Order Fulfillment Guide

FinerWorks offers FREE order fulfillment in the form of white label (drop shipping) for artists and photographers who want prints shipped under their name or brand.

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This brief guide is meant to highlight those features we offer at FinerWorks for artists and photographers who use us as their order fulfillment service. At FinerWorks, we believe providing reliable order fulfillment must be simple. In addition, we want artists and photographers to be confident that their customers will receive the prints exactly as intended. There is no application process, and it does not take any special knowledge or technical expertise. If you know how to access photos or image files off your computer and use the Internet, your basic requirements have been met. If you have used FinerWorks before for online ordering, this guide will help you make sure you have not overlooked some of the tools we offer.

What is Drop Shipping?

One of the first things we did when we built our initial ordering system over a decade ago was provide an automatic drop shipping option. Drop shipping simply means you do not need to carry any inventory or worry about packaging and shipping. You commission the drop shipper (which would be FinerWorks) to send the order to your customers, but branded under your name, so it looks like you or your company shipped it.

Many big online companies rely on this method either solely or to let them ship products that they normally would not be able to inventory. Amazon.com uses this method for some of the items sold, and at the individual level, eBay and Etsy sellers use this method all the time.

How it Works

At checkout in the area where you select your “Shipping Method,” there will be a check box you can click to indicate you want it drop-shipped. If you provide a valid address in your account’s business profile, we will automatically check this for you. The order is then shipped and made to look like you are the sender. No information about us will be included. Prices will also be removed from the packing slip.

 

Some Examples

Excel

When you set up your billing and payment methods, each time your orders are successfully received by FinerWorks, the payment method you set up within your FinerWorks account will be billed.

You can submit multiple items within the same order by simply including the same PO for that row.

For instance, if you had an 8×10 print and a 16×20 print going to the same customer, you would duplicate the row of the first item (let’s say it is for the 8×10 print), and then change the product code or SKU in the duplicated row to reflect the 16×20 print.

If you don’t have Excel, we recommend using Google Docs’ spreadsheet or even Apple’s Numbers. There are also other free spreadsheet programs out there. You would populate the spreadsheet the same way, but then export it as an .xlsx document.

We recommend .xlsx or .xls files, which are the two types of Excel file extensions. Also supported are .csv files; however, be careful with .csv files since formatting issues can easily occur.

Most columns are required. Our Excel module documentation shows which ones are required.

You will have the opportunity to map your Excel document to the appropriate fields prior to submitting your orders if they do not match. In some cases, you may need to modify your Excel document prior to uploading it if the column formatting is too different.

The current limit is up to 50 orders at a time. This number may change in the future. If you have more than 50 orders, you will need to split them up into more than one submission.

Order Fulfillment App

The plugin allows you to sync your WooCommerce store with FinerWorks, enabling automated order fulfillment for your print-on-demand products. When a customer places an order on your site, it can be automatically submitted to FinerWorks for printing and dropshipping.

You’ll need the following:

  • An active WooCommerce store on a WordPress site
  • A FinerWorks account
  • Access credentials (web api key and app key available via your FinerWorks account)

When you set up your billing and payment methods, each time your orders are successfully received by FinerWorks, the payment method you set up within your FinerWorks account will be billed.

You can configure your shipping preferences (how you want us to ship orders to your customers) within the Order Fulfillment App or your WooCommerce Integration. When doing so, we will attempt to ship the order via the method you prefer.

If you have Auto Export configured within the FinerWorks plugin, and your products are synced with your virtual inventory, any new orders will be retrieved based on the schedule you set.

After the order is placed, FinerWorks will update the order with pertinent status information as well as update the order with appropriate shipping information.

Yes, you can choose not to use the Auto Export tool within the FinerWorks plugin and choose the orders you want to export. Alternatively, you can utilize the FinerWorks Order Fulfillment App to retrieve orders from your WooCommerce store.

Only if you want to use the Auto Export tool will syncing your products to your virtual inventory be necessary. Without that, we will not know what products to print and ship. Syncing involved making sure that your Virtual Inventory sku, matches your WooCommerce product sku.

A product code can come in handy when it comes to speeding up the process however, you will need to manually export your orders or use the Order Fulfillment App to select the orders you want us to process.

The plugin is free to download and install. You will only be charged for orders placed for fulfillment.

The Order Fulfillment App is a browser-based application used to integrate various shopping cart platforms with FinerWorks for the purpose of submitting orders to be dropshipped.

Yes, however you will be billed for any orders you submit using the app.

Billing information is part of the launch wizard and necessary before you can submit any orders with the app.

