can be packed at any point after the order line has been accepted. Only lines on the same order and with the same mode of delivery can be packed together at the same time. The action of packing the order lines update the line fulfillment status to Packed (or partially packed if not all quantity was marked as packed). Marking lines as packed can also print a packing slip. Additionally, marking lines as packed initiates a real-time callback to Commerce Headquarters to allow the inventory transaction to be marked as packed so that a deduction of inventory can occur. This reduction in inventory levels for the store warehouse is then immediately reflected in HQ. Like picking, if lines are incorrectly packed, the packing slip journal can only be corrected in Commerce Headquarters and not in Store Commerce.

Ship an order

After the order fulfillment assignment has been approved, if the order was configured to ship from the store (instead of pickup), those order lines can also be shipped right away and the pick and pack steps can optionally be skipped. When you are selecting lines for shipment from the Order fulfillment page, only lines from the same order, even if they have different delivery modes, can be selected for shipping at the same time.

When lines are shipped through order fulfillment, the user can't change or update payments on these orders. Therefore, it’s important that these orders are pre-paid or pre-authorized with enough payment to cover the order total when the order is created. Orders that are marked for shipment from Store Commerce are invoiced in HQ directly, and any captured prepayments are settled to the invoice. If the customer paid by credit card, the previously obtained card or authorization tokens are captured and settled to the invoice as part of this invoice process that is done in Commerce Headquarters.