This article covers two things: how Luminous decides which warehouse or 3PL fulfills an order, and how to make kit (bundle) orders go to the 3PL as component lines.

Part 1: Set up the 3PL as a Fulfillment channel

  1. Go to Manage → Channels and click + Create.
  2. Set the Channel Type to Fulfillment Channel. This type is meant for 3PLs that only ship orders.
  3. Fill in the Warehouse Group and the Order Destination. The destination is the integration account for your 3PL, for example ShipBob.
  4. Save the channel.

Your order-source channels, such as Shopify, stay as Sales Channels. A Sales channel only receives orders. It has no warehouse group or order destination of its own.

Part 2: Control which orders route to the 3PL

For a Sales channel, Luminous picks the warehouse (and so the 3PL) from a fulfillment priority list. It looks for the list in this order and uses the first one it finds:

  1. The sales order's own priority list. An order inherits this from the invoice it was created from. This is how you send specific orders or customers to the 3PL.
  2. The SKU's priority list. Open the SKU (Inventory → SKUs), click ⋯ → Edit SKU, and set Fulfillment Priority List on the Product Information tab. Use this for a product that should always ship from a particular warehouse or 3PL.
  3. The default priority list set in Operations → Operations Admin → Smart Fulfillment Settings under Default Fulfillment Priority List. If none is set and no other list is found, fulfillment order generation fails.

To create or edit priority lists, go to Operations → Operations Admin → Fulfillment Priority Lists. Each line names a Fulfillment Channel, Warehouse Group, Fulfillment Destination and Destination Store, and lines are checked top to bottom. Turn on Location Aware (Proximity-Based Routing) to rank warehouses by distance to the customer’s shipping address instead (this needs warehouse coordinates and ZIP code centroid data).

The Always Create Fulfillment Orders Even When No Stock is Available setting decides what happens. It’s set in Smart Fulfillment Settings, and each channel can override it with Default, Enabled or Disabled.

Orders that arrive on an End-to-End or Fulfillment channel. These skip priority lists and go straight to that channel's own warehouse group and order destination. This only works if the channel has an order destination configured.

Limiting a fulfillment channel by destination or SKU. A fulfillment channel can have optional eligibility rules. The rules can check ship-to country, state, postal code or city, order total, weight or currency, and line SKU or tags. If an order fails the rules, that 3PL is skipped for that line. If no line in the priority list passes, the item is left unrouted. These rules are based on the order's contents. The fields I verified don't include which sales channel the order came from. To route by sales channel, use the priority-list controls above, or contact Luminous Support.

Part 3: Create the kit and have components sent to the 3PL

Create the kit

  1. Go to Inventory → SKUs and click Create.
  2. Set Product Type to Kit. The type can't be changed after you save.
  3. Enter the Name and SKU.
  4. On the Kit Items tab, add each component SKU and the quantity needed per kit. The component SKUs must already exist.
  5. Save.

Kits hold no inventory of their own. Availability comes from the components, and shipping a kit deducts component stock.

Turn on kit expansion

  1. Go to Manage → Channels and open the channel.
  2. Switch Expand Kits for Fulfillment on. Its tooltip reads: when enabled, kit products will be expanded into their component items when creating fulfillment orders.
  3. Save.

When the fulfillment order is created, Luminous checks the fulfillment channel first. This applies if the order is routed to a Fulfillment or End-to-End channel such as your ShipBob channel. If that channel has the toggle on, kits are expanded. Otherwise Luminous checks the toggle on the sales channel the order came from. The simplest approach is to turn the toggle on for your 3PL's fulfillment channel. You can also turn it on for the sales channels.

With the toggle off, the fulfillment order has one line for the kit SKU. With it on, it has one line per component, with quantities multiplied out. The sales order still shows the kit SKU.

Troubleshooting

  • No fulfillment order was created. Check that a Default Fulfillment Priority List is set in Smart Fulfillment Settings, that stock is sufficient, and the Always Create Fulfillment Orders Even When No Stock is Available setting (including any channel override).
  • The 3PL received the kit as a single line. Turn on Expand Kits for Fulfillment on the fulfillment channel or the sales channel.