Shopify order routing multi-warehouse: how orders choose the right building

Every Shopify order has to answer a simple question before it ships: where should this come from? When inventory lives in one building, the answer is obvious. When inventory lives in multiple warehouses, that decision becomes one of the most important pieces of your operation.

Shopify order routing in a multi-warehouse environment determines shipping speed, shipping cost, labor balance, and customer satisfaction. When it works, customers get fast delivery at a reasonable cost. When it fails, orders ship from the wrong coast, same-day promises break, and margins disappear quietly.

Routing is not a detail. It is the logic layer that connects inventory truth to customer promises.

Why order routing becomes painful the moment you add locations

Brands usually add warehouses to improve service. They want to get closer to customers, reduce transit time, and lower carrier costs. What they do not always realize is that every new location multiplies routing decisions.

An order placed in California could ship from Nevada, Arizona, Texas, or Wisconsin. Each option has a different cost, delivery date, and labor impact. Without automated routing logic, those decisions fall to manual rules or default behaviors that were never designed for scale.

Holly Woods, Director of Operations at G10, describes why location choice matters in practical terms. "If someone is based in Chicago, an order will probably go out of the Wisconsin for lower shipping and transit time than shipping it from, say, Nevada or Texas." That choice should happen automatically, every time.

Shopify alone cannot make routing decisions

Shopify can capture the order and show the customer a delivery estimate. It cannot see what is happening inside the warehouse network in real time. It does not know which building is backed up, which location just received inbound inventory, or which node is running low on labor.

That is why Shopify order routing belongs in the warehouse management system. The WMS sees inventory by location, understands pick capacity, and enforces routing rules consistently.

Bryan Wright, CTO and COO of G10, explains why visibility inside the warehouse matters for every downstream decision. "A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point that you touch it." If the system does not know where inventory is right now, it cannot route orders intelligently.

The hidden cost of default routing rules

Many brands rely on simplistic routing rules: ship from the closest warehouse, or ship from the primary location until it runs out. Those rules work until they do not.

During peak periods, the closest warehouse may also be the most congested. During promotions, one location may burn through inventory intended for another region. Default rules do not adapt to reality, and reality does not wait for nightly updates.

Connor Perkins, Director of Fulfillment at G10, has seen what happens when routing and inventory accuracy break down together. "One of the pain points our clients have experienced with previous 3PLSs is inventory accuracy; maybe their previous 3PL wasn't great at picking the orders accurately." When accuracy slips, routing decisions amplify the damage by sending orders to locations that cannot fulfill them correctly.

Routing depends on real-time inventory, not yesterday's counts

Order routing is only as good as the inventory data behind it. If inventory updates lag by hours, routing logic is guessing. That is how orders get assigned to warehouses that are technically stocked but practically empty.

Real-time inventory requires scan-based execution. Every receive, move, pick, and pack event has to update the system immediately. That is the only way routing decisions can be made with confidence.

Perkins describes the operational baseline that makes this possible. "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper." Without that discipline, routing logic becomes a liability instead of an asset.

Multi-warehouse routing is also about labor balance

Routing is not just about geography. It is about capacity. A warehouse with inventory but no labor is just as constrained as a warehouse with empty shelves.

Advanced routing logic considers workload distribution. If one site is overloaded and another has capacity, routing can shift volume to keep same-day commitments intact. That flexibility is impossible with static rules.

Woods describes how distributed operations create resilience during peaks. "Now it's not just one site working on these orders. We have three sites that are working on orders for you." Routing logic is what makes that parallel processing possible.

How routing mistakes show up to customers

Customers never see routing rules, but they feel the consequences immediately. Orders arrive late. Tracking updates stall. Delivery dates change after checkout. Each of those moments erodes confidence.

Joel Malmquist, VP of Customer Experience at G10, explains how clean routing supports a clean customer experience. "There's a direct integration with Shopify where orders come in and flow directly into G10. We fulfill those pushback tracking to Shopify to show that the order hits, has been completed." When routing is correct, that flow stays predictable.

When routing fails, customer service becomes a translator between systems. That is expensive and exhausting.

Routing complexity increases with omnichannel orders

D2C orders are usually flexible. B2B orders are not. Retail orders often require shipping from specific locations, on specific carriers, with specific labels. Routing logic has to respect those constraints automatically.

Malmquist explains the stakes for retail shipments. "Walmart's pretty intense with their labeling rules. Dick's Sporting Goods is the same; if you don't do it right, you get those massive chargeback." Routing an order to the wrong warehouse can trigger compliance failures that have nothing to do with picking quality.

Wright explains why systems built only for D2C struggle here. "By comparison, a lot of other people have created D2C software and they're trying to get into the B2B space, and they many not realize the significant amount of effort that it takes to be compliant for B2B customers." Routing rules have to understand channel requirements, not just distance.

Why returns and replenishment affect routing decisions

Routing logic should not ignore returns and inbound flows. A warehouse receiving a high volume of returns may suddenly have sellable inventory available. A warehouse waiting on inbound pallets should not be assigned new orders until that inventory is received and scanned.

Without visibility into inbound and returns status, routing decisions are incomplete. Orders get sent to locations that are about to be stocked, or away from locations that already have inventory sitting in quarantine.

Maureen Milligan, Director of Operations and Projects at G10, explains how real-time visibility changes decision-making. "They can actually watch those progressions going on." When inbound and outbound are visible together, routing becomes proactive instead of reactive.

How to tell if your routing logic is working

Good routing logic is quiet. Orders ship from the expected location. Transit times stay consistent. Shipping costs stay predictable. Customer service does not have to explain why an order shipped from across the country.

Bad routing logic leaves fingerprints everywhere: frequent location overrides, rising expedited shipping costs, inventory stranded in one warehouse while another runs dry, and constant exceptions during peaks.

If your team regularly asks, "Why did this order ship from there?" the routing logic is not doing its job.

How G10 approaches Shopify order routing across multiple warehouses

G10 treats routing as a core operational capability, not a bolt-on rule set. Orders flow directly from Shopify into a scan-based WMS that sees inventory, labor, and channel requirements in real time.

Perkins describes the importance of flexibility when routing rules need to change. "We have experience with omni-channel integration setup and we're capable of doing any EDI, API, flat file, XML, any type of integration needed throughout the omni-channel for the marketplaces out there." That flexibility allows routing logic to evolve as the business grows.

When questions do arise, Malmquist describes the support model that keeps routing suggests from becoming crises. "If you're working with G10, your experience for getting help is that you can either email or call your direct point of contact. It's that simple." Routing decisions move fast, and support has to move faster.

If your Shopify orders are shipping from the wrong places, costing more than expected, or breaking delivery promises, the routing logic is the first place to look. Bring your warehouse map, your order volumes, and your peak scenarios, and we will show you how smarter multi-warehouse routing can turn fulfillment from a daily debate into a predictable system.