How to ship certain products from a specific location in Shopify
Many stores ship from more than one place — a shop and a warehouse, or a second warehouse for bulky goods. Shopify decides which location each order ships from, and for some products that isn't the location you'd pick.
How Shopify picks the location
When an order comes in, Shopify's order routing assigns its items to locations that stock them. You'll find the rules under Settings → Shipping and delivery → Order routing — for example Minimize split fulfillments, Ship from closest location, or a ranked list of your locations. They choose between locations the same way for every product, so none of them can say "these products always go from warehouse B".
Shopify only assigns an item to a location that stocks it. So if a product should ship from one place and nowhere else, the simplest fix is to stock it only at that location.
Option 1: change the location by hand
- In your Shopify admin, go to Orders and open the order.
- In the Unfulfilled section, open the ⋯ menu and click Change location.
- Select the items to move, choose the new location, and click Change location.
The selected items move to the new location, and anything you didn't select stays where it was. For many orders at once, the orders list also has a Change fulfillment location bulk action. Store pickup and local delivery orders can't be moved.
Option 2: move matching items automatically
- Install SplitFlow from the Shopify App Store.
- Create a rule and choose the rule type Ship from a location. The first time, click Allow access to locations so SplitFlow can list them.
- Under Ship matching items from, pick the location.
- Add a condition for the items — for example Vendor equals your bulky-goods supplier, or Product tag equals warehouse-b.
- Click Preview latest order to check it, then save.
From then on, once Shopify has assigned a new order to a location, SplitFlow moves the matching items to the one you chose — usually within a minute. Other items stay where Shopify put them, so a mixed order ends up in two shipments. Ship-from rules run before your other rules, so a weight limit or a vendor rule then works on the shipments as they are after the move.
What it won't do
- The location must stock the items. If it doesn't, SplitFlow leaves them where they are and tells you which items aren't stocked there.
- Store pickup and local delivery orders are never moved — the customer chose where to collect or receive them.
- A line moves as a whole: if the customer ordered three of a product, all three move.
- It moves items between your own locations, not to or from a fulfillment service (3PL) app's location.
- Order totals, payment status and what the customer paid for shipping stay the same. Shopify reserves the moved items at the new location instead of the old one, and your total stock doesn't change.
Questions
- Which SplitFlow plan includes “Ship from a location”?
- The Starter plan ($19/month) and higher. The Free plan covers the rules that split orders and the shipment limits, for up to 50 split orders a month.
- Does the customer notice the move?
- The order and what they paid stay the same. If the order ends up in two shipments, the customer gets a shipping confirmation for each one, as with any split order.
- Can I send different products from different warehouses?
- Yes. Add one ship-from rule per location. If an item matches two rules, the rule higher in your list wins, and the order's details show which rule moved it.
- What if Shopify already picked the right location?
- Then there's nothing to move, and SplitFlow leaves the order exactly as it is.