Russ Ronchi

Digital Transformation Leader

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Shopify SFS Split Shipment for Outerknown

Ensuring Seamless Multi-Location Ship-from-Store Fulfillment in Shopify+

Outerknown, a premium sustainable fashion brand, leverages Shopify+ as its e-commerce platform, using Shopify’s native Order Management System (OMS) for fulfillment routing. Their fulfillment network consists of a primary 3PL warehouse (GXO, formerly PFSWeb) and retail stores that can fulfill online orders. While Shopify+ can split fulfillment between these locations, a critical limitation in its logic was causing inventory mismatches and fulfillment failures.

To address this, I developed the Shopify SFS Split Shipment (Ship-from-Store) solution, an automated system that intercepts order fulfillment logic and ensures inventory validation before Shopify reassigns orders to store locations.

The Challenge

Shopify+ OMS routes orders based on a primary fulfillment logic:

  • If the 3PL warehouse has enough stock, it fulfills the order.
  • If the 3PL is out of stock, Shopify reassigns the order to a store location.

However, Shopify+ only checks if a store has any inventory—it does not verify if the store has enough to fulfill the order. This led to a common issue:

  • Example: A customer orders 5 units of an item.
  • The 3PL only has 3 in stock, so Shopify splits the remaining 2 to a retail store.
  • The store only has 1 unit in stock—yet Shopify assigns all 2 units to the store anyway.
  • The order is now impossible to fulfill, requiring manual intervention and delays.

Outerknown needed a ship-from-store solution to automate inventory validation and ensure proper fulfillment assignment when orders were split from the 3PL.

The Solution

I built the Shopify SFS Split Shipment App, a serverless AWS-powered automation layer that intelligently validates fulfillment logic before Shopify assigns inventory.

Key Features & Process:

  1. Intercept Orders via Webhook

    • Listens for new Shopify orders and extracts order details.
    • Identifies line items with quantity greater than 1 that are not assigned to the 3PL.

  2. Real-Time Inventory Validation

    • Calls Shopify’s GraphQL APIs to check actual stock at store locations.
    • If the assigned store does not have enough inventory, the system finds an alternate location or flags the order as “retail short.”

  3. Automated Ship-from-Store Fulfillment Reassignment

    • Uses AWS Lambda + SQS queues to process order updates asynchronously.
    • Reassigns fulfillment locations dynamically, ensuring the order can be completely fulfilled.
    • Tags orders in Shopify for easy tracking and operational visibility.

Technical Architecture

  • AWS Lambda (serverless processing)
  • AWS SQS (decoupled order processing queues)
  • Shopify GraphQL API (inventory checks & order updates)
  • CloudWatch Logging (real-time monitoring & debugging)
  • SNS Alerts (error notifications)

Results and Impact

  • Eliminated fulfillment mismatches—ensuring orders were only assigned to stores with enough inventory.
  • Reduced manual intervention—automation removed the need for Customer Service overrides.
  • Faster ship-from-store fulfillment processing—orders were dynamically reassigned without delays.
  • Improved operational visibility—Shopify tagging + logging made order tracking seamless.
  • Cost Savings—reductions realized in multiple business units as well as saving sales from being lost due to fulfillment issues.

Outerknown’s fulfillment team saw a significant reduction in customer service escalations and manual order corrections, creating a more reliable, automated ship-from-store fulfillment experience.

My Role

As the Lead Solution Architect, I was responsible for:

  • Defining and architecting the SFS split shipment solution to enhance Shopify’s native capabilities.
  • Developing/Coding the AWS Lambda & SQS logic for order processing.
  • Integrating Shopify’s GraphQL APIs to ensure real-time inventory validation.
  • Designing the logging and monitoring system for order tracking.
  • Collaborating with Outerknown’s e-commerce team to align the solution with business requirements.

Why It Matters

This project enhanced Shopify+’s native fulfillment capabilities, solving a critical issue that affected DTC brands using multi-location fulfillment. By leveraging serverless automation and intelligent order processing, I created a scalable, hands-free solution that improved efficiency, accuracy, and customer satisfaction.

Need a smarter fulfillment solution for Shopify+? → Let’s Talk