Retailer Start Guide

This article outlines the steps a new vendor needs to take to get setup on Mothership. To complete the installation process, you'll need someone who has the required permissions on your ecommerce platform.

Starting questions

Before you begin, it will be helpful to have answers to the questions below.

1. Do I have a supplier I want to work with? If you're looking for a supplier, you can check out our resources here: https://mothership-fm.notion.site/How-to-find-Drop-Ship-Partners-c236e97d8ade4d52b9cd40ceb263f52c?pvs=4

   
   

2. Understanding shipping charges is an important part of a successful and profitable dropshipping partnership. Do I know what I the supplier is going to charge me to ship out the order? Do I know what I'm going to charge the end-customer for shipping?

   
   

3. Do I know which countries the supplier will ship orders to? Will I allow my customers to place orders for those destinations?

   
   

4. Will we allow returns? If so, who will accept the return (you or the supplier)? How will the end-customer get a return label? Does the supplier require a RMA? How will I get credit for merchandise returned to the supplier?

   
   

5. What wholesale price am I going to charge?

   Most of our vendors set a percentage discount off of the retail price that is applied to all of the products they make available to a retailer. However, we also provide a way to have multiple discount tiers and manually set the wholesale price.

   
   

6. How am I going to pay my supplier? How often will I be invoiced?

   Mothership can automate the payments between you and the supplier by integrating with the supplier's Stripe account. This lets us automatically charge your credit card at the end of the invoice period.

   Alternatively, we can generate a PDF order activity report that outlines the items purchased and shipping charges incurred. This option requires you to settle up outside of Mothership.

   Your supplier can invoice you on a per-order, daily, weekly, or monthly basis. You will want to discuss this frequency with the supplier in advance.

   
   
7. Who can my I contact at the supplier if I need to cancel an order or if something goes wrong? Does my customer support team have that information?

Onboarding Process

You will need to complete the steps below to finish the onboarding process.

1. Install Mothership Retailer into your Shopify store using the setup guide.

   
   

2. Connect to a supplier. If you did not receive an invite email from your supplier, you will need to send them a partnership invite through Mothership.

   
   

3. After you've connected to a supplier, you'll want to import a product. Once the product is in your store, you can merchandise it however you see fit. You can add or remove images, change the title and description, and sell it through any of your sales channels.

   
   

4. Email your contact at the supplier and let them know you want to place a test order.

   
   
5. Publish the product to your online store and place a test order. You want to make sure you can checkout with the product.
   1. You can use a one-time discount code to checkout without using your credit card. Just remember to disable the code when you're finished.

   2. If you receive an error message that says you cannot purchase the product, make sure the product is added to a shipping profile. You should make sure the shipping profile does not ship to destinations not supported by your supplier.

      
      
6. Make sure the test order is received by Mothership and is sent to the supplier. The supplier may want to "fulfill" the order without actually sending it out. That way, you, Mothership, and the supplier can test all of the systems in the order management chain and ensure that there are no issues. The supplier can cancel the order once you are finished with the test.
   1. If the order is not received by Mothership, make sure that the credit card payment has been captured. By default, Mothership will not accept an order unless the order is marked as 'paid'.

   2. If the order has not been received by the supplier, have them check the Mothership vendor portal account to ensure that shipping is setup correctly.

      
      
7. You're ready to go once you and the supplier are satisfied with the test order. If something needs to change, make the adjustment and run another test order.

Support

What should you do if you need help? The first place to check is with your retail partner. If they can't resolve the issue, you should contact Mothership support at support@mothership.fm