Magento Fulfillment: Definition, Process, and Best Solution

An exceptional eCommerce experience doesn't end when a customer clicks "Place Order." What happens next, from inventory allocation and order processing to shipping and delivery, plays a critical role in customer satisfaction and business success. This entire process is known as eCommerce fulfillment.

Adobe Commerce (Magento) provides businesses with the flexibility to build efficient fulfillment workflows that scale with their operations. Whether you're managing inventory across multiple warehouses, integrating with third party logistics (3PL) providers, or automating order processing, the platform offers the tools needed to streamline fulfillment and improve operational efficiency.

In this blog, we'll explore how Magento fulfillment works, why it matters for modern eCommerce businesses, and the best practices for optimizing your fulfillment strategy to deliver faster, more reliable customer experiences.

What Is Magento Fulfillment?

Magento fulfillment is an entire process of handling and delivering orders from the Magento platform to the customers. The process involves receiving, storing, labeling, picking, packing, shipping, and delivery.

Does Magento Have an Order Fulfillment Feature?

No, Magento doesn’t have a complete fulfillment solution.

While Magento provides an order management system (Magento OMS) with basic fulfillment features, it’s only available in the Adobe Commerce edition. 

Magento OMS supports two main fulfillment processes: Home Delivery and In-store Pickup. However, the module lacks visibility into the entire process. In particular, you can track the start and end statuses of the order processing but don’t know what’s happening in between. Due to these limitations, you’ll need an external warehouse management system (WMS) to oversee the entire fulfillment operation and keep your customers updated about their order status. Additionally, integrating tools like Magento POS can further enhance in-store operations and streamline order handling.

To help you understand how Magento OMS works we’ll break down its processes below. Please note that each diagram highlights the roles of OMS and other systems in a complete Magento fulfillment process. The tasks of OMS are listed in the Magento Order Management column, while other steps require 3rd-party tools like a WMS or Store Operations Software.

Home Delivery:

There are two ways to process home delivery in Magento OMS:

Ship from Warehouse (WH):

As you can see in the following diagram, Magento OMS doesn’t track your pick-pack-ship steps. It only records key milestones: shipment request, shipment completion, and order completion. Therefore, you’ll need a WMS to manage the pick-pack-ship process and have a live view of the fulfillment.

Image: Ship from warehouse or distribution center (Source: Adobe Commerce)

Ship from Store

Similar to the ship-from-warehouse process, the ship-from-store flow in Magento OMS doesn’t monitor or record pick-pack-ship steps. It only displays shipment requests, shipment completion, and order completion.

Image: Ship from store (Source: Adobe Commerce)

In-store Pickup (ISPU)

During ISPU, Magento OMS only records the final statuses, such as the shipment request, shipment completion, and order completion.

Key tasks like picking, notifying customers via email, and customer collection aren’t managed in the OMS but in a 3rrd-party system. Thus, the OMS can’t provide a complete view of the fulfillment process.

Image: In-store pickup (Source: Adobe Commerce)

4 Steps of the Magento Fulfillment Process

1. Order Receipt

• Receive new orders: Customers place their orders on your website or physical store.
• Verify order details: Double-check the customer’s information, such as their contact information, shipping address, and payment details.

2. Inventory Management

• Check item availability: Look at your stock and assign orders to the warehouses or locations that have the items. Hold those items for the orders. 
• Keep customers updated on their order status: Share details about stock availability and inform them about any possible delays or changes in their order.

3. Shipping and Delivery

• Prepare shipping label: Create a label with the customer’s address and order number to help you keep track of the package.
• Picking and packing: Pick the ordered items from the warehouses, then securely pack them with the shipping label prepared.
• Shipping and delivery: Hand the securely packed items to the carrier or logistics partner to deliver to customers. 
• Follow up on delivery status: Use the tracking number to check the delivery status. Monitor and constantly update the progress into the system; handle any delays and update the customer.

Tracking Magento fulfillment UK. Source: Canva

4. Communication With Customers

• Help customers track their orders: Email customers their shipping confirmation and tracking information.
• Send delivery confirmation: Email the customer to confirm that their package has been delivered successfully.
• Address customer inquiries post-delivery: Resolve post-delivery customer inquiries promptly. Listen, investigate, and offer solutions.
• Send a thank-you letter: Thank the customer for their business and invite feedback

Why Should You Use a Magento-Native Order Fulfillment Solution for Your Business?

As Magento OMS doesn’t provide enough built-in features, retailers need a more comprehensive solution to automate and track their fulfillment process. They can use a Magento-native order fulfillment software (MNS) or a standalone solution. If going with a standalone solution, retailers need a connector to integrate the software with Magento for data transfer, thus increasing their operational costs. 

With this in mind, many Magento merchants choose top Magento order fulfillment solutions that are 100% naturally compatible with the platform because of their benefits, such as: 

Seamless Integration and Faster Implementation 

Unlike its standalone counterpart, a Magento-native solution can integrate directly with the Magento platform without a connector or complicated setups. Thanks to this direct link, inventory, order, customer, and product data flow seamlessly and instantly between Magento and the order fulfillment solution, reducing the risk of data loss or mismatch.

Moreover, it follows Magento’s rules to leverage all of Magento’s powerful capabilities. Thus, your business can be up and running faster with much shorter implementation periods. 

Cost Efficiency

A solution native to Magento eliminates the need for costly connectors that standalone solutions require. It’s an ideal choice for retailers who want to centralize their business operations on Magento, offering an affordable, efficient way to manage fulfillment. 

Customization

Magento allows businesses to customize their fulfillment processes to suit their needs better. With a native solution, you can implement specific workflows to automate and adjust repetitive tasks based on customer demands or business requirements. This guarantees a fast and efficient Magento fulfillment process, or, in other words, quick order delivery to your customers. 

Fast and Efficient Support

Using a Magento-native solution, you rely only on the solution provider to detect and fix issues when needed. 

Meanwhile, with a standalone solution, you’ll have to contact both the connector provider and the software provider to investigate problems. The more parties involved in managing your system, the more time it takes to resolve the issues.

Better Customer Experience

Faster and more accurate order fulfillment makes your customers happier. An MNS can streamline your operations and deliver orders more quickly and accurately, improving customer satisfaction and reducing returns.

Multiple Magento Shipping Options With Optimal Costs 

While the built-in Magento fulfillment system may not automatically suggest optimal shipping options based on cost or location, MNSs can help. They select the best carrier for your Magento store to ensure delivery speed, cost-effectiveness, reliability, and customer satisfaction. 

With distributed inventory management, your customers can receive their packages from the closest warehouse, reducing shipping costs and delivery time. 

Though you can choose between Magento 3PL fulfillment integration and Magento-native fulfillment solutions, the native ones are normally the optimal choice for many businesses that want to handle the fulfillment process themselves. 

Among many capable native solutions, Magestore POS also offers a powerful fulfillment function for an omnichannel business. As a Magento-native solution, it syncs online and offline inventory in real time. With Magestore POS, checkout is completed in just 15 seconds. Beyond speed, it enables you to manage multiple locations, run unified operations, and fulfill orders flexibly with options like in-store pickup or ship-from-store. Magestore POS works on desktops, tablets, and a wide range of retail hardware. It also scales without extra fees for adding users, devices, or products.

If you plan to scale your business and go global, explore how to set up a multistore on Magento and how to choose a Magento POS system that includes every essential feature, from checkout processing, online and in-store order management, customer loyalty to inventory and purchasing management.