Changing Shipping Methods after Despatch

In StoreFeeder you will occasionally find yourself needing to change the shipping label on an order after it’s been 'Pre-Generated', 'Pre-Despatched' or 'Despatched' in the system. 

Some example reasons for this could be that it’s too late in the day to despatch by a certain courier or the item is too heavy etc.  You could also find that an item picked is damaged and it’s the last one left so you need to cancel any consignments and deal with the order at a later point in time.

To avoid being charged (or double charged) by couriers, StoreFeeder allows you to cancel the consignment on an order.

Your use cases will vary from the examples here so it’s important to choose the correct scenario to fit.

1. Change Shipping Method - Used if you if are re-despatching an order with existing stock to hand. Follow Scenario 1.
2. Delete Consignment - Used if you are not processing the order right now and are not using the stock to hand so it needs to go back to the warehouse.  Follow Scenario 2.

We will run through 2 different scenarios as the process is different depending on what you need at the time.

Scenario 1 – Changing the shipping method and generating a new label.

In this scenario we will assume that a customer has requested a next day service and its simply too late in the day to despatch by the courier chosen by your shipping rules.  This order has been 'Pre-Generated' which means that a courier label has been created but the order has not been despatched on channel. 

In this situation all we need to do for you is cancel the existing consignment and create a new one as you will be using the stock you have to hand to fulfil the order.

You will first need to navigate to the 'Manage Orders' page in StoreFeeder, locate the order and then click on 'Edit' link that appears when hovering over the order number. Here you will see all of the information relating to this order.

You will see that a new button is now visible next to the shipping method. 

This button is only visible if the order is in a post label generated status and has not been manifested.

Click on the 'Change Shipping Method' button, this will enable the shipping method dropdown.  You will then see a popup message explaining what happens next, but we will go through this now.  If you change your mind at this point, simply click the 'x' and leave the edit order page and no action will be taken.

To change the method and get a new label, all you need to do is select the new shipping method and click save on the order.  This will then automatically cancel the existing consignment with the current courier where needed and contact the new courier and attempt to generate a new label for you. 

If this succeeds a new label will be created and you will be able to reprint it and ship out the order.

(If the order was previously 'Pre-Despatched' or 'Despatched' we will attempt to update channel with new tracking information but this may not be possible on all channels).

If this fails for any reason, then you will get an error message explaining that we have been unable to create a new consignment and the order will need despatching manually. 

In this situation the order will go to a new status of 'Requires Re-despatch'.  It will also be marked as 'Attention Required' and an attention required message will be added to the order. 

You will then be able to either correct whatever is causing the despatch to fail or try another shipping method. 

Once you have corrected the issue please 'Despatch Order / Pickwave' screen under your 'Warehouse' dropdown menu to despatch the order. 

Scenario 2 – Cancel the shipping for reprocessing later.

In this scenario we will assume that you simply need to cancel the consignment for the order after it has been pre-generated and picked, but will not be shipping it with the stock you have in hand. In this situation we need to do 3 things for you:

• Cancel the consignment with the existing courier.
• Pull the order out of a pickwave.
• Arrange for the stock to be returned so your inventory levels are correct in your pick bins and you don’t have stock in an unknown location in your warehouse.

You will first need to navigate to the 'Manage Orders' page in StoreFeeder, locate the order and then click on 'Edit' link that appears when hovering over the order number. Here you will see all of the information relating to this order.

Click the 'Order Shipping' tab on the left of the page, as shown in the image below.

The 'Order Shipping' page contains all the information related to the shipping method the order has been despatched with. To cancel the consignment for this order so a different shipping method can be used, simply click on the 'Delete Consignment' button circled in the image below.

You will then see a message explaining what will happen next.  We will go through this now.

If you choose the 'Delete Consignment' button on the popup, we will delete the consignment with the courier and if the order has been picked via the app then we will automatically create pending transfers to put the stock back. 

You can see a KB on how to deal with pending transfers using the App here or on the main UI here. 

There is also a reminder that if you simply want to change the shipping method that you can do this on the other tab (see Scenario 1 of this KB).  Again, if you change your mind at this point then simply click the red 'x' on the message, leave the order page and no action will be taken.

Assuming you proceed then you will get a message explaining what you need to do. 

(We do try to delete consignments on supported couriers but for non Royal Mail its worth checking on the courier portal.)

This order will set be back to 'Complete (Ready To Pick)' so you can either add to a new pickwave to reprocess or cancel the order as needed.  You can then process the Pending Transfers to return the stock (or in the case of it being damaged perform an adjustment and cancel the transfer).