Shipping fulfillment flow

Important

This integration guide supports physical goods. The physical goods product category is in Early Availability status. Features in Early Availability status are only available in production to a limited number of customers based on fit with specific use cases. For more information about Early Availability status, see Product lifecycle phases. If you would like to use the product capabilities described here during the Early Availability phase, contact your AppDirect technical representative.

The following components are part of the fulfillment workflow and are referenced throughout this documentation. The processes depicted in the image are high level and vary depending on various factors.

• Marketplace—Sells physical products and collects delivery information from customers.

• Physical fulfillment manager—An AppDirect infrastructure microservice that sends address information, quotes, shipment data, and requests for status updates to the shipping connector.

• Shipping connector—Acts as a translation layer between the marketplace's physical fulfillment manager and the fulfillment service (the shipper's API). It converts shipping rate and tracking status information from the fulfillment service into formats that AppDirect can accept. For example, it maps address fields that customers enter during checkout to fields that the fulfillment service can accept. It handles all nuances of the shipper's API, including polling services and handling delays, where applicable.

  The shipping connector implements the Shipping Connector API. A shipping service can use the API to build its own connector or can build one with support from AppDirect Digital Transformation Services. Shippers that want to build a connector to work with the purchase fulfillment manager must use the technical design provided in this documentation.

• Shipper or dropshipper—Delivers products, responds to requests from the shipping connector, and sends shipment status updates to the shipping connector. The fulfillment service can be a third-party shipping company or your own company's logistics system.