Skip to main content

Inventory & Fulfilment

Distribution: Partner Contacts and Shipment Records

Keep a list of the retailers, wholesalers and distributors who sell your products, see your recent shipments, and record a shipment by hand.

Overview

Orders → Distribution has two tabs:

  • Channels — an address book of the partners who sell or carry your products: retailers, wholesalers, distributors, franchisees, online marketplaces and direct sales, each with a contact, a region and your margin.
  • Shipments — your store's 100 most recent shipments, with the carrier, the tracking number, the status and the expected delivery date, and a way to record a shipment by hand.

Distribution is part of the fulfilment network features, on the Scale plan and above.

The cards at the top count Channels, Active channels, Total shipments and shipments Delivered.

Channels

The Channels tab holds money details (your margin), so it is for the owner, admins and accountants. Anyone else on your team sees a note saying so in place of the list, no Add channel button, and the page opens on the Shipments tab.

To add a partner, open the Channels tab, click Add channel, and fill in:

  • Channel name (required), for example "Toronto Retailer Network";
  • Contact name, Email and Phone;
  • Region, for example "Ontario";
  • Your margin %, from 0 to 100;
  • Type: retailer, wholesaler, distributor, franchise, online marketplace or direct.

Click Add channel. Each partner shows as a card with its contact details and your margin. The x on a card removes it.

A distribution channel is a record for your team. Nothing else in BestWebby reads it: it does not route orders, set prices or send anything to the partner. To sell on a marketplace and sync orders and stock with it, use Sell everywhere.

Shipments

The Shipments tab lists every kind of shipment on your orders, including labels you buy from an order, newest first, up to 100. Anyone who can see orders can read it. Recording a shipment or changing its status needs the owner, admin, manager or staff role.

Each row shows the last eight characters of the order's ID, the Carrier, the Tracking number (a link when there is a tracking address), the Status and the ETA.

Record a shipment by hand

  1. Open the Shipments tab and click Add shipment.
  2. Enter the Order ID: the full ID of the order, the last part of the address when the order is open in the dashboard.
  3. Add the Carrier, the Tracking number and, if you have it, the Tracking URL. With no URL, BestWebby builds the tracking link from the number for carriers it recognises.
  4. Optionally add Notes and the Estimated delivery date.
  5. Click Create shipment.

Creating the shipment does the same as Ship on the order's page (see Orders and shipping): it marks the order Shipped and every item on it fulfilled, and emails your customer the shipping confirmation with the tracking link. An order for in-store pickup is marked the same way but gets no shipping email.

The order is checked first. These are refused with a message, and nothing changes:

  • an order still waiting for payment, or whose payment failed;
  • a cancelled, refunded or returned order;
  • an order on a fraud hold;
  • an order with items that need serial numbers which have not been assigned yet.

An order has one shipment. Recording a shipment for an order that already has one updates that shipment with the new carrier and tracking number.

Change a shipment's status

Pick a status from the menu on the row: Pending, Processing, Shipped, In transit, Delivered or Returned. Delivered also records the delivery time. This changes the shipment only: the order's own status stays as it is, and your customer is not told.

Common questions

Do distribution channels sync orders or stock? No. They are contact records. Syncing with other places you sell happens under Channels → Sell everywhere.

Why can my manager not see the Channels tab's partners? The list includes your margins, which only the owner, admins and accountants can see.

Is my customer told about a shipment I record here? Yes. They get the same shipping confirmation as when you click Ship on the order's page, unless the order is for in-store pickup.

Why was my shipment refused? The message says why: the order is unpaid, cancelled, refunded, returned or on hold, or it has items waiting for serial numbers. Open the order to sort that out first.