Yes, however when setting up your business profile, enter you company name but use a U.S.-based address in the address fields. If you do not have an address in the U.S. to use, use FinerWorks address.

Platforms that are grayed out are currently in the development phase. Over time, we will likely be adding new platforms not listed as well.

The Order Fulfillment App is not meant to be a bridge between two separate stores. For instance, you cannot use it to manage listings on one platform (i.e., Shopify) and expect it to update a similar listing on Etsy.  There are other apps that specialize in that.

Instead, the Order Fulfillment App is meant to be a dashboard in which to bring over orders from various platforms for fulfillment.

If you discover something does not appear to be working as it should, please submit this to our customer service team via our contact page.  They will be able to forward any issues to our development team.

You can submit multiple items within the same order by simply including the same PO for that row.

For instance, if you had an 8×10 print and a 16×20 print going to the same customer, you would duplicate the row of the first item (let’s say it is for the 8×10 print), and then change the product code or SKU in the duplicated row to reflect the 16×20 print.

If you don’t have Excel, we recommend using Google Docs’ spreadsheet or even Apple’s Numbers. There are also other free spreadsheet programs out there. You would populate the spreadsheet the same way, but then export it as an .xlsx document.

We recommend .xlsx or .xls files, which are the two types of Excel file extensions. Also supported are .csv files; however, be careful with .csv files since formatting issues can easily occur.

Most columns are required. Our Excel module documentation shows which ones are required.

You will have the opportunity to map your Excel document to the appropriate fields prior to submitting your orders if they do not match. In some cases, you may need to modify your Excel document prior to uploading it if the column formatting is too different.

The current limit is up to 50 orders at a time. This number may change in the future. If you have more than 50 orders, you will need to split them up into more than one submission.

Depending on the modules (Etsy, Shopify, WooCommerce, et) you are using and the settings you configured within those modules. Some modules will allow for this while others may not. Consult the FAQs for each module.

If you are testing your connection via the plugin and you get a connection failed message, check the logs in the FinerWorks plugin menu. It will usually provide some sort of insight as to why you cannot connect your plugin to FinerWorks.

Here are the most likely reasons:

  • Incorrect / missing web api or app key
  • Business profile incomplete*
  • Billing & payment profile incomplete*
  • Shipping preferences incomplete*

The last three should be completed via the Order Fulfillment App.

If you still have issues connecting, reach out to our customer service team.

Category: WooCommerce

WooCommerce

The plugin allows you to sync your WooCommerce store with FinerWorks, enabling automated order fulfillment for your print-on-demand products. When a customer places an order on your site, it can be automatically submitted to FinerWorks for printing and dropshipping.

You’ll need the following:

  • An active WooCommerce store on a WordPress site
  • A FinerWorks account
  • Access credentials (web api key and app key available via your FinerWorks account)

When you set up your billing and payment methods, each time your orders are successfully received by FinerWorks, the payment method you set up within your FinerWorks account will be billed.

You can configure your shipping preferences (how you want us to ship orders to your customers) within the Order Fulfillment App or your WooCommerce Integration. When doing so, we will attempt to ship the order via the method you prefer.

If you have Auto Export configured within the FinerWorks plugin, and your products are synced with your virtual inventory, any new orders will be retrieved based on the schedule you set.

After the order is placed, FinerWorks will update the order with pertinent status information as well as update the order with appropriate shipping information.

Yes, you can choose not to use the Auto Export tool within the FinerWorks plugin and choose the orders you want to export. Alternatively, you can utilize the FinerWorks Order Fulfillment App to retrieve orders from your WooCommerce store.

Only if you want to use the Auto Export tool will syncing your products to your virtual inventory be necessary. Without that, we will not know what products to print and ship. Syncing involved making sure that your Virtual Inventory sku, matches your WooCommerce product sku.

A product code can come in handy when it comes to speeding up the process however, you will need to manually export your orders or use the Order Fulfillment App to select the orders you want us to process.

The plugin is free to download and install. You will only be charged for orders placed for fulfillment.

If you are testing your connection via the plugin and you get a connection failed message, check the logs in the FinerWorks plugin menu. It will usually provide some sort of insight as to why you cannot connect your plugin to FinerWorks.

Here are the most likely reasons:

  • Incorrect / missing web api or app key
  • Business profile incomplete*
  • Billing & payment profile incomplete*
  • Shipping preferences incomplete*

The last three should be completed via the Order Fulfillment App.

If you still have issues connecting, reach out to our customer service team.

Category: WooCommerce

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