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Ozcart now offers Multi-Warehouse / Multi Vendor Shipping

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Published on March 20, 2011 Ozcart now offers Multi-Warehouse / Multi Vendor Shipping

Posted at 2:00 pm in Ecommerce by

Last updated on October 30, 2018

If you have your products stored at multiple warehouses in different locations or are drop shipping your products from different suppliers, then it’s hard to ensure that you are making money from your shipping costs – as some elements may be very cheap to send, and others very expensive depending on what they are and where they come from.

The 2011 release of Ozcart solves this problem by introducing a powerful new feature – Multi Vendor Shipping.

Multi Vendor Shipping allows you to do the following:

  • Assign your products to different warehouses depending on where they are physically sent from
  • Different shipping methods and prices can be assigned to each warehouse or vendor
  • On checkout products are grouped depending on where they will be sent, and then the total cost and time will be varied based on their selection.
  • Mask your shipping location descriptions for customers so that competitors can’t work out exactly where you are sending items from (useful if you’re drop shipping)
  • Use all available shipping methods from any location
  • Use international shipping methods from international locations – e.g., items from the US can be sent via FedEx and UPS, and items from Melbourne using Fastway. The appropriate live calculator is used if/where supported
  • Turn MVS on or off depending on your needs
  • Use MVS on the shipping estimate page and on checkout
  • Automatically send emails to the appropriate supplier to inform them that you want to order the relevant product/quantity from them (useful if you’re drop shipping)
  • Assign vendors to products when bulk importing products via a spreadsheet
  • Update the live quote in real time on checkout and update the order total appropriately.

Let’s consider an example. You are selling scrapbooking products that are sent from a number of different suppliers located within Australia and overseas. You are located in Brisbane and have suppliers in Melbourne, Hobart, Perth and Los Angeles. A customer buys four products from you – one you have in stock in Brisbane, 2 must be imported from the US and one comes from Perth. You are shipping in Australia via Australia Post, and the US supplier sends everything via FedEx.

On checkout, the customer will be presented with three shipping estimates:

  • 2 separate live calculations from the Australia Post calculator for each of the two Australian locations (your business in Brisbane and the item from Perth). For each dispatch location, the customer may be able to choose different Australia Post options as appropriate (e.g. they could have registered post from Perth and express from Brisbane if they wished)
  • Live calculations from the FedEx calculator for the US location (assuming you have an account with FedEx)

As options are selected, the shipping cost on checkout is recalculated in real time and the grand total displayed.

You will have seen Multi Vendor Shipping in action at sites like Walmart, which charge you different shipping amounts and different shipping times, for different products depending on where they are located relative to you.

It’s a powerful and flexible option and gives you huge power in setting up shipping costs exactly the way you want them. With an expanded range of live calculators all compatible with MVS mode as well as regular “one shipping location” mode. We have also introduced new flat rate shipping options like “first item $5, other items $3 each” which auction sellers from places like eBay and oZtion may be familiar with.

We will cover MVS in more detail in upcoming posts. For an MVS demo or more information you will need to contact us as our standard demo does not include this feature.

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