How dropship for retailers works
This page is about shipping your retailers' orders to their customers. If your supplier ships orders for you, see Create a dropship request.
Some of your wholesale customers sell online but don't want to hold stock. Dropship for retailers lets them hand each of their customers' orders to you. You pick, pack and ship the order straight to that customer, and the parcel arrives looking as if the retailer sent it.
Three parties take part. On these pages:
- you are the merchant who holds the stock and ships,
- the retailer is your wholesale (B2B) customer, a portal account in SKU.io,
- the retailer's customer is the person who bought from the retailer and receives the parcel.
Two features called dropship
SKU.io has two features with "dropship" in the name. They work in opposite directions.
| Supplier dropship | Dropship for retailers | |
|---|---|---|
| Who ships | Your supplier ships your order to your customer | You ship your retailer's order to the retailer's customer |
| Where you set it up | A dropship purchase order to the supplier | The retailer's Dropship tab on its portal account |
| On the Sales Orders list | The filter Dropship (supplier), the orange truck icon Has supplier dropship items, and the purple Dropship chip on the order | The filter Dropship for customer, and the chip Dropship · <retailer> |
| Report | Drop-ship Order Money | Dropship Performance |
| Guide | Create a dropship request | These pages |
The two can meet on one order. See When a supplier ships a retailer's lines.
The life of a dropship order
- The order arrives on one of four routes. The retailer places it at portal checkout, uploads a CSV file of orders, sends it from its own store by API, or sends an SPS Commerce dropship purchase order (EDI). You choose which routes each retailer may use.
- SKU.io checks it. Every route applies the same rules: dropship is on for the account and the route is allowed, each product is in the retailer's dropship catalog, the address passes a check, the account has credit, and the order meets any minimum. An order that fails is refused and the retailer sees why. No sales order is created.
- It becomes a Draft sales order. The order lands on the Customer Portal sales channel. The customer is the retailer, Customer PO# is the retailer's own order number, and the ship-to is the retailer's customer. The address is used for that order only and is never saved to the retailer's address book. The order already carries a ship-by date.
- You approve it, as you would any draft. Approving opens it so it can be allocated and shipped. The ship-by clock has been running since the order arrived, so approve dropship drafts promptly. See Work dropship orders.
- It ships blind from a warehouse that can ship blind. The packing slip carries the retailer's brand and no prices. See the next sections.
- Tracking goes back to the retailer. By email, on the portal's Dropship → Orders page, and by webhook if you set one up.
If the retailer has Order Approval rules on its portal account, orders from checkout, CSV and API first wait for sign-off inside the retailer's company. No sales order exists until the last approval. EDI orders skip these rules. See Require approval for portal orders.
Blind shipping and the packing slip
A blind shipment carries the retailer's identity, never yours, and shows no prices. Every dropship order prints the Blind dropship packing slip (or another template you choose for that retailer).
The slip prints:
- the retailer's logo, or its display name in bold when it has no logo,
- Order with the retailer's order number, and the order date (in your timezone),
- the retailer's name and "Questions about your order?" with its support email and phone,
- the ship-to address and the shipping service,
- the items with SKU and quantity, and the total units,
- the gift message and the retailer's slip message,
- a returns block: "To return an item, contact <retailer> first, then send it to:" the return address, or "To return an item, contact <retailer> at <email>." when there's no return address.
It never prints prices, a bill-to address, internal notes, your company's name or logo, or your sales order number.
Insert instructions you set for the retailer print on the pick list for your packers, not on the slip.
Branding is fixed when the order is placed
The retailer's display name, logo, return address, support contact, slip message and template are copied onto each order when it is placed. A reprint months later shows exactly what shipped. A change to the branding applies only to orders placed after it. Replacing a logo keeps the old one for the orders that already use it.
There is no way to reprint an order with the current branding. This includes orders that haven't been packed yet. The order's Dropship for customer card shows the branding saved on the order, with Preview blind slip.
