How to Fulfill a Marketplace Order

Modified on Tue, 16 Jan at 9:48 AM

The phrase “Marketplace Order” can refer to any order that was placed online by a customer – either through your webstore, or any other online marketplace (like Amazon). Additionally, “Marketplace Order” can also apply to things like store-to-store transfers of items.

This article will describe how you can use the FieldStack Application to fulfill a Marketplace Order. The first half of the article will serve as a walkthrough on how to navigate each step of this process. The second half will be a series of videos that illustrate the different fulfillment workflows available to you.

Basic Steps of Fulfilling a Marketplace Order:

Access the Marketplace Order Screen
Generate a Picking Batch
Collect Items on the Picking Batch’s Pick List
Scan the Collected Items
Manage Order's Packages and Select Postage
Handle Missing Items (If Applicable)
Close the Picking Batch

How to Access the Marketplace Order Screen

The “Marketplace Order Screen” allows you to manage all marketplace orders and their fulfillment from one screen.

There are two ways to access the Marketplace Order Screen:

On the “Point of Service (POS)” tab, click the purple “Marketplace Mode” button
While on the “Point of Service (POS)” tab, use the keyboard shortcut “CTRL + M”

Performing either action will bring you to the “Marketplace Order Screen” shown here:

How to Generate a Picking Batch

Next, you need to generate a Picking Batch. A "Picking Batch" is essentially a group of one or more Marketplace Orders that you will collect items for, buy postage for, and fulfill at one time. Each "Picking Batch" subsequently creates a "Pick List", which is a list of items needed to fulfill the orders in your "Picking Batch".

Click the “Current Orders” button in the right-hand corner of the Marketplace Orders screen to open the “Picking Batch Screen”.

When opened, the “Picking Batch Screen” will look something like this:

More information on the Picking Batch Screen can be found in

the Marketplace Picking Batch Screen Overview, found here.

From this window, you will be able to generate a new picking batch. Any picking batch that you generate will be automatically assigned to you.

Click the “Create New Picking Batch” button to create a new picking batch.

This will create a picking batch and bring up a preview of your generated batch:

Click the printer icon on the preview to print your generated batch.

This will print the list of items included in the picking batch you generated. This list of items is also referred to as a “Pick List”.

Once the picking batch has been printed, you can close the preview window.

How to Use a Picking Batch's Pick List

At this time, you will need to collect the items on the printed “Pick List”.

A Picking Batch’s “Pick List” is a list of items that you need to collect in order to fulfill customers’ Marketplace Orders.

Each “Pick List” contains a plethora of information on each of these items, as shown in the example below:

NOTE: Depending on your specific configuration,

the format of your Pick List may vary.

More information about "Pick Lists" and how to best utilize them can be found here.

How to Scan Items in the Pick List

After collecting all the items on your “Pick List”, you will need to scan those items.

Click the “Current Orders” button in the right-hand corner of the Marketplace Orders screen to reopen the “Picking Batch Screen”

You now need to locate your “Picking Batch” in the Batch List part of the “Picking Batch Screen”:

You can most easily identify your Picking Batch by looking for your name in the “Employee” column and the date you generated the Picking Batch in the “Batch Open” column.

More information on the Batch List’s columns and how to utilize them can be found here.

After you locate your Picking Batch, you have a couple of options:

First Option - Reprint Your Pick List by OrderId:

If you’ve collected items for multiple orders and are hoping to organize the items on your Pick List by Marketplace Order while you process them, it may be helpful to reprint your Pick List, this time sorted by OrderId.

To print your Pick List sorted by OrderId:

Check the “Print by Order Id” Checkbox
Click the printer icon in the “Pick List” column to print the Pick List

You will still need to "Select" your Picking Batch after reprinting your Pick List.

Second Option - "Select" Your Picking Batch:

Alternatively (or after you reprint your Pick List), to scan the items you’ve collected, "Select" your Picking Batch.

Click the button in your Picking Batch’s “Select” column.

Selecting a Picking Batch will close the Picking Batch window and pull up the Batch on the Marketplace Order Screen so that you can scan the items you collected:

On the righthand side of the screen, there will be a list of items in your Picking Batch. Clicking on an item in that list will partially highlight the item’s row purple.

Additionally, for easy identification, used items on that list will be highlighted green and new items on the list will not be colored. This should help you doublecheck the condition of each item you scan.

Now you can begin scanning the collected items.

