Table of Contents
Step by Step for Buyer Onboarding
Buyer onboarding for Dropship - E-comm integration / Modern Buyer
1) Create Account / Accept Account Invitation
There are two ways to get started with using Modern Dropship. If you have been invited by an existing partner to join our platform you will receive an email asking you to log in and create an account. This email will show up in your inbox as outlined below:
Once you have received that email, you can accept the invitation and proceed with signing up using the 'Accept Invitation' link.
If you have not received an invitation directly to your email, you can use this link to create your account.
2) Integrate Platform
Once you have created your account and logged in you can ensure that your ecommerce platform is integrated correctly so your products will upload to Modern Dropship automatically. The following ecommerce platforms are available to integrate:
You can follow the appropriate guide to connect your platform. If you run into any issues with the integration please reach out to our support team at support@moderndropship.com.
3) Update Business Settings
Once you have your ecommerce platform integrated, and your products are in the process of being uploaded to Modern Dropship you can proceed with updating the following settings:
- Please make sure your company details including your URL are correctly listed in this section.
- Please list a Billing location in this section. This address will be used to calculate the tax rate for invoicing partners if you do not use Stripe for invoicing.
- You can invite members of your organization in this section to provide them with access to the Modern Dropship dashboard. If you plan on managing multiple accounts on Modern Dropship you can review this guide to switching between accounts.
- Manage notifications sent to your team members from this section. Each team member has control over their own notifications when logged into Modern Dropship.
- You will need to add a payment method to the Stripe portals listed in this section. Stripe will be used to bill platform fees from Modern Dropship, as well as invoices from any partners you have agreed to invoice through Stripe with.
- Expectations for fulfillment time and return rates can be outlined for your partners in this section.
- Set up the different shipping methods that you would want a seller to support. Keep in mind that these rates do not sync to your platform in real time so any geographic exclusions must be communicated with your partner directly.
4) Add Partnership / Add Partnership Actions
If you accepted an invitation from your partner in Step 1, you’ll already have your partnership set up so no need to complete this step. If your Seller is not showing in the Partners section then you can send them an invitation to an email they have listed in their Team Members. If you are unsure which email to send the invitation to, touch base with your partner directly to confirm the best email.
Once you have established the partnership you can confirm any necessary agreements by using Actions sent through Modern Dropship. Common topics to cover on an agreement are:
- SLA's
- Returns
- Pricing Margin
- Merchandising requirements
- Packing slip protocol
5) Review Products to confirm agreement details
Once you have discussed the metrics above with your partner they will need some time to set up pricing for the catalog and assign it to your partnership. Once they have successfully assigned the price list to your partnership you will receive a notification informing you that products are ready to select. It is best practice to review the available products and their pricing margins to confirm that they are as agreed upon. While you are reviewing the catalog you will want to ensure that products have been listed according to your merchandising agreements. If there is an issue with the product (such as product images or variant structure) you’ll want to have your partner make those changes before you proceed with selecting them.
6) Product selection
Once you have confirmed that all of the necessary products are showing in the Products tab, and their details are correct you can proceed with selecting those products to sync them to your ecommerce platform. This guide will walk you through that process. Once the products have been selected you should see them immediately in your ecommerce platform, though they may take up to 1 hour to complete the sync. You will need to take one more step to ensure the products are showing on your storefront which is setting their status to Published and available on the online storefront. See the links below to ensure the products are published according to your platform below:
7) Order Fulfillment
Once the products are showing on your storefront, orders placed for those products will be synced back to Modern Dropship to be fulfilled by your partners where it is their responsibility to fulfill them according to the SLA outlined in your agreement. If Modern Dropship has any errors while attempting to sync the order to our platform we will flag those in the Issues section of your issues dashboard.
Once your partner has fulfilled the order that status will sync back to your ecommerce platform where, depending on your settings, your customer will be sent a shipping notification automatically. Similarly, if your partner has canceled the order for any reason, that status will be updated in your platform as well. When your partner cancels the order that will automatically refund your customer for the cost of the product so be sure to set guidelines with your partner on when to cancel an order and ensure thorough communication is done prior to updating that order status. Similarly, if your customer changes their mind on this order you will want to communicate the cancellation ahead of time to your partner to ensure it has not already been fulfilled.
*Important* If you are Shopify integrated, you will see the option to ‘request fulfillment’ on orders synced from Modern Dropship. Please do not hit that button as it will disrupt order syncing with your partner.
8) Invoicing Protocol
Depending on how you’ve agreed to invoice orders with your partner, invoices will either be handled manually, external to Modern Dropship or automatically through Stripe. If the partnership is using Stripe, when an order is marked as shipped by your partner the invoice will be generated automatically and the card you have listed in the Stripe portal will be charged automatically. If a charge has failed it will be flagged in the Issues section of your dashboard.
Address any errors showing in the Issues section
Be sure to review any errors that show up in the Issues section. Common errors include:
- Issues with order syncing (out of stock, syncing error, unrecognized product)
- Failed invoice payments
- Account settings errors
Instructions to resolve each error will be given on that issue. Once an error has been handled you can mark it as archived using the option showing below:
BUYER ONBOARDING COMPLETE
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FAQS
Processes to avoid:
- Never add or remove variants from a product in your ecommerce platform if it has been synced to Modern Dropship. This may result in an ‘item not recognized’ error
- Never cancel an order in your ecommerce platform without communicating that explicitly with your partner. Communicating a canceled order status to your partner will ensure that it has not already been fulfilled without being updated in Modern Dropship.
- If you are Shopify integrated, you will see the option to ‘request fulfillment’ on orders synced from Modern Dropship. Please do not hit that button as it will disrupt order syncing with your partner.
