Scenario: Ship from store (SFS)

Ship from store (SFS) is a fulfillment strategy where orders that are placed on an e-commerce platform are fulfilled by shipping the orders to the customers.

Overview

SFS is distinct from in-store pickup and curbside pickup because it does not require the customer to travel to a store. Rather, it ships the order to the customer from the retail location. To provide reliable dates while shipping from a store, all your stores and commerce channels must have a shared view of the inventory. You can use the following options to optimize the Promising behavior for orders that are shipped:

  • Promising for as-soon-as-possible (ASAP) orders: In this calculation, the application creates a promise such that the shipments reach the shopper as soon as possible.
  • Promise for minimizing shipments: In this calculation, the application considers the maximum shipping time that is configured for a shipping group to minimize number of shipments to the shopper.

Improve SFS accuracy for ASAP orders

E-commerce is increasingly in higher demand, especially so during peak-shopping seasons. During the holidays last year, your business had a high backlog in its stores because not all fulfillment imperatives were considered when an order was allocated to a specific store. This coming year, during peak times, you might want to prioritize so that the order reaches the shopper ASAP. This helps maximize shoppers' satisfaction. The Promising service helps to find the earliest delivery date for an order. By using existing nodes across the network, your business can meet the shoppers' expectations during peak shopping times.
  • Determine which nodes in your network can fulfill orders by using the ship delivery method, and define your distribution groups and Promising rules accordingly. For more information, see Distribution groups and Promising rules.
  • Determine whether (and how) you want to segment inventory and capacity for the ship delivery method.
  • Determine the carriers and carrier services, which can participate with your nodes, to ship products.
  • Group your carrier services into shipping groups to meet the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) or delivery propositions to the shopper.
  • Integrate your Web channel with the Promising APIs to calculate and propose reliable delivery dates to your shoppers.

For more information about estimated delivery date, see Scenario: Calculate item delivery or pickup date based on infinite capacity windows.

For more information about pre-purchase shipment assignments, see Scenario: Calculate pre-purchase pick-up and shipment assignments using finite capacity windows.

Improve SFS accuracy for minimizing shipments

While meeting shoppers' expectations and meeting delivery schedules, your business might want to ensure that shipments are minimized such that the number of packages per order are as few as possible. The Promising service helps you to minimize the shipments by using existing nodes across the network. Your business can meet the shoppers' expectations while simultaneously minimizing the cost to serve.

A delivery method is the mode for delivering products that a shopper selects at checkout. It can be ship or pickup.

For those orders or order lines that have the ship delivery method, the product is shipped to the shopper through a carrier service.

For those orders or order lines that have the pickup delivery method, the shopper picks up their product from a store nearest to them. There are APIs currently available that support both of these delivery methods. For example, you can estimate delivery dates to shoppers who are browsing online. Also, you can restrict the delivery methods as part of your promising calculation to ensure that on;y one method is considered.

By focusing on pre-purchase scenarios, you can provide shoppers with accurate delivery dates for their entire cart, including the earliest and latest dates. As you take transit durations into account and the ability to ship items separately, you ensure that the best delivery date is provided to the customer.

Finally, capacity availability provides you with the ability to tag capacity as per a delivery method. For example, you can tag capacity for pickup or shipping so these are considered as part of promising calculations.

  • Determine which nodes in your network can fulfill orders by using the ship delivery method, and define your distribution groups and Promising rules accordingly. For more information, see Distribution groups and Promising rules.
  • Determine whether (and how) you want to segment inventory and capacity for the ship delivery method.
  • Determine the carriers and carrier services, which can participate with your nodes, to ship products.
  • Group your carrier services into shipping groups to meet the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) or delivery propositions to the shopper. When creating shipping groups, ensure that you specify the Maximum transit duration field. For more information, see Configuring shipping groups.
  • Integrate your Web channel with the Promising APIs to calculate and propose reliable delivery dates to your shoppers and minimize the number of shipments.

For more information about pre-purchase shipment assignments, see Scenario: Calculate pre-purchase pick-up and shipment assignments using finite capacity windows.

Transferring inventory from other nodes

The promising APIs are enhanced to detect the support for shipping inventory from other stores, warehouses, and fulfillment centers.

Requested fulfillment date

Shipping after a specific date

For an order that needs to be shipped after a specific date, the promising calculations APIs display the earliest date by which the item can be shipped and delivered to the customer. For example, for a product that is yet to be launched, you might want any orders to be shipped after a specific date such that the orders are delivered to the customers at the specified date.

Shipping by a specific date
For an order that needs to be shipped by a specific date, the Calculate item delivery and pick up date API displays the latest date by which the customer must place an order. For example, for a Christmas gift to reach to a customer by December 25, the customer must order it by a specific date. The Calculate item delivery and pick up date will display the date by which the customer must order that gift.
Note: The Scenario: Calculate item delivery or pickup date based on finite capacity windows API supports only the startTs attribute.