Quickstart
We're excited to work with you! Before you ship your first order with us, we'll need to connect the dots to sync your ecommerce platform, Airhouse, other tools, and your physical inventory.
Connect Store
The first step in the onboarding process is to connect your ecommerce store to Airhouse to synchronize your products and orders. This process consists of authorizing the Airhouse application and is completed instantly.
Select Products for Fulfillment
- Review products have all required info.
- Select SKUs you'd like Airhouse to fulfill.
Shipping Setup
- Set up shipping methods in your store.
- Review Shipping & Billing Information
If you have a Shopify store, create and add a location first.
Send Inventory and Packaging
- Create an inventory shipment on Restock and add tracking once available.
- Prep, label and send inventory for "Standard Receiving".
- Schedule freight delivery (if applicable).
- Send packaging to the warehouse.
Frequently Asked Questions
On average, onboarding takes 2-4 weeks. Our longest onboarding can take 6+ weeks, where warehouse transitions and complex setups are involved. Onboarding time mostly depends on the shipping and stocking phase, steps 5-6.
Step by step, here's what will happen and on average how long it takes:
- Create an account and connect your storefront → ⏰ Time: 5 mins
- Add product data (unique SKUs, barcodes, customs info) → ⏰ Time: 1-2 hour
- Create inventory order in Restock → ⏰ Time: 1-2 hours
- Ship inventory → ⏰ Time: 1 week (domestic) to 2-6 weeks (international) per delivery
- Confirm fulfillment preferences with us and audit storefront → ⏰ Time: 3+ days
- Our receiving team stocks inventory → ⏰ Time: 3-7 days
- When all pieces are in place, we check with you before starting → ⏰ Time: Same day
See the following examples to see how timelines can vary:
- 1 inventory shipment, 300 units, 3 SKUs, all barcoded = 3-5 days vs. that same inventory arriving in 10 boxes across 2 weeks = 3-5 days per shipment, ready in 2-3 weeks
- 1 inventory shipment, 5,000 units, 10 SKUs, all barcoded = 3-5 days vs. that same inventory, needs barcoding = 2-3 weeks
- 1 inventory shipment, 10,000 units, 100 SKUs, all barcoded = 5-7 days for initial SKU setup (large # of SKUs) vs. that same inventory with 1 SKU = 3-5 days
- 1 inventory shipment that needs kitting for stocking, with components arriving over 3 weeks = 5+ days after final receipt, 4+ weeks total. We begin special warehouse prep work only once all pieces are in hand.
Most fulfillment services take 1-2 months minimum to set up, but we've expedited some of the steps. We work as quickly as possible and process all inventory in order of receipt in a receiving queue. After inventory is delivered, please note that we do not immediately stock it, even if the shipment is very small.
Initial Setup | 1-2 days
The first time we set up your account, we:
- Add your inventory locations to the warehouse management system
- Set up new bins, shelves and pallets per SKU
- Confirm packaging options or set up your packaging
- Set up order instructions for the packing team
Receiving | Add 3-5 days
Every time we receive inventory, we:
- Assess inventory by size and divide for long-term storage vs. immediate fulfillment
- Set up locations for new SKUs or balance existing storage
- Confirm received vs. expected inventory
- Unpack and organize units for picking
Inventory Prep (as needed) | Add 5-10+ days
If inventory requires special work, it is handed off to the special projects team and billed hourly before going on the shelf. Please note that this is not available at all locations, and we require prior approval. We may not be able to support complex requests.
This includes:
- Barcoding
- Inspection
- Kitting
- Separating/bundling units
Fulfillment can be toggled ON or OFF by our team. This is intentional.
While inventory is stocked for the very first time for onboarding, fulfillment will remain OFF. When everything is ready, we'll check with you one last time before turning fulfillment ON, so that we don't double-fulfill orders from an existing warehouse/location or ship prematurely. This means:
- If you create an order before we turn fulfillment ON, it will not process, and you won't see anything updating in your dashboard. Open orders will hold, then automatically ship when fulfillment is turned ON.
- This only happens once. All inventory received after fulfillment is ON (whether hours or months after) ships immediately once it's stocked.
- Some order and inventory data in Airhouse and Shopify does not sync while fulfillment is OFF. All necessary information, like inventory counts, will update automatically once fulfillment is ON, but not before. Data may take up to an hour to sync.
- At any point, we can turn fulfillment OFF if needed and pause operations.
- For onboarding, if you'd like to turn fulfillment ON for certain SKUs, or have orders ship on a rolling basis as the remainder of inventory is received, we can turn fulfillment ON at any point. Please note that this may result in single orders having multiple shipments if containing unstocked inventory.
Nothing will be modified in your storefront until we turn fulfillment ON. We'll pull information from Shopify to Airhouse, but all updates are one-way. If you're transitioning from another warehouse or self-fulfilling, connecting Shopify to Airhouse will not interrupt anything. The data Airhouse pushes to your platform are only fulfillment info such as marking an order completed or adding tracking, and updating inventory levels of your products.
After turning fulfillment ON, we always monitor your first few orders closely. Feel free to raise a flag, but if you see an error, be assured that we've noticed it too, and are actively working on fixing it for you. Occasionally, those first orders experience a longer processing time (add 1-2 days) as we introduce your shelves and bins to the picking rotation. If this happens, we'll reimburse you the cost of fulfillment on your first invoice, per our guarantee.