Fulfillment

Manage shipments and track order fulfillment.

How an Order Splits Into Fulfillments

One order can produce several fulfillments. Items are grouped into separate fulfillments whenever any of these differ:

• Supplier — the distributor plugin (or your own stock) the item is sourced from
• Destination — items requiring an FFL transfer ship to the dealer; everything else ships to the customer
• Ammunition vs. everything else — ammunition must ship in its own package
• Firearms vs. accessories (distributor orders) — a distributor won’t pack a firearm with accessories, so an accessory that a state rule sends to the FFL (a California magazine, say) goes as its own distributor order. Shipments from your own stock can pack them together.
• Dropship vs. warehouse restock — a distributor shipping direct to the buyer routes differently from one shipping to your warehouse

Items that match on all of these share one fulfillment — three ammunition SKUs from the same distributor go out as a single distributor order with a single shipping charge, not three.

Each fulfillment is tracked, cancelled, reshipped, and labelled independently.

Fulfillment Types

When ShipStation is active for your store, own-stock items route there automatically — there is no separate opt-in setting.

Fulfillment Status

An errored fulfillment shows the recorded reason on the status badge.

Viewing Fulfillments

On an order detail page, the Fulfillment section shows:

• Current status, with the error reason when one was recorded
• Items on the fulfillment
• Tracking numbers and carrier (when available)
• The receiving FFL, for FFL-bound fulfillments

Fulfillment Actions

Cancel Fulfillment

Available while the fulfillment is still Pending.

1. Open the order
2. Find the fulfillment
3. Click Cancel
4. Confirm cancellation

Reship Fulfillment

Available when a fulfillment is in Error or Cancelled status.

1. Open the order
2. Find the fulfillment
3. Click Reship
4. Confirm

What happens next depends on whether the shipment ever went out:

• No tracking number was ever assigned — the same fulfillment is reset to Pending and retried in place, so a failed order does not accumulate duplicate records.
• A tracking number exists — a new fulfillment is created with the same items and dealer, and the original is marked Cancelled.

Merge Fulfillments

When an order carries two or more Pending or Error fulfillments that ship the same way — same supplier, same destination, both drop-ship or both restock, and one shipment class (ammunition, firearms, or accessories) across every line — each one’s menu offers Merge into #… for its compatible siblings.

1. Open the order
2. On the fulfillment you want to fold in, click Merge into # the one that should carry the lines
3. Confirm

The lines move onto the chosen fulfillment and the emptied one is marked Cancelled, with a note on both timelines. The merged fulfillment keeps its status — click Reship on it to resubmit every line as a single distributor order with a single shipping charge. Merge is never offered once a distributor holds the order (an FFL hold, or a duplicate-PO rejection) or a tracking number exists.

Other Actions

Firearm Fulfillment

For orders containing items that require an FFL transfer:

• The fulfillment ships to the customer’s selected FFL dealer
• Adult signature is requested automatically on handgun and long gun labels
• Handguns are restricted to air services on UPS and FedEx; USPS carries them on Priority Mail and Priority Mail Express

See Shipping Firearms for the full carrier and service rules.

Ammunition Fulfillment

Ammunition ships with special requirements:

Dropship Fulfillment

For products fulfilled by distributors:

1. Order is sent to the distributor (automatically or when you process it manually)
2. Distributor ships to the customer, or to the customer’s FFL (MGE is the exception: it ships to your warehouse only)
3. Tracking syncs back to FirearmCart
4. Status updates automatically

Integrated distributors:

• Lipseys
• RSR
• Chattanooga
• 2AW
• EPROLO
• MGE Wholesale (warehouse stock orders — you ship the second leg)
• Printify (print-on-demand merch; ships to the customer, not to an FFL)

Fulfillment Settings

Configure how orders are fulfilled in Settings > Fulfillment:

Automatic Processing

Automatic processing is off by default.

Supplier Selection Strategy

When a product has multiple suppliers available:

New stores start on Lowest Price.

Default Preferred Supplier

Which source is flagged preferred when a product first gains a choice of suppliers on import — your own stock, or one of your active distributors. This only applies at import time; it never overrides products you have set manually.

Supplier Cost Changes

What a distributor sync does to a product’s price when the supplier’s cost changes. It applies to products with Auto-update price on cost change switched on (the default for imported products) — a product with that switch off keeps its price whatever you choose here.

New stores start on Follow my markup. Under every policy, a price you typed in by hand is left alone — only prices the platform derived from your markup are recalculated — and MAP is always respected. If you switch back to Follow my markup later, prices that were held are re-derived on the next sync.

Testing

Send test orders to fulfillment is off by default. While off, orders placed with a test card never reach distributors, buy labels, decrement stock, or notify staff. Turn it on only while testing your fulfillment flow.

Manual Fulfillment Processing

When automatic processing is disabled, orders show a Needs Processing indicator.

Processing Orders Manually

1. Open the order details page
2. Orders needing processing show an orange Needs Processing badge
3. For items with multiple suppliers, click the supplier button to open the allocation modal
4. Allocate quantities to the suppliers you want to use
5. Click Process Fulfillments to dispatch

For an order the customer collected in person, use Mark as picked up in store instead.

Once a fulfillment has been dispatched, its supplier is locked — changing it would leave your records out of step with the order already submitted to the distributor.

Supplier Selection Modal

When selecting a supplier, you’ll see:

• All available suppliers for the product, including your own stock
• SKU, cost, and stock for each supplier
• A star on the preferred supplier
• A Warehouse badge where the distributor ships to you rather than to the buyer
• Out-of-stock suppliers shown dimmed, with their quantity field disabled

You can split one line across several suppliers. The modal tracks allocated versus required quantity and warns when you are short or over-allocated.

Stock Shortage Handling

If order quantity exceeds available stock:

1. A Stock Shortage Alert modal appears listing each short item with ordered, available, and shortage quantities
2. You can choose to:
   • Process Anyway - Let the dropshipper handle backorders or partial fulfillment
   • Cancel - Return to the order to contact the customer

Tracking Numbers

When a tracking number is assigned:

• Customer receives a tracking email
• Tracking appears in order details
• Status updates as package moves

A fulfillment can carry more than one tracking number.

Related Documentation

• Managing Orders - Order management
• Refunds - Processing refunds
• Shipping - Shipping configuration
• FFL Compliance - Firearm requirements
• Printify - Print-on-demand fulfillment