A detailed explanation of what happens when an order is added to eTail Support through a Sales Platform

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WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO ACHIEVE WHEN PROCESSING SALES ORDERS IN eTail Support? #

The key purpose of Order Records in eTail Support is to help you to fulfil your customers orders accurately, quickly and efficiently.

The proper handling of orders is vital to keeping accurate stock records, and when an order is shipped it’s important to create an accurate sales invoice and post it to your accounts, and to be able to reconcile the sales invoices with the customer’s payments.

Keeping records of your customers and their buying patterns can be very helpful so we do that and of course you need to track sales tax liabilities, so we do that as well.

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HOW DO ORDERS GET INTO eTail Support? #

Although you can manually create an order in eTail Support, most orders are added to eTail Support through an API or an upload from a sales platform like Shopify, Amazon or ebay.   

When an order is added to eTail Support through an API link to a sales platform like Amazon, ebay or Shopify or when one is added through a .csv upload or a  direct API link to another system, the system goes through the same process to add the order correctly, that process is outlined below..

WHAT DOES eTail Support DO WHEN AN ORDER IS ADDED? #

First the order is allocated to an existing customer account, or, if it’s a new order from a new customer, a new customer account is created. #

When an order is added to eTail support the system first checks to see if the customer has ordered from you previously – to see if it should add the order to an existing customer account or create a new customer account. It does this by matching the customers email address to the email addresses of previous customers.

Only eMail address is considered in the matching process.

If a customer places an order with the same email address and every other detail of their name, address etc is different, then the new order will be linked to the existing account and new contacts and addresses will be created in the same customer account.

If a customer using the same name, delivery address and phone number, but a different email address places an order, then a new account will be created for that ‘new’ customer.

This process is not perfect – but it is effective.

Customer records can be merged, if necessary, but they are very hard to split, so it’s better to err on the side of creating new accounts if necessary.

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Next the system checks to see if the products on the order are already set up in the system. #

Once the customer record is selected or created, the system moves on to check to see if the products on the order are already in the system as product bundles or as products.

Is it a Product Bundle? #

The system checks the SKU of the products on the order provided by the sales platform against the Integration SKU of Product Bundles that are set up in the system – if there is a match then the system will add the items specified in the Product Bundle record to the order – if there is no match, then the system will move on to check the SKU provided by the sales platform against the Product Records in the system.

Is the product in the system? #

Once the system has confirmed that the item is not a Product Bundle it will move on and compare the SKU of the products on the order provided by the sales platform against the Integration SKU of Product Records already in the system– if there is a match then the system will create the order with the product from the system

If there is no match, a new Product Record is created. #

If there is no match between the SKU provided by the sales platform and either the Product Bundles or the Product Records already in the system, then the system will create a new Product Record with the product details from the order and use that new record in the Order.

Adding the final touches #

The order number from the platform will be used as the ‘Customer Order #’ of the order and a new eTail support order reference (CO-XXX) will be created for the order. ‘CO-‘ order references are allocated sequentially.

A note will be created in the order notes to say when the order was created and which platform it was downloaded from.

Then we allocate the order to a warehouse. #

The warehouse that the order is allocated to will be set based on the default set in the integration details for the sales platform.

Next the shipping details for the order are set to their initial configuration. #

The default shipping service to be used for the order is set based on the default in the warehouse record, then the total weight of the order is checked and based on that the shipping format (box, boxes, pallet or pallets) is set.

Label type is set based on the courier.

Then the rest of the basic order details are completed, the order record is finalised and set to order status ‘New’. #

The order date will be set as the date that the order was placed on the sales platform.

Once the order record is complete, the system will allocate stock to the order if possible and then automatically update the order status. #

The stock will be checked for each item on the order and if stock is available in the order’s designated warehouse, it will be allocated to the order.

Once stock has been allocated, or when it has been checked and the system has confirmed that none is available in the warehouse, then the order status will be updated to either.

Back Ordered, if there is no stock available for the order at all, Part Allocated if some, but not all of the required stock is available or Fully Allocated if all of the stock required for the order is available to be allocated to the order.

HOW DOES eTail Support GENERATE SHIPPING LABELS FOR ORDERS? #

Finally – for fully allocated orders where the Shipping Details are complete the system will generate a shipping label for the order and store it in the order record. #

If the order is ‘fully allocated’ then the system will connect to Smooth Parcel (our label generation system) to generate a shipping label for the order. The label will be stored in the order record to be available to print quickly and easily when the order is shipped.

The tracking number for the shipping label and the name of the courier are both stored in the order record, but they are NOT passed to the sales platform associated with the order until is shipped.

Orders that have stock fully allocated to them and have a shipping label ready to print are updated to a new order status Ready to Ship.

Click Here for a list of the possible order statuses in eTail Support

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