Dropship Setup

Upgrade Your Plan: Not seeing this feature in your account? It may not be available in your current plan. Upgrading your ecomdash plan gives you access to additional features and products. Learn more.

 

Ecomdash can communicate with dropship suppliers to streamline inventory and order management. There are multiple ways you can connect to a dropship supplier:

• an automated feed system to send information back and forth to your suppliers. This could be your own dropship supplier or one of our pre-built dropship supplier apps in our app store.
• our open ecommerce API - learn more here.

Within our app store, we offer many popular dropship suppliers as pre-built apps. These pre-built solutions can save you a ton of time since we’ve already built the formats and completed the warehouse details for you. Once you’ve been approved by the dropship supplier, you can subscribe to our app. Once subscribed, all you need to do is enter the FTP credentials provided by the specific dropship supplier.

If there’s not a pre-built app available, follow the steps below to learn how you can use our automated feed system to connect with your dropship supplier.

 

Is Your Supplier Compatible?

Before moving forward, you’ll need to see if your dropship supplier can work with our system. Please use this Dropship Supplier Requirements document to ensure your supplier is compatible with ecomdash. It’s also a great checklist so you know what information is needed from your dropship supplier. Once you confirm that your dropship supplier is compatible, you can connect them to your ecomdash account. 

 

How Our Automated Dropshipping Solution Works

We organize dropship suppliers as warehouses. That means you’ll create a warehouse for each of your dropship suppliers. From there, you’ll have three types of feeds (outlined in the doc linked above) that you can utilize to streamline operations:

1. Order Export: we can automatically send your sales orders to your dropship supplier for faster fulfillment.
2. Tracking Import: your supplier can send the tracking details for your orders back to ecomdash so we can update your sales channel.
3. Inventory Updates: we can receive quantity and product updates from your suppliers to update your sales channels.

 

How to Create a Dropship Warehouse

Once you’ve confirmed your dropship supplier is compatible, you can connect them to your ecomdash account. We organize dropship suppliers as warehouses, which means you’ll need to create a separate warehouse for each of your dropshippers.

 

To create a dropship warehouse:

1. Navigate to Settings > Warehouse.

2. In the Warehouses section, choose View on the Dropship/3PL tile.

3. Select Add New.

4. Enter your warehouse information, such as Warehouse Name and Email.

 

How to Set Up an Order Export Feed

Once you’ve created a dropship warehouse, follow these steps to set up the order export feed.

 

To set up an order export feed:

1. Select Email, FTP, or SFTP from the Integration Type dropdown. This allows ecomdash to communicate with your dropship supplier.

2. In the Warehouse Settings section, choose View on the Warehouse Integration tile.

3. You have the option to send sales orders to your dropship supplier on an interval basis or at specific times. To do so, enable Auto Export Sales Orders and select your desired Export Timing from the dropdown.

4. Then, choose Integration Interval or Scheduled Export Times from the options provided. This determines how often ecomdash will send new orders to your supplier.

4. Choose if you’d like to include Packing Slips when we send new sales orders to your dropship supplier.

5. Enter the Outbound Credentials provided by your dropship supplier.

6. To ensure we’re able to reach the URL provided, we offer an FTP validation test. Run this test so we can see if the URL is valid.

7. Save your integration settings and select Back.

8. In the Warehouse Settings section, choose View on the Order Export tile to manage your order export settings.

9. Select the correct Text File Delimiter - you’ll get this information from your dropship supplier.

10. Add Order Fields to meet the requirements of your dropship supplier. If your supplier plans to send tracking information back to ecomdash via FTP, you’ll need to include the Order ID or Order Item ID:

• Order ID: Use if your supplier providers one tracking number for the entire order.
• Order Item ID: Use if your supplier provides a tracking number for each specific product on the order.

11. Save your Warehouse Order Export and select Back.

12. Save your Warehouse Details.

 

How to Set Up a Tracking Import Feed

Once you’ve set up your Order Export Feed, follow these steps to set up your tracking import feed.

 

To set up a tracking import feed:

1. In the Warehouse Settings section, choose View on the Warehouse Integration tile.

2. Enter the Inbound Credentials provided by your dropship supplier.

3. To ensure we’re able to reach the URL provided, we offer an FTP validation test. Run this test so we can see if the URL is valid.

4. Save your integration settings and select Back.

5. In the Warehouse Settings section, choose View on the Tracking Import tile to manage your tracking import settings.

6. Choose the correct Text File Delimiter - you’ll get this information from your supplier.

7. Select File Includes Header if the file your dropshipper sends includes a header row. This lets our system know that this row does not contain order details.                                     

8. Add Fulfillment Fields to ensure the format matches the file your dropship supplier provides. Find out what information your supplier plans to send and in which order. You must have a field for each column on the file.

The required fields are:

• Tracking Number
• Carrier - Please note that you’ll need to have your carrier integrated in ecomdash so we’re able to properly apply the carrier to the order.
• Order ID or Order Item ID
  • Order ID: Use if your supplier provides one tracking number for the entire order.
  • Order Item ID: Use if your supplier provides tracking numbers for each specific product on the order.

9. Save your Warehouse Order Export and select Back.

10. Save your Warehouse Details.

 

How to Create an Inventory Feed

Follow these steps to set up your inventory feed.

 

To set up an automated inventory feed:

1. Navigate to Settings > Bulk Import/Export.

2. In the Format Types section, select View on the Integrated Import Formats tile.

3. Select Add New and provide a name to create your new inventory feed.

4. Select your dropship warehouse from the Warehouse dropdown so we know where to allocate product quantity.

5. If the file your dropship supplier provides includes a header row, make sure File Includes Header is marked so our system knows there is no actual data in that row.

6. Choose which product identifier you want us to use to identify your products.

7. Switch the toggle to Integrated to allow us to import a file from your supplier on an interval or scheduled basis.

9. Choose Manage Integration Settings.

8. Specify what you want the Integration Interval to be or what Scheduled Times the file should be received.

9. Choose the correct Text File Delimiter - you’ll get this information from your supplier.

10. You’ll need to define what ecomdash does with the information on the file:

• If the file contains a product with a SKU that already exists in ecomdash, what would you prefer us to do:                   
• Mark the checkbox to Create new product if SKU does not match if you’d like new products to be created when we can’t find a matching SKU in ecomdash.
• If your dropship supplier removes products from the file when they’re no longer available, mark the option to Set Quantity to 0 on Products not in File.                                                       

11. Select FTP, HTTP, or SFTP from the Integration Type dropdown.

12. Enter the Inbound Credentials (where we can grab the file) for your inventory feed.

13. If you've chosen an FTP connection, run the Test for your credentials to ensure we are able to access the URL provided.

14. Close the Integration Settings window and Save your format details.

15. Now that the connection is in place, it’s time to create a format that tells ecomdash how to read your supplier’s file. Request a copy of your dropshipper’s inventory file so you can reference the format, then select Add Attribute to add each field the supplier includes in the file.

16. In the attributes window, you’ll need to choose an attribute to match every column on the file your supplier provides. If there’s information you don’t want to import, choose the Ignore attribute.

17. Once you’ve added the correct attributes to your import format, select Back and Save. Your feed will now run based on the interval you specified.

 

If you need additional assistance, we’re here to help. You can always -

• Reach out to support@ecomdash.com.
• Chat with a live agent within your ecomdash account.
• Schedule a call with a product specialist - available to all pro plan users.