Who the shipping label says it is from
| How you ship | The label's sender |
|---|---|
| Labels bought in SKU.io (Shippo, Starshipit, EasyPost) | The retailer's display name, support email and phone. The street stays your warehouse, because carriers need the real origin. The return address is the retailer's when it is complete. Customs paperwork for international parcels names the retailer as the shipper. |
| ShipStation | Your ShipStation warehouse (ship-from location), which can't change per order. To put the retailer's name on the label, ship that retailer's orders from a ShipStation warehouse named after it. |
Which warehouses can ship blind
Not every warehouse can hide your brand. SKU.io routes a dropship order's lines only to warehouses that can ship blind, and the retailer's inventory feed counts only their stock.
| Blind support | Warehouses | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Full | Your own warehouses with no shipping provider or with manual fulfillment; Shippo; Starshipit; supplier dropship warehouses | SKU.io prints the blind slip, and the label names the retailer. |
| Prices removed | ShipStation, ShipRush, Trackstar, VeraCore, ShipHero, Shipfusion, ShipMyOrders | The provider prints its own slip from an order with no prices and the retailer as the bill-to. The label's sender stays the identity set up with the provider. |
| Can't ship blind | Amazon FBA and AWD, Walmart WFS, Fulfilled by Faire, TikTok FBT, ShipBob, Odoo 3PL, D3, Pinnacle, Shippit, and any provider not listed above | Never used for a dropship line. |
What each provider receives is in the Dropship settings reference.
When a dropship order's stock sits only in a warehouse that can't ship blind, the order goes on hold with No blind-capable warehouse has stock. See Work dropship orders.
Backordered lines
A line that is out of stock everywhere isn't held. It stays a normal backorder at a warehouse that can ship blind and ships when stock arrives. The retailer sees the order as Received or Processing with its ship-by date; the portal has no separate "backordered" label. Whether a backorder is allowed follows your product and customer backorder settings.
How the ship-by date is set
Each retailer has a ship-by SLA on its Dropship tab: Ship within (business days) and a Daily cut-off.
- The clock starts when the order arrives, or when the retailer's own approvers give the final sign-off, in your timezone.
- An order that arrives after the cut-off, or on a Saturday or Sunday, starts on the next business day.
- The ship-by date is the start day plus the number of business days, counting Monday to Friday. Public holidays are not skipped.
- With 0 business days, the ship-by date is the start day itself.
For example, with 2 business days and a 14:00 cut-off, an order that arrives on Monday at 10:00 ships by Wednesday. One that arrives Monday at 16:00 starts on Tuesday and ships by Thursday.
The order is Late only once its whole ship-by day has passed in your timezone.
SLA statuses
| Status | Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| On track | Grey | Not shipped, and the ship-by day hasn't come. |
| Due today | Amber | Not shipped, and today is the ship-by day. |
| Late | Red | Not shipped, and the ship-by day has passed. |
| — | — | Shipped in full, cancelled or closed. |
Partly shipped orders, and orders waiting for tracking, still have a status. A Draft order you haven't approved yet counts too.
Credit, minimums and approvals
Every route checks the order's full total (products, dropship fee and shipping) against the retailer's credit before the order is created. A failure refuses the order with "Your account is on credit hold. Please contact us to place orders." or "This order would exceed your available credit of $X. Reduce the order or pay down open invoices to continue." No sales order is created.
A Credit hold that you see later on a dropship order is a hold placed on an order that already exists, as on any other order. See Set a customer's payment terms and credit limit.
Order minimums don't apply to dropship orders unless you turn off the exemption on the Dropship tab. Case packs and minimum quantities never apply to dropship lines.
What the retailer and its customer hear about a shipment
| Who | What they get |
|---|---|
| The retailer | The dropship tracking email (one per order, or a daily digest) to the tracking email you set. A webhook, if you set one up. The portal's own "your order has shipped" email, which every portal buyer gets unless they've opted out. Your store's shipment confirmation, if the Customer Portal sales channel emails customers. A busy retailer can get several emails per shipment. |
| The retailer's customer | Nothing from SKU.io, unless you turn on Send a shipped email in the retailer's name. That email carries only the retailer's name and contact. |
No email or webhook goes for a shipment recorded more than 7 days after it shipped.
When a supplier ships a retailer's lines
A dropship order for a retailer can still have lines that your supplier ships, through a supplier dropship purchase order (by hand, or by automatic routing). The purchase order ships to the retailer's customer, and its email to the supplier attaches the retailer's blind slip, named "Packing slip <retailer order #>.pdf", listing only that purchase order's lines. Supplier dropship warehouses count as fully blind. See Route out-of-stock lines to dropship suppliers.
Next steps
- Set up dropship for a retailer
- Work dropship orders
- Dropship settings reference
- For the retailer's side, send your retailers Dropship on the portal.