The Auto-Fulfill product setting is a powerful feature that allows you to automatically mark certain product line items as fulfilled when an order is created/imported in ShipHero.
This is essential for non-physical goods or items fulfilled outside your standard warehouse process, as it efficiently bypasses the normal fulfillment workflow.
This article covers:
- Common Use Cases and How it Works
- Things to Consider
- How to Enable Auto-Fulfill for a Product
- Best Practices when using Auto-Fulfill
Common Use Cases and How it Works
The Auto-Fulfill setting is typically used for items that do not require physical packaging or shipment from your warehouse, such as:
- Virtual/Digital Products: Items like digital downloads, software licenses, extended warranties, or gift cards.
- Services: Non-physical services included as part of an order.
- Externally Fulfilled Items: Products that are shipped or handled by a third-party vendor outside your core fulfillment system (distinct from the standard Dropship setting).
How Auto-Fulfill Works
When you enable the Auto-Fulfill setting on a product, the line item status of this product will be automatically updated to fulfilled for any orders it is imported on or manually added to. In other words all of these line item fields for that product are set to 0: quantity pending fulfillment, shipped, allocated, and backorder.
Things to Consider
- Order Status Impact: An order containing only auto-fulfill products will be automatically marked as "fulfilled".
- Ready to Ship Calculation: Auto-fulfill line items are not counted toward the total quantity needed to determine if an order is "Ready to Ship."
- Partial Orders: If an order contains both auto-fulfill products and regular, physical products, the order will only be considered "Ready to Ship" once the regular products have been fully allocated. The auto-fulfill items are already complete.
- Automation Rules: If all of the products on an order have auto-fulfill enabled, this sets the order status to fulfilled and Automation rules will not run.
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Store Notifications: Auto-fulfilled items are marked as fulfilled in ShipHero but are NOT automatically notified to the store platform (like Shopify, Amazon, etc.) in the same way as physically shipped items. Only shipped line items (items with actual tracking numbers and shipments) are included in the fulfillment notification; Auto-fulfilled items don't create shipments, so they're not included in these notifications.
If an order has both auto-fulfill and regular items: If an order has only auto-fulfill items: - Auto-fulfill items as fulfilled on the order in ShipHero
- Only regular items are shipped and notified to the store
- The store sees a partial fulfillment until all physical items ship
- The order is marked as fulfilled in ShipHero
- No shipment notification is sent to the store (no tracking number exists)
- The order remains in its original state on the store platform unless manually updated
How to Enable Auto-Fulfill for a Product
You can enable the Auto-Fulfill setting using several different methods:
- Product Details Page: Open the product's details page, click the edit icon and check the Auto-Fulfill checkbox.
- Bulk Edit CSV: Use the Auto Fulfill column in the product CSV export/import file; input 1 or 0 (1 for Yes/True, 0 for No/False). More information about using the Bulk Edit CSV can be found here.
- API: Set the auto_fulfill parameter to true when creating or updating a product.
Note: This setting is not editable using the Bulk Edit tool on the Inventory > Products page.
Best Practices when using Auto-Fulfill
- Use for truly non-physical items: Gift cards, warranties, digital downloads, services.
- Consider store platform implications: You may need additional automation to sync fulfillment status
- Document for your team: Make it clear which products are auto-fulfill and won't generate shipment notifications.
- Test mixed orders: Ensure your store handles partial fulfillments correctly when mixing auto-fulfill and regular products
Auto-Fulfill vs. Virtual Product Setting
Note that there's also a separate Is Virtual flag on products. While related, Auto-fulfill and Is Virtual serve different purposes:
- Is virtual: Indicates the product is non-physical (informational)
- Auto-fulfill: Actually changes fulfillment behavior (functional)
You might use both together for digital products, but auto-fulfill is what controls the fulfillment automation.