I’m new to this and I received an order and now I’m confused. I see a section saying something about fulfillment. What is a fulfillment? Do I need that?
First things first, a fulfillment is just a way to track the various steps of sending out an order to your customer: sourcing, packing, shipping, returns for an order.
- Sourcing: This is getting the stuff that was purchased. Maybe from inventory or ordering from a supplier
- Packing/Shipping: Boxing that stuff up, buying a shipping label, and sending it out
- Returns: If a customer returns an item you can track it or send them a prepaid label
It is sort of optional. There is nothing stopping you from receiving and shipping orders and not using fulfillments but I strongly recommend you use it since the order tracking page customers receive after placing their order is only updated when you use fulfillments.
Getting into the habit of using fulfillments will also help you once your business grows. Managing ten orders a day is a lot more difficult than one order every few days and fulfillments exists to make that much easier.