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What Is a Partial Shipment? In the context of shipment, partial shipment refers to an order in which items are shipped separately. This is done to ensure timely delivery, often to get items to customers as quickly as possible even if the entire order isn't ready to ship. This may happen because the order must be fulfilled from multiple warehouses. Another form of partial shipment occurs when items there isn't enough inventory to fulfill the entire order. Once the customer is contacted and agrees to multiple shipments, a single order can be broken apart by days or weeks. Managing Partial Shipment Sales Invoices As a seller, keeping a record of such orders or tracking the backend operations might seem to be a daunting task. For instance, how to track the various items, how to prevent prematurely marking orders complete, and how to keep all parties informed. That's why it's so important to find an eCommerce platform that can manage partial shipments, partial truckload shipping, multiple warehouses, calculate unit shipping costs, low-density shipment orders, LTL shipping, or even a rail transport document. One Order, Multiple Shipments Managing multiple shipments becomes particularly important when the items are available at different warehouses; shipping them in fragments ensures timely delivery. You'll want to deliver the best customer experience, but you also have to be aware of shipping costs. Here's a partial shipment example. Let's say you are a pencil wholesaler and you need to fulfill an order of 1000 pieces of #2 yellow pencils. While getting the order ready you realize that you have just 600 pieces at the moment. How to handle the scenario? The first step, of course, is to talk to the customer. If the person agrees on a partial shipment of the order, ship the first 600 pieces, and when you have the remaining 400 pieces, ship them in the second shipment. This might sound simple, but partial shipping isn't something every eCommerce platform can handle. If there's any chance you'll experience unconventional inventory and fulfillment processes, being able to handle multiple shipments is vital. Why Merchants Need a Partial Shipment Setup The ability to oversee partial shipment orders leads to a better customer experience. In the example above, the merchant could have lost the whole order if they weren't willing to utilize separate shipments. This would have resulted in a loss to the business and possibly losing the customer forever. But, since, the vendor could opt for partial shipping, an unforeseen situation was avoided. Shipping from Multiple Warehouses There are cases when the various items of an order are shipped from different warehouses. Waiting for all the items to arrive at a particular warehouse and then shipping the complete order at once won't ensure timely delivery. Sending everything to a single warehouse first and then shipping it again also adds to shipping costs. This is where the concept of partial shipment comes into play. Depending on the availability of the products and the distance from the customer, separate packages can be sent to the buyer so that the complete order reaches on time. Inventory Problems Another situation where the concept of partial shipment is useful is when some items of an order aren't available at the moment, delaying or holding the complete order because one or two items aren't wise. You want to give the customer the option of partial shipping so that you salvage the order. It's possible the customer would rather have the order partially shipped instead of canceling altogether. Keeping up with the customer's expectations is of utmost importance to a business to maintain its reputation and build trust amongst its audience. Why Partial Shipments Are Difficult to Fulfill There are many reasons merchants encounter challenging situations when dealing with partial shipments, and not all ERP, eCommerce, and supply chain platforms can accommodate these special cases. Some noticeable challenges that businesses face are: Shipping and tracking all the individual items in an order. Marking shipments as complete only after all the items in an order are delivered. Sending notifications to the customers about the order status, pending items, partial shipping, etc. Sending separate invoices for partial shipments to the customers. With so many things to manage, the seller needs to have an in-depth idea about the inventory and the fulfillment processes inclusive of the ERP, accounting system, and eCommerce platform. The challenges become even more intense if all these tasks are managed manually, and the chances of errors increase exponentially. It is always better to automate the entire process, whether it's sending out a single item or engaging in partial shipping every day. Errors like these not only cause monetary losses to a business but spoil its reputation in the long run. The Challenge of Partial Truckload Shipping Not every business can rely on the basic shippers—FedEx, UPS, USPS—to ship their products. Many need freight shipping, which has its own partial shipping problems. When matched with APIs for truckload shipping companies, businesses can calculate shipping costs, times, and routes. They can also calculate based on LTL (less-than-truckload) options when they only need to send out part of an order instead of the whole thing. Less freight shipping can also be accomplished when an order is split between standard shippers and partial truckload shipping. How to Automate Partial Shipments ECommerce platforms, when integrated with ERP and CRM software, are vital when splitting orders, generating shipment labels, and providing tracking details. ShipStation is popular software that small merchants use to manage their partial shipment orders. This tool helps to split the order into multiple parts, each containing its respective details, notes, packing slips, tags, and notifications. For mid-sized or bigger organizations, tools like NetSuite, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, etc can be used within their ERP systems. The challenge in this process is all the updates regarding the order need to be regularly updated on the eCommerce platform after fetching from the shipping software. This helps the customers to know the exact status and the progress of their orders. To automate this process as well, nChannel can be used, it is an integrated platform that manages your order as well as inventory data. By using this tool, the entire process ranging from- order workflows, updating inventory quantities, approving an order, tracking partial orders, and marking complete orders can easily be automated. Benefit from Shipping Integration Get expert integration services for all your shipping needs, and always have up-to-date information, optimizations, and better performance. Click the button below for a free demo today. Get A Free Demo Related Posts Shipping Integration for Tracking & Management How Can Integrated eCommerce Solutions Help Your eCommerce Business? The 14 Best Inventory Management Software for eCommerce in 2024 Written by Stephen Beer Stephen Beer is a Content Writer at Clarity Ventures and has written about various tech industries for nearly a decade. He is determined to demystify HIPAA, integration, and eCommerce with easy-to-read, easy-to-understand articles to help businesses make the best decisions.
