Order routing

When a store ships from more than one location, two locations might both have stock for the same order. Order routing is the set of rules Sellerlane applies to decide which location (or combination of locations) is assigned to fulfill each order — so you can favour fewer parcels, keep orders inside the buyer’s country, or always try your main warehouse first.

If you fulfill everything from a single location, routing does nothing visible and you can ignore this page. It only changes behaviour once you have two or more locations holding stock.

Note

Routing chooses among the locations that can actually fulfill an item — it never invents stock. A rule can only prefer a location that already has the item available. See How routing works with inventory.

Open order routing

1. Go to Settings → Shipping.

2. Scroll to the Order Routing card and click Manage. (The card shows how many routing rules are currently active.)

3. You land on the Order Routing page, which lists your rules in priority order from top to bottom.

Every store starts with a default routing policy created automatically when the store is set up, so you’ll usually see three rules already in place rather than an empty list (see The default policy).

How rules run

Rules run from top to bottom. The rule at the top has the highest priority, and each rule narrows or re-orders the candidate locations before the next rule sees them. To change priority, drag a rule by its handle to a new position — the Priority number updates to match.

Each rule has a Priority number and a Rule Type. You add rules with Add Rule (top right), edit one with the pencil icon, and remove one with the trash icon. There are three rule types.

Rule type: Minimize order splits

Routes orders to minimize the number of shipments by consolidating items from fewer locations.

This is the consolidation rule. When several locations between them can cover an order, Minimize order splits prefers the plan that ships from the fewest locations — ideally the whole order in one parcel — instead of pulling one item from here and another from there. Fewer splits usually means lower shipping cost and a tidier buyer experience.

This rule applies to all locations automatically and has nothing to configure: when you add it, you only set its priority. Where it sits in the list matters — put it high to prioritise consolidation over other goals, or lower if you’d rather another rule (such as staying in market) take precedence first.

Rule type: Stay in market

Keeps orders within the same geographic market or region when possible.

Stay in market prefers locations in the same country as the buyer’s shipping address. If the buyer is in India and you hold stock both in an Indian location and an overseas one, this rule pushes the Indian location ahead so the order ships domestically where possible.

Like Minimize order splits, this rule applies to all locations automatically and has no settings beyond its priority. It only takes effect when the order has a shipping destination to compare against; for orders with no usable destination country it simply has no effect and routing moves on to the next rule.

Rule type: Ranked location groups

Routes orders based on ranked location groups, prioritizing higher-ranked groups.

This is the configurable rule. You build named location groups, give each a rank, and put locations into them. Routing tries the highest-ranked group first (rank 1 before rank 2, and so on), falling back to the next group only when the top group can’t fulfill. Use it to express a real-world preference like “always try the Mumbai hub first, then the regional warehouses.”

To configure it:

1. Add a rule and choose Ranked location groups as the type, then save. (The editor reminds you that you’ll manage groups after the rule exists.)

2. On the rule card, click Add Location Group.

3. Give the group a Group Name (for example, East Coast Warehouses) and a Rank. Rank 1 is tried first.

4. Tick the Locations that belong to this group, then save. Only locations you’ve created under Settings → Locations appear here.

5. Repeat Add Location Group for each tier — for example a rank 1 “Primary” group and a rank 2 “Backup” group.

Caution

A few rules are enforced when you save a ranked-groups rule:

• The rule needs at least one group, and each group needs at least one location.
• Ranks must be unique within the rule — you can’t have two groups both ranked 1.
• A location can appear in only one group per rule — it can’t be in both your primary and backup group of the same rule.
• Every chosen location must belong to the current store.

If any of these aren’t met, the save is rejected with an error and nothing changes.

The default policy

When a store is created, Sellerlane seeds a starter routing policy so multi- location behaviour is sensible from day one:

Priority	Rule type
1	Minimize order splits
2	Stay in market
3	Ranked location groups

The ranked-groups rule comes with a single group named Default, ranked 1, containing your store’s primary location. You’re free to re-rank, edit, or delete any of these and build your own — they’re just a starting point.

Worked example: a two-location store

Say you run two locations — Mumbai (your main hub) and Delhi (a smaller regional warehouse) — and you want orders to consolidate where possible but always favour Mumbai when there’s a choice.

1. Keep Minimize order splits at priority 1 so single-parcel plans win whenever both locations could otherwise be combined.

2. Keep (or add) Ranked location groups below it. Create a Primary group ranked 1 containing Mumbai, and a Backup group ranked 2 containing Delhi.

3. Save.

Now consider an order for two items:

• Both items are in stock in Mumbai → routing ships the whole order from Mumbai. One parcel, from your preferred location.
• Item A is only in Delhi, Item B is in both → Minimize order splits still can’t merge into one location, so the order splits; the ranked rule then sends Item B to Mumbai (rank 1) and Item A to Delhi.
• Everything is only in Delhi → routing assigns Delhi, because that’s the only location that can fulfill.

If you’d added Stay in market above the ranked rule and the buyer were overseas with stock in both an Indian and a foreign location, domestic locations would be preferred first, then the ranked order would break any remaining ties.

How routing works with inventory and shipping

Routing sits between your inventory and your shipping rates, so it’s worth knowing what it does and doesn’t control:

• Inventory comes first. Routing only ever picks from locations that have the item available. It re-orders and prefers candidates; it never overrides stock levels or forces an out-of-stock location. Manage stock per location under Locations & inventory.

• Shipping rates are separate. Which rate a buyer is offered comes from your shipping profiles → origin groups → zones → rates, not from routing. A location can only fulfill an order if it belongs to an origin group on the relevant shipping profile and that group has rates covering the buyer’s destination zone. Set those up under Shipping & checkout.

• Routing then breaks ties. Among the locations that can both stock and ship the order, your rules decide the assignment — fewest splits, in-market, and ranked-group order, applied top to bottom.

• Stay in market needs a destination. That rule compares each location’s country to the buyer’s shipping country, so it only influences orders that carry a shipping address.

Tip

If routing isn’t behaving as expected, check inventory and shipping coverage first. A location that “should” win but doesn’t is usually out of stock for that item, or isn’t in an origin group whose zone covers the buyer — both of which exclude it before any rule runs.

Next steps

Shipping & checkout

Set up the profiles, origin groups, zones and rates that decide which locations can ship where. See Shipping & checkout.

Locations & inventory

Create locations and manage per-location stock — the supply routing chooses from. See Locations & inventory.

Orders & fulfillment

See how assigned locations turn into fulfillments once an order comes in. See Orders & fulfillment.

Auto-fulfillment

Control when items fulfill automatically after routing assigns a location. See Auto-fulfillment.