​

Kibo Commerce Conceptual Guide: Dropship

​

1. Strategic Overview

Concept Definition Dropship is the Kibo Commerce capability that lets operators expand their assortment by routing customer orders directly to onboarded third-party vendors who ship to the end customer — without the operator holding the inventory. Business Context Dropship is delivered as a native, pre-integrated module on the Kibo platform. It adds dedicated vendor management capabilities to the existing Operator Portal (Kibo Admin) — invitation, document review, item mapping, contract pricing, location mapping, and shipping configuration — and introduces a Vendor Portal where third-party suppliers self-onboard, configure fulfillment locations, and process the orders routed to them. Value Drivers

1. Catalog expansion without inventory risk: Operators widen their assortment with vendor-sourced SKUs shipped directly to the customer, with zero upfront inventory investment, while preserving fulfillment quality through the same Kibo OMS that handles owned-inventory orders.
2. Native, pre-integrated capability: Dropship runs on the same data model, routing engine, inventory service, and pricing services as the rest of the platform — removing the lag, reconciliation errors, and integration overhead of a separate dropship system, and lowering total cost of ownership.
3. Predictable, auditable vendor operations: A configurable onboarding journey, document review, item mapping with contract pricing, and a deterministic two-step fulfillment workflow combine with SLA indicators, capacity limits, and an immutable activity log to deliver consistent execution across a heterogeneous vendor network.

Scope Statement

• In Scope: Platform prerequisites; the two-portal model; the vendor lifecycle and onboarding stepper; document verification; item mapping with contracted pricing; operator-side location mapping; vendor roles; the Locations module (operating hours, cut-off times, override hours, capacity, attributes); the vendor shipping mode and in-portal label generation; the Order Module; the two-step Fulfillment Workflow; the Order Details page; and the EDI message set used in Dropship integrations.
• Explicitly Excluded: API endpoint specifications, JSON payloads, UI walkthroughs, screenshots, Kibo Admin routing-engine internals, EDI Orderful platform configuration, payment/refund processing, and theme-level customization.

​

2. Core Concepts Explained

​

What is Dropship?

Dropship operates across two surfaces. The Operator Portal (Kibo Admin) gains vendor management, document review, item mapping, contract pricing, location mapping, and the vendor shipping-mode setting. The Vendor Portal is a separate, vendor-facing interface where each vendor self-onboards, configures fulfillment locations, and processes routed orders. An order travels through the system as follows. A customer places an order on the operator’s storefront. The Kibo order routing engine evaluates eligible locations — owned and dropship-vendor — against the routing strategy, operating hours, cut-offs, attributes, and capacity limits, and creates a shipment per fulfillment node. A shipment assigned to a vendor location appears in that vendor’s Order Module as an incoming order; the vendor-facing PO Number and order id equals the operator’s Kibo Admin shipment number, so the record is trackable from both sides. The vendor then runs the order through the two-step Dropship workflow — Order Acknowledgement (Step 1) and Prepare Shipments / ASN (Step 2) — and the operator sees real-time progress on the corresponding shipment in Kibo Admin.

​

Why does Dropship matter?

1. Operational: A configurable document set and in-app review let vendors go live without out-of-band email. Vendor locations participate in the same routing engine, inventory service, and SLA framework as owned locations — no parallel system to operate or reconcile.
2. Financial: Contracted pricing on every item mapping makes vendor invoices reflect negotiated cost, not storefront price. Capacity limits guard against overcommitment, and SLA indicators expose late-fulfillment risk at the order-list level.
3. Customer experience: A unified routing engine over owned and third-party inventory gives consistent availability and delivery promises. A deterministic two-step workflow, partial-fulfillment branching, multi-package shipments with per-slip tracking, and a full audit log deliver traceable fulfillment across a heterogeneous vendor network.

​

When to deploy Dropship?

1. Catalog expansion add-on: A merchant already on Kibo wants incremental revenue without growing inventory exposure; Dropship is added on the existing platform.
2. System consolidation: A merchant replacing operational systems adopts Dropship alongside an OMS/commerce replacement, eliminating a separate dropship platform.

