BigCommerce Fulfillment: How a BigCommerce 3PL Works

BigCommerce fulfillment is the process of getting orders placed on a BigCommerce store to the customer: storing inventory, receiving each order, picking and packing it, shipping it, and adding a shipment with a tracking number back to the order. BigCommerce records the order and the shipment, but the physical work happens in-house or at a 3PL.

A BigCommerce 3PL is a third-party logistics provider that stores your inventory and ships your BigCommerce orders for you. Your store connects to the 3PL so orders sync automatically and get picked, packed, and shipped without manual work. You keep the storefront you already built and hand the physical work, storage, picking, packing, and shipping, to a partner with the space and systems to do it.

Order Statuses and Shipments in BigCommerce

New paid orders in BigCommerce normally sit at Awaiting Fulfillment. Fulfilling one means creating a shipment on the order: which items went out, the carrier, and the tracking number. Creating the shipment moves the order along, to Shipped or Partially Shipped, and triggers BigCommerce's shipment email to the customer with the tracking link.

One order can carry several shipments, each covering different items. That matters when part of an order is on backorder or ships from somewhere else, because the customer gets tracking for each box as it leaves instead of waiting for everything. A 3PL integration does the same thing a person would do in the control panel: it reads orders waiting to ship and writes shipments back.

Multi-Storefront, Inventory Locations, and the App Marketplace

BigCommerce Multi-Storefront lets one store run several storefronts, each with its own domain, theme, and product assortment, from a single catalog. For fulfillment the useful part is that the orders all belong to one store. In general, a 3PL connected to that store can see orders from every storefront and fill them from the same stock, rather than needing a separate setup per brand.

BigCommerce also supports inventory locations, which let a store track stock across more than one physical or virtual location. By default the storefront shows stock from the default location, so if you split inventory between a 3PL and somewhere else, it is worth checking how available stock is being calculated before a sale.

Most 3PLs connect to BigCommerce either through an app listed in the BigCommerce app marketplace, which has a shipping and fulfillment category, or directly through the BigCommerce API. Neither is better by default. Ask which one a provider uses and how often orders, tracking, and stock levels move.