Scanning Items for Multi-Item Orders:

If a customer orders more than one item, their order is considered a multi-item order.

When you scan an item that is a part of a multi-item order, the item list on the righthand side of the Marketplace Order screen will automatically change to only show other items in that order.

You will need to scan all items for that order before you can move on. After you scan the last order for a multi-item order, the Postage Select Screen will automatically pop up.

Scanning Items for Single Item Orders:

If a customer orders only one item, their order is considered a single item order. When you scan the item for a single item order, the Postage Select screen will automatically pop up, as all items for that order have been scanned.

How to Manage Packages and Postage

After you scan all items for a Marketplace Order, the “Postage Select” screen will automatically pop up.

When opened, the “Postage Select” screen will look something like this:

The “Postage Select” screen provides two lists:

Package List: List of packages associated with this order
Package Contents List: List of items associated with the selected package

The other components of the “Postage Select” screen are covered in the Postage Select Screen Overview, which can be found here.

The Package List provides the following columns and information for each package:

Customer: Customer’s name
Packaging: Suggested form of packaging
Items: Number of items in the package
Package Carrier: Package carrier for the package (EX: USPS)
Ship Date: Expected date package will be shipped (generally today’s date)
Weight: Dynamic weight of the package
Lock: A button to lock the weight of the package after final weigh in

Select a package from the “Package List” and weigh the following things on the Postage Scale (simultaneously):

All items in the package
The packaging itself
Package’s invoice
Anything else that will be sent in the package

It is crucial to include everything that will be mailed with the package when weighing so that the recorded weight is as accurate as possible. As mentioned above, a package’s weight is dynamic – meaning that as you weigh the package and its items, the value of that column will change to match the value read by the postage scale.

Once everything is on the Postage Scale, click the package’s “Lock” button to lock in the package’s weight and prevent changes.

Repeat for all packages in the Package List for the order.

After all packages for this order have their weights locked in, click “Purchase Postage” on the bottom of the Postage Select window. Depending on company policy, your shipping labels and other materials may print at this time.

More information about the Postage Select Screen and its additional functionality can be found here:

Postage Select Screen Overview

Split Items into Separate Packages

Manage Postage for All Orders in Picking Batch

How to Handle Missing Items

If there are items missing from your Picking Batch, you can “no stock” them from your inventory. Depending on company policy, these actions may need to be done by another employee or only after multiple people have attempted to pick the missing item multiple times.

To “no stock” missing items, you’ll need to enter “Send Mode” on another “Point of Service (POS)” tab.

First, move to another “Point of Service (POS)” tab by clicking one of the “Empty” tabs at the bottom of your current “Point of Service (POS)” tab.

From the new POS tab, you can enter “Send Mode” two ways:

Click the orange “Enter Send Mode” button
While on the “Point of Service (POS)” tab, use the keyboard shortcut “CTRL + S”

Either action will bring you to “Send Mode”:

In “Send Mode” send the missing item(s) out of inventory using the appropriate PO Number. More information on sending items out of inventory can be found in the Inventory - Receiving & Sending Product article here.

Sending the item out of your inventory will remove the item from your Picking Batch.

If you happen to miss an item and close the Picking Batch without scanning it, the item’s order will be moved to another Picking Batch automatically.

Depending on your location, you may be prompted for an explanation for items missing from the Picking Batch upon scan out.

How to Close a Picking Batch

After scanning all items and weighing all packages in your Picking Batch, you will be able to close the Batch.

After the last order's “Postage Selection” screen closes, you’ll be returned to the “Marketplace Orders” screen:

From here, click the “Finish Current Batch” button on the right-hand side.

If your Picking Batch’s packages’ shipping labels or other materials haven’t already been printed, they will print at this time.

You may now insert invoices into their corresponding packages, seal them, and apply the shipping label.

Your orders are now ready to ship!

Default Workflows

There are several workflows for fulfilling your picking batches. They are: label as you go, package as you go, package as you go with deferred postage and scan all before labels. Each has a slightly different flow and no matter how your store processes web orders, the defaults should accommodate your needs. The following videos show the standard workflow for each of the three defaults:

Labels As You Go

Package As You Go

Scan All Before Labels

Package As You Go with Deferred Postage

Package as you go with deferred postage works just like Package as you go, except you don't need to weigh and print postage at the initial packaging step. You can scan the postage bar code either on the same workstation or another workstation to do the weighing an final postage purchasing and printing.