Inventory Fulfillment Methods

In CORESense, the fulfillment method determines how a SKU is sourced, where sourcing is the path by which inventory travels from a source to a destination. In the case of an order, the destination is always the customer. There are three available fulfillment methods: Stock, Drop-ship or Just-in-time.

Fulfillment Method	Description
Stock	Used for shipping inventory from the warehouse, to the customer. If the inventory is in stock, it is shipped to the customer. If not, the inventory may be placed on backorder, where once received from a stock purchase order, notification to ship the order is issued.
Drop-ship	Used for shipping inventory from the vendor, directly to the customer, bypassing the warehouse(s) as a point in the supply chain. When choosing this method, a drop-ship purchase order (PO) is sent to the vendor with instructions to ship the inventory directly to the customer. Once the vendor ships the inventory, they typically issue a confirmation including the tracking number. Once notified, the process can be completed by updating the customer's order and sending a shipment confirmation email.
Just-in-Time	Just-in-time Fulfillment Method (JIT) is used for shipping inventory from the vendor, to the warehouse, and then almost immediately from the warehouse, to the customer. When choosing the this method, a JIT purchase order (PO) is sent to the vendor with instructions to ship the inventory directly to the warehouse. It is also common for the JIT PO to include inventory from multiple orders. Once the inventory is received, the retailer is notified to ship the orders.

Note: When creating a SKU, a Default Fulfillment Method is set. This default method is automatically selected separately for each SKU at the time order inventory is sourced. See Order Life Cycle Workflows to better understand how order inventory is sourced.