Managing multi-location, multi-brand, and dropshipping

Overview

• If you dispatch from multiple locations, have multiple brands or use various integrations (e.g. two Magento stores) you will need to set up child accounts for each additional location/brand.
• To use the child account feature you must be on the Professional plan or higher. Child accounts cost an additional $20 each per month.
• There are different types of child accounts available, depending on your business requirements.

Multi-location

• Use a multi-location account when you ship from multiple business locations or on behalf of multiple businesses, and want to bill shipping costs to different courier accounts.
• Multi-location child accounts have different settings from the parent account, like different addresses, couriers, package sizes, print settings, and contacts.
• Multi-location child accounts can't create integrations or customise notification emails. Only the parent account can do this.

For example, if you have multiple stores in various locations and you want to dispatch goods from a local store or warehouse to reduce overall shipping costs and efficiency, your workflow might look like this: 

How do courier integrations work with multi-location child accounts?

You can assign orders to multi-location child accounts manually or by using a rule. When you fulfil the order on the account, Starshipit will write-back the tracking number through the parent account's integration. 

For example, if you use the same Australia Post account or account which uses increment numbers to create tracking numbers, you'll need to change the increment value on each account that you add a courier on. 

Set up a multi-location child account

1. In your Starshipit account, go to Settings > Child Accounts.
2. Click Add a new child account.
3. Set a username and password for the account.
4. Under Type, select Multi-location Account.
5. Select whether or not to Hide Courier Rates.
6. Click Save.

You can configure settings specific to each location:

• Pickup Address: Go to Settings > Pickup Address.
• Courier details: For most couriers (e.g. Australia Post), you'll need to get new API credentials. For some couriers, you can use the same credentials and copy and paste the information in Settings > Couriers.
• Printing Parameter: Set up the printer of the new location.  

NOTE: You should now have separate login credentials for each account: one for your main location and another for your new shipping location.

Multi-brand 

If you dispatch multiple brands from the same warehouse, you can use your main parent account to create child accounts for each brand or business. Each child account will have its own manifest settings and customised branded notifications:

Dropshipping 

If the products you sell are held by a third-party, usually a wholesaler or manufacturer who ships your products directly to the customer, you can use your main parent account to create child accounts for each third-party. Configure business rules to automatically allocate orders across the child accounts. Each third-party will then fulfil orders within their respective child account: