Getting Started for Suppliers

What Order Desk Does

Order Desk is an order management app that can be customized to support the unique workflows your clients have. If you are a supplier looking for a way to simplify and consolidate the transition of orders from your clients' stores to your fulfillment service, Order Desk may be your solution.

With dozens of shopping cart integrations available, connect to your clients' stores and pull their orders into Order Desk quickly and seamlessly so you can fulfill their orders.

You can set up each individual client store to edit, split, move and process orders exactly how they need to be handled. You can also keep track of inventory and send tracking updates back to the shopping carts as orders are fulfilled.

What Order Desk Really Does

Integrates

Order Desk builds integrations to the APIs and webhooks of other services, allowing order data, inventory information and shipping and fulfillment details to be pushed and pulled between accounts. This lets you compile nearly everything in one single hub, here in Order Desk, to facilitate and ease the management, communication and fulfillment process for your clients' orders.

Order Desk has hundreds of integrations with more being added all the time. You can access the current list of available integrations by clicking on Manage Integrations in the left sidebar and navigating through the integration type tabs: Shopping Carts, Shipping, Fulfillment, etc.:

Connect to as many integrations as needed on a single store, but you can only connect to one instance of an integration per Order Desk store. For example, if your client has two Shopify stores, you will need one Order Desk store for each API connection (each Shopify store), but you can then copy or move the orders from one store to another if necessary.

Customizes

Don't see a particular integration you need? Maybe you have to get orders from a shopping cart or send them to a separate fulfillment service, and there isn't an integration for those services. This typically isn't a problem. You can still automate as much of the process as possible using import and export templates.

Import templates let you import orders, inventory items or shipments from a spreadsheet. If your client has a shopping cart we aren't integrated with, as long as they can download a spreadsheet of their orders, you can import it directly into Order Desk.

Export templates let you export orders to a third party either through email or FTP. You can set these up to run automatically, so once the setup is done, the exported file will be pushed if orders are there to be sent, much like how an integration works.

And there's more!

Order Desk is more than just a hub connecting services to each other. With Order Desk you can set up a custom workflow, use the Rule Builder to automate most things, split orders for multiple vendors, fix or set shipping preferences, communicate to customers, clients, yourself or anyone else, create custom order documents and manage inventory.

Manage Multiple Stores

You will need to manage multiple stores on your account—one for each of your clients. You might also occasionally need more than one store for some clients.

You can keep each client store separate, with its own integrations, rules and order fulfillment process, or you can copy all of your clients' orders from their individual stores into your own primary store. There's no right or wrong way to set up your stores, just as long as the orders are being moved through the app the way you need to fit your fulfillment requirements.

Your Order Desk account is a user account, rather than a specific store, set up under your email address. If you create every store under the same email address, all of your stores will be linked to your user account allowing you to easily switch between them.

To switch between your stores, click the store dropdown in the upper left corner of the app and choose the store you want to switch to:

For more information on how to create multiple stores under the same account, see this guide.

Add Users to a Store

Some suppliers choose to manage each client store alone. Others prefer to add their clients as users on their own stores so they can be involved in the process. If you do want to add your clients, or anyone else such as colleagues or vendors, you can add their email address as a store user on the specific store where you want them to have access.

Apply special permissions for each user if you don't want them to have full control or if you want to limit what they can see. If you are familiar with CSS, you can also create custom views for what they will and won't be able to see while logged into Order Desk.

When you add store users, they can only access the store(s) where their email address has been added. They will not be able to access all the stores on your user account.

See this guide for more information on how to add store users and set their permissions and custom views.

Pricing and Billing

Pricing

Order Desk has three payment plans to choose from:

• Starter Plan: For stores that are just getting started and have a lower volume and/or that only need up to three integrations. $20/month + 25¢/order
• Pro Plan: For established stores with a volume under about 3,000 orders per month and that do not need more than three Order Desk stores. $60/month + 10¢/order per store.
• Plus Plan: For merchants or suppliers with more than 3,000 orders per month and/or a need for multiple Order Desk stores. $125/month + 5¢/order. Unlimited Pro stores.

Each of your Order Desk stores can be set up under a different pricing plan. However, as a supplier, you may find that the Plus Plan is your best option since it comes with unlimited Pro Plan stores and has a discounted per order fee.

If you choose the Plus Plan, set up your own primary store where you can add payment details, especially if you plan to give your clients access to their own stores. This will keep your top level store and payment details separate from their stores and activity.

Billing

Every Order Desk store has its own billing settings, which can be accessed from the Billing link under the Account menu in the left sidebar.

If you are on the Plus Plan, you can link each secondary store to your primary store from the billing page, and the orders from each store will be added to your bill.

If you are setting up separate billing plans and payment details for every store, visit the billing page in each store to choose the store's plan and add payment details. If you add your clients as store users, they can handle the billing themselves.

Copy/Move Orders Between Stores

If you need to copy (or move) orders from one store to another, whether to combine a multi-store client's orders in one place or to bring all of your clients' orders into your own primary store, you can do so with a rule. Instructions for how to set this up can be found in this guide.