In the context of shipment, partial shipment refers to an order in which items are shipped separately. This is done to ensure timely delivery, often to get items to customers as quickly as possible even if the entire order isn't ready to ship. This may happen because the order must be fulfilled from multiple warehouses.
Another form of partial shipment occurs when items there isn't enough inventory to fulfill the entire order. Once the customer is contacted and agrees to multiple shipments, a single order can be broken apart by days or weeks.
As a seller, keeping a record of such orders or tracking the backend operations might seem to be a daunting task. For instance, how to track the various items, how to prevent prematurely marking orders complete, and how to keep all parties informed.
That's why it's so important to find an eCommerce platform that can manage partial shipments, partial truckload shipping, multiple warehouses, calculate unit shipping costs, low-density shipment orders, LTL shipping, or even a rail transport document.
Managing multiple shipments becomes particularly important when the items are available at different warehouses; shipping them in fragments ensures timely delivery. You'll want to deliver the best customer experience, but you also have to be aware of shipping costs.
Here's a partial shipment example. Let's say you are a pencil wholesaler and you need to fulfill an order of 1000 pieces of #2 yellow pencils. While getting the order ready you realize that you have just 600 pieces at the moment. How to handle the scenario? The first step, of course, is to talk to the customer. If the person agrees on a partial shipment of the order, ship the first 600 pieces, and when you have the remaining 400 pieces, ship them in the second shipment.
This might sound simple, but partial shipping isn't something every eCommerce platform can handle. If there's any chance you'll experience unconventional inventory and fulfillment processes, being able to handle multiple shipments is vital.
The ability to oversee partial shipment orders leads to a better customer experience. In the example above, the merchant could have lost the whole order if they weren't willing to utilize separate shipments. This would have resulted in a loss to the business and possibly losing the customer forever. But, since, the vendor could opt for partial shipping, an unforeseen situation was avoided.
There are cases when the various items of an order are shipped from different warehouses. Waiting for all the items to arrive at a particular warehouse and then shipping the complete order at once won't ensure timely delivery. Sending everything to a single warehouse first and then shipping it again also adds to shipping costs.
This is where the concept of partial shipment comes into play. Depending on the availability of the products and the distance from the customer, separate packages can be sent to the buyer so that the complete order reaches on time.
Another situation where the concept of partial shipment is useful is when some items of an order aren't available at the moment, delaying or holding the complete order because one or two items aren't wise.
You want to give the customer the option of partial shipping so that you salvage the order. It's possible the customer would rather have the order partially shipped instead of canceling altogether. Keeping up with the customer's expectations is of utmost importance to a business to maintain its reputation and build trust amongst its audience.
There are many reasons merchants encounter challenging situations when dealing with partial shipments, and not all ERP, eCommerce, and supply chain platforms can accommodate these special cases. Some noticeable challenges that businesses face are:
With so many things to manage, the seller needs to have an in-depth idea about the inventory and the fulfillment processes inclusive of the ERP, accounting system, and eCommerce platform. The challenges become even more intense if all these tasks are managed manually, and the chances of errors increase exponentially.
It is always better to automate the entire process, whether it's sending out a single item or engaging in partial shipping every day. Errors like these not only cause monetary losses to a business but spoil its reputation in the long run.
Not every business can rely on the basic shippers—FedEx, UPS, USPS—to ship their products. Many need freight shipping, which has its own partial shipping problems.
When matched with APIs for truckload shipping companies, businesses can calculate shipping costs, times, and routes. They can also calculate based on LTL (less-than-truckload) options when they only need to send out part of an order instead of the whole thing. Less freight shipping can also be accomplished when an order is split between standard shippers and partial truckload shipping.
ECommerce platforms, when integrated with ERP and CRM software, are vital when splitting orders, generating shipment labels, and providing tracking details.
ShipStation is popular software that small merchants use to manage their partial shipment orders. This tool helps to split the order into multiple parts, each containing its respective details, notes, packing slips, tags, and notifications. For mid-sized or bigger organizations, tools like NetSuite, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, etc can be used within their ERP systems.
The challenge in this process is all the updates regarding the order need to be regularly updated on the eCommerce platform after fetching from the shipping software. This helps the customers to know the exact status and the progress of their orders.
To automate this process as well, nChannel can be used, it is an integrated platform that manages your order as well as inventory data. By using this tool, the entire process ranging from- order workflows, updating inventory quantities, approving an order, tracking partial orders, and marking complete orders can easily be automated.
Get expert integration services for all your shipping needs, and always have up-to-date information, optimizations, and better performance. Click the button below for a free demo today.