How do I place orders with Mothership Connect?
Prerequisites
This article assumes that you have installed Mothership Connect, connected to a drop ship supplier that uses Mothership, and imported the supplier's products into your Shopify store. If you have not done any of those things, please refer to the following tutorials:
- How do I add products to my store using Mothership Connect?
- Connecting to a drop ship supplier with Mothership Connect
- Setting up Mothership Connect
Shipping Zones
Importantly, Mothership will only accept orders sent to customers at shipping addresses located within shipping zones that the supplier ships to. Mothership will raise an exception if an order is placed with a shipping address located outside of the supplier's available shipping zones. Please contact the supplier to find out which shipping zones the supplier ships to.
Order Placement & Fulfillment
When a customer places an order in your Shopify store, Mothership Connect checks to see if any of the products in the order originated from any of your Mothership drop ship suppliers. If it finds a product that was imported from a supplier, one of three things will happen:- If the supplier is invoicing you on a per-order basis, you will receive a pre-filled cart that you need to checkout with through the supplier's Shopify checkout in order for the order to be placed with the supplier.
- Alternatively, if the supplier is invoicing you on a periodic basis, Mothership will automatically place the order with the supplier.
- If Mothership encounters a problem placing the order, you the supplier will both receive an email detailing the exception. You may need to contact the supplier to resolve any issues.
Mothership places the order with the end customer's shipping address, allowing the supplier to send the order items directly to the customer. You will receive an email with the order tracking information when the supplier fulfills the order.
Returns
Please contact the supplier for information about the supplier's return policy and process. If the supplier accepts a return, they can refund the charges placed on your credit card related to the order in question.
How do I pay for my orders?
Mothership will send a pre-filled Shopify cart to the email address you have on file. This pre-filled cart serves as an invoice and will contain line items for the goods purchased, any shipping costs incurred, and any refunds issued during the invoice period. You will need to checkout with this cart in order to satisfy the financial obligation you have to the supplier.
Depending on your arrangement with the supplier, you will be invoiced on either a per-order or a periodic basis.- Per-order invoicing - You will be sent a pre-filled cart for each order that is placed with the supplier. Importantly, Mothership will not place an order with the supplier until you pay for the items. Since Mothership does not reserve inventory, it is important that you pay for the items in a timely manner, otherwise you run the risk of the supplier not being able to fulfill the order because there is no stock available.
- Periodic invoicing - Often a supplier will allow retailers with whom they have an established relationship to pay for orders on a periodic or basis (every 1, 7, 15, or 30 days). In this arrangement, Mothership will automatically place incoming orders with the retailer. The retailer will then be invoiced for all of the items and shipping costs at a later date. As with per-order invoicing, the retailer will receive a per-filled cart that they checkout with in order to satisfy the monetary obligation they have to the supplier.