Dropship Automation Score: Scoring Table

Scoring Guide

for your Dropship Automation Score

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Inventory Syncing

Product Importing

Order Routing

Order Placement

Shipment Tracking

Accounting

Inventory Syncing

Q: Are you currently syncing inventory with any of your suppliers?

Answer	Efficiency Score	Explanation/Recommendation
I am not syncing inventory quantities with any suppliers, but I should be	0	[Not Automated: Score 0/5] Syncing inventory (when it matters) can be critical to the success of your dropship business and your company’s reputation. Selling out of stock items will cause customer frustration and add unnecessary and costly customer service hours. The first step here is to ask your supplier(s) if they provide an “inventory feed” (typically a file automatically sent/updated hourly/daily). If they don’t provide a “feed” then you may have other options to connect directly with their platform or ask them to upload inventory via a Vendor Portal. See the link above for more details.
I am automatically syncing inventory with the majority of suppliers but not the others (and need to)	3	[Semi-Automated: Score 3/5] There are typically three reasons you are syncing with some suppliers and not with others... 1) They don’t provide a way to integrate 2) You are unable to integrate from a cost/time/resource perspective 3) You don’t need to In order to fully automate your operations you’ll want a platform that allows for flexibility or cost effective custom integration options to maximize the amount of suppliers integrated. With a flexible enough modern platform, Even those suppliers that “don’t have a feed” can be integrated… if they are willing.
I am automatically syncing inventory with the majority or all of my suppliers	5	[Fully Automated: Score 5/5] Woohoo! Great job!
There is no need/desire to sync supplier inventory quantities in my business	5	[Not Required: Score 5/5] Ok great. We won’t dock your score for not automating here if it doesn’t matter.

New Product Importing

Q: Are you currently importing product data from your suppliers?

Answer	Efficiency Score	Explanation/Recommendation
I am not importing product data from my suppliers, but would like to	0	[Not Automated: Score 0/5] Importing product data (when available) can be extremely valuable when managing a large product catalog as well as in the new product setup process. Even if you are planning on modifying product titles, descriptions, categories, attributes, etc this data can give you a great foundation to build upon/modify when creating new product listings on your store. It also gives you a head start in unifying the product data in one central system to be able to search and manage a large product catalog. You can often pull product data directly from your supplier’s ecommerce store if they are on Shopify or BigCommerce directly into your PIM, and you are leveraging a platform like Flxpoint.
I am currently importing product data from some (< 50%) of my suppliers.	3	[Semi-Automated: Score 3/5] Product data can be hard to come by, especially when dealing with brands or small suppliers, so this is understandable. As noted above, it may be possible to get product data from other suppliers even if they don’t provide it in a traditional spreadsheet format.
I am currently importing product data from the majority or all of my suppliers	5	[Fully Automated: Score 5/5] Nice! This is impressive!
There is no need/desire to import product data from my suppliers	5	[Not Required: Score 5/5] Ok great. We won’t dock your score for not automating here if it doesn’t matter.

Order Routing

Q: How does your current system/store determine orders that need to be sent to dropship suppliers?

Answer	Efficiency Score	Explanation/Recommendation
We manually identify the order needs to be dropshipped and mark/split it to be “dropshipped”	0	[Not Automated: Score 0/5] This is fairly common when you dropship products that you also stock in house and are unable to intelligently route orders for these products. Although most systems can easily route orders for items that are only dropshipped, products that are stocked in multiple locations can add a layer of complexity to the order management process.
Our system/store can sometimes auto-identify an order as “dropship” and automatically splits/creates a PO to send to the supplier. But in some cases it can not.	3	[Semi-Automated: Score 3/5] Automatically splitting is a great first step, but looks like it doesn’t always work this way. This is understandable as noted above in cases where products are available at multiple locations, it can add a layer of complexity to manage this workflow.
[In 100% of relevant scenarios] Our system/store auto-identifies an order as “dropship” and automatically splits/creates a PO to send to the supplier.	5	[Fully Automated: Score 5/5] Awesome! You must not have any “product overlap” that keeps the routing simple or a system smart enough to route orders and split off POs to multiple locations per product SKU. Good stuff!

Answer

Efficiency Score

Explanation/Recommendation

We manually identify the order needs to be dropshipped and mark/split it to be “dropshipped”

[Not Automated: Score 0/5]

This is fairly common when you dropship products that you also stock in house and are unable to intelligently route orders for these products.

Although most systems can easily route orders for items that are only dropshipped, products that are stocked in multiple locations can add a layer of complexity to the order management process.

Our system/store can sometimes auto-identify an order as “dropship” and automatically splits/creates a PO to send to the supplier. But in some cases it can not.

[Semi-Automated: Score 3/5]

Automatically splitting is a great first step, but looks like it doesn’t always work this way. This is understandable as noted above in cases where products are available at multiple locations, it can add a layer of complexity to manage this workflow.

[In 100% of relevant scenarios] Our system/store auto-identifies an order as “dropship” and automatically splits/creates a PO to send to the supplier.

[Fully Automated: Score 5/5]

Awesome! You must not have any “product overlap” that keeps the routing simple or a system smart enough to route orders and split off POs to multiple locations per product SKU. Good stuff!