Keep these points in mind when setting up copy or move rules:

• A moved order will be moved from one store to the other, breaking the link between the order and the shopping cart. You will not be able to automatically send fulfillment details back into the originating Order Desk store or to the shopping cart. This method is not recommended for orders that are being fulfilled and need to retain their connection with the shopping cart.
• A copied order will create a copy of the original order for the new store. If a copied order is fulfilled, it will automatically pass the fulfillment details back into the original order in Order Desk, and if the original store is set up for it, the order will be updated in the shopping cart as well.
• A copied order will count as a new, separate order. This means it will count as two orders for billing purposes, and both orders will be added to the monthly fee.

Fulfillment

If your fulfillment service is integrated with Order Desk, tracking and fulfillment details will automatically be pulled back into orders.

If your service does not have an integration, you can still add tracking and shipment details to the orders in your stores a few different ways. The most efficient option is to import a file with the tracking details.

If the settings are in place and the shopping cart integration allows for it, as an order is fulfilled in Order Desk, the fulfillment details will be pushed back into the shopping cart to notify your clients' customer that their order has shipped.

In some cases, you may want to send shipment notification emails directly from Order Desk.

Important Guides

Many of these guides are linked throughout this article, but here is a comprehensive list of Order Desk help guides to show you around the app and help you set up your stores:

• Getting Started: General getting started guides that provide an overview of the app. Learn how to connect to integrations, add inventory, work with folders, submit orders, and get some tips on working with the Rule Builder.
• Store Settings: You've got options. Learn what they are and how to set your preferences.
• How to Work with Inventory Details: See this guide for information on the different ways to work with inventory in Order Desk.
• How to Work with Inventory Quantities: If you need to manage inventory quantities in Order Desk, this guide covers how it works and provides some tips and special features.
• How to Use Product Code Match, Skip and Replace: Need to swap a SKU, match a SKU, replace a SKU or work with bundles and kits? Read how in this guide.
• How to Sync Item Details Into Orders: If you have details saved to inventory items in Order Desk and need those details added to orders, learn how to sync inventory in this guide.
• Inventory Helper: Use the Inventory Helper integration to tell Order Desk when to send inventory re-order notifications.
• How to Work with Rules: How to use the Order Desk Rule Builder.
• How to Set Up Shipping Class Matches: Set shipping preferences in each fulfillment integration so orders are sent through with the right info.
• Imports: Import files of orders, shipments or inventory into Order Desk.
• Exports: Export any order data in the format and layout you need. Send files to yourself, to third parties or use them to create custom reports.
• How to Split Orders: Instructions on the different methods for splitting orders once they are in Order Desk.
• How to Split & Dropship Orders for Separate Vendors: Overview on how to split orders and send to separate vendors.
• How to Work with Email Templates: How to work with emails using Order Desk.
• How to Send Shipment/Tracking Info to Customers: If you need to send customers tracking information as their orders ship, do so with Order Desk following the instructions in this guide.
• Customizable Receipts/Order Documents: Create your own customized order documents such as receipts, packing slips and invoices.
• How to Create PDFs: Instructions for creating a PDF from a receipt template.
• Common Errors from Integrations: A list of the most common errors received from integrations.
• Multiple Stores on One Account: Set up and work with multiple stores on one Order Desk account.
• How to Add Store Users & Permissions: Add users to a store and learn how to set their permissions.
• How to Cancel an Order: Not every order can be canceled or handled the same way in Order Desk. Read this guide for integration specifics as well as general advice on working with canceled orders.
• How to Handle Returns: How to handle returns in Order Desk.
• How to Use Shopify Risk Scores to Stop Fraudulent Orders: If your client uses Shopify and wants you to monitor orders for potential fraud, follow these instructions.

Don't forget to search the help site for guides about the specific integrations you need to enable. If available, more information will be provided in the integration guide.

FAQ

Will you build an integration to my service/software?

Maybe! This depends on the technical details. To request a new integration, please fill out this form, and someone from our integrations team will follow up with you about it soon.

My fulfillment company doesn't have an API. Can we still use Order Desk to fulfill our clients' orders?

Yes! As long as you can either accept emails (one per order) or files of batched orders, you can set up your clients' stores to automatically send orders to you. Scroll up to the Customizes section above for more details.

For print on demand companies planning to build your own API, please refer to these best practices.

My client won't give me the credentials I need to enable an integration on their Order Desk store. What are my options?

If your client won't provide you with private app credentials, the only way to gain access is to add the client as a store user to their own Order Desk store so they can enable the connection directly.

I don't need all of my clients' orders. They send some to other suppliers. How do I handle this?

Some integrations have vendor or country filters that can be used to bring in specific orders. Check the specific integration settings to see if this is an option for you. Shopify, specifically, has some useful filter options.

If there are no filters for the integration you are using, or if the filters available won't work for your purposes, you will need to split orders once they show up in Order Desk and only fulfill the orders meant for you.

For comprehensive instructions on splitting orders, see the How to Split Orders guide.