multi-warehouse

Shopify has native multi-location inventory supporting up to 1,000 locations depending on your plan. Add locations under Settings → Locations, assign stock per variant, and set fulfillment priority under Settings → Shipping and delivery. For proximity-based routing, install an app like ShipHero or ShipBob.

WooCommerce requires a plugin since it lacks built-in multi-location support. ATUM Multi-Inventory (an add-on to the free ATUM core) is the recommended option, offering per-location stock, region or priority-based selection rules, and transfer orders. WooCommerce Multi-Location Inventory by Iconic is an alternative.

The allocation engine scores all active locations by haversine distance to the shipping address, sorted nearest first. It tries to fulfill the entire order from a single location before falling back to a greedy split across the nearest locations with stock, throwing an error if total stock is insufficient.

Yes, BigCommerce supports multi-location inventory through its free Multi-Location Inventory app. You can configure routing rules such as ship-from-nearest or ship-from-cheapest, and the platform generates split shipments automatically when no single location can fulfill an order.

The receive function should accept a receivedItems parameter with quantities that may be less than the original transfer. It decrements on_hand and reserved at the source, upserts on_hand at the destination, and records discrepancies like transit damage separately.

Only build a custom engine when your routing logic exceeds what platform tools support, such as zone-based, cost-optimized, or complex split-fulfillment rules. Shopify and BigCommerce handle the common multi-location case natively, so prefer built-in features first.