Order Placement

Q: How does your current system/store place purchase orders with your dropship suppliers?

Answer	Efficiency Score	Explanation/Recommendation
We place 100% of our orders with our suppliers manually (through website, manual email, via phone, etc).	0	[Not Automated: Score 0/5] This workflow is common when placing wholesale orders, but when starting to dropship it becomes unmanageable very quickly. Unfortunately, many suppliers are not set up to accept dropship orders in an automated way and it may take several conversations to determine if your system or theirs allows for a more automated approach that works for both you and your trading partner. With that said, it is very common for suppliers to set up EDI ordering or make accommodations for their more high volume sellers… and in many cases these options may become available as your order volume increases with them.
[In most scenarios] We automatically send POs via a pre-populated email to our suppliers.	3	[Semi-Automated Emails: Score 3/5] This is a fairly automated way of sending and a great first step in automating the order placement portion of the dropship process. However the process as a whole is not fully automated as there are some inherent manual tasks the supplier will need to execute to get your PO into their system which will slow down the process and open it up for errors. The supplier does not always make it possible and can be costly to implement but it is ideal to send orders via API or EDI directly into your supplier’s ERP/OMS and bypass any manually entry done on either side.
[In most scenarios] Our suppliers log into a vendor portal that we provide them to accept POs.	3	[Semi-Automated Vendor Portal: Score 3/5] This sure does make things easier (and fairly automated) on your end if your vendors are willing and able to accept orders via a vendor portal. However it still scores a 3 out of 5, given the process is still manual on the vendor’s side and can expose you to errors and delays.
[In most scenarios] We send POs via API/EDI directly into our supplier’s order management system.	5	[Fully Automated: Score 5/5] Perfect! This is the fastest and most reliable way to ensure your orders are placed with your suppliers with less errors and shipment delays.

Shipment Tracking

Q: How do you currently receive back dropship shipment statuses and tracking information?

Answer	Efficiency Score	Explanation/Recommendation
[In most scenarios] We receive back emails or log-in to portals to view shipment/tracking information, then copy/paste into our system/store.	0	[Not Automated: Score 0/5] This can be one of the biggest loss in time and efficiency order management team’s daily procedures. When shipping off of your dropship supplier’s account, you can be at their mercy to how/when they provide tracking numbers. However there are ways to work with your suppliers to find the best method to retrieve shipment tracking and status without putting too much burden on your supplier (learn more here).
[In most scenarios] Our suppliers ship off our own carrier accounts, so tracking is automatically integrated into our system/store.	5	[Not Required: Score 5/5] Ok great! If this is the case for 100% of your shipments, this makes things easy. We do see scenarios where a supplier or two you really want to work with requires you to ship off of their account (or the cost savings make sense to do so). In those cases you’ll need to have a strategy to retrieve the shipment tracking information.
[In most scenarios] Our suppliers log into a vendor portal that we provide them to upload/add shipment tracking.	3	[Semi-Automated Vendor Portal: Score 3/5] This sure does make things easier (and fairly automated) on your end if your vendors are willing and able to upload information to a vendor portal. However it still scores a 3 out of 5, given the process is still manual on the vendor’s side and can expose you to errors and delays.
[In most scenarios] We integrate via EDI/API to pull shipment tracking information from our suppliers’ systems.	5	[Fully Automated: Score 5/5] Great! It sounds like you have gone down the path to integrate/automate your full ordering process via EDI/API, the best way to do so.

Accounting & Invoice Reconciliation

Q: How do you currently receive back invoices from your suppliers for dropship orders?

Answer	Efficiency Score	Explanation/Recommendation
I am billed upfront (on credit card) for 100% of dropship purchase orders.	0	[Not Required: Score 0/5] This is typically not ideal for any supplier you are sending multiple POs to on a monthly basis, or anyone you have a B2B relationship with for that matter. Placing B2B orders via credit card should be avoided whenever possible as there are obviously additional credit card fees to your supplier (less margin to you) and no formal “invoice” to reconcile the COGS (Costs of Goods Sold) to the PO.
[In most scenarios] I receive invoices via email or download via the supplier’s website and then manually enter into our accounting system.	0	[Not Automated: Score 0/5] If you are not set up via EDI/API, it is very common for invoices to be provided via email in PDF format or downloaded via the supplier’s website. This unfortunately puts a lot of burden on you to manually enter these invoices into your accounting system / ERP to be able to determine profitability and reconcile COGS. With that said, automation systems like Flxpoint, can allow you to automate even the PDFs that come in via email to help reduce the manual burden.
I auto-generate invoices and pay a commission out to my suppliers (marketplace model).	5	[Fully Automated: Score 5/5] This model does not require invoice reconciliation as you are generating the invoice and commissioning “payouts” vs receiving supplier invoices on net terms.
[In most scenarios] We integrate via EDI/API to receive invoices from our suppliers’ systems.	5	[Fully Automated: Score 5/5] Excellent! If you are engaging in EDI, receiving the 810 invoice makes your life so much easier and often the only choice to automate with many suppliers.

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