​

The Dropship Vendor Lifecycle

1. Invitation — operator creates a vendor record (Vendor Name, invitation email, vendor type). Duplicate names/emails error before the invite is sent.
2. Onboarding In Progress — the invited user registers and works through the four-step stepper; operators review documents and map items in parallel.
3. Active — operator flips status to Active once requirements are met; orders begin to flow.
4. Inactive — operator can deactivate at any time; inactive vendors stop receiving routed orders.

​

3. Functional Components & Configuration Deep Dive

​

Prerequisites

Before Dropship can be used, three platform prerequisites must be in place: the DropShipEnabled tenant attribute is enabled by Kibo support; the operator creates a dropship location group with the dropship fulfillment workflow assigned; and the catalog must include the UPCs that vendors will be mapped to. Once these are configured, a vendor reaches Active status as soon as at least one item mapping exists and a primary-contact phone number is on record.

​

Component Architecture

1. Platform Foundation — the DropShipEnabled tenant attribute and a dedicated dropship location group with the dropship fulfillment workflow assigned. These activate the module and route vendor-destined shipments into the two-step sequence.
2. Operator Portal — Vendor Module — the vendor listing, Invite New Vendor flow, and per-vendor record with three tabs: Overview (vendor information, status control, and the Mapped Locations section), Documents, and Item Mapping. The operator also sets the vendor shipping mode at Settings → Vendor.
3. Vendor Portal — three modules: Onboarding (four-step stepper), Locations (Location, Hours, Cut-Off Times, Attributes), and Orders (summary cards, list, fulfillment workflow, order details).
4. Fulfillment Workflow — a deterministic two-step sequence on every order: Step 1 (Order Acknowledgement and stock validation, with partial-fulfillment branching) and Step 2 (Prepare Shipments / ASN, packing slips, tracking, invoice). In Step 2 the shipping experience branches on the vendor shipping mode — label generation on the operator’s carrier accounts, or manual tracking entry.

​

Configuration-Level Deep Dive

​

Vendor Invitation Fields (Operator Portal)

​

Onboarding Step 1 — Basic Corporate Information

The vendor captures three groups of information in this step: Company Information (Company Name, Legal Business Name, Tax ID/EIN, Business Type, Website, Company Description, Founded Year, Number of Employees range), Business Address (Street Address, City, State/Province, ZIP/Postal Code, Country), and Contact Information (Primary Contact Name, Primary Contact Email, Primary Contact Phone, Billing Email, Support Email). The Primary Contact Phone is mandatory for operator-side activation — without it, the vendor cannot be marked Active. The email used during invitation is non-editable on the registration screen.

​

Item Mapping & Contracted Pricing (Operator Portal)

Maps the operator’s UPC to the Vendor SKU and stores the Contracted Price (the cost the operator pays — not the storefront price). At least one mapping is required before activation; the contract price drives vendor-facing order items and invoices.

​

Mapped Locations (Operator Portal).

On the Overview tab, lists every location a vendor can fulfill from, with a running count. Operators Add Location from a searchable, multi-select modal (effective immediately, no approval) and Remove via a confirmation that warns when active orders exist (in-progress orders are unaffected; new orders stop routing there). The relationship is bidirectional: operator-added locations appear in the Vendor Portal automatically, and vendor-created locations appear here automatically.

​

Locations & Fulfillment Settings (Vendor Portal).

Each location captures basic information, address (with latitude/longitude for routing), and contact. Fulfillment settings include Processing Times (feed EDD and the SLA timer) and Capacity Limits (max orders/day; once reached the location is skipped in routing). Operating Hours and Cut-Off Times are time-zone-scoped and feed routing and EDD; Cut-Off Times also support holiday/maintenance overrides.

​

Vendor Shipping Mode & Label Generation (Operator Portal setting + Vendor Portal Step 2)

A single tenant-level setting (Settings → Vendor) selects how vendors ship; it defaults to vendor-managed (manual tracking). In operator-managed mode, vendors generate shipping labels in the portal using the operator’s carrier accounts, with manual tracking as a fallback. Carriers, predefined packages, and unit type are read from the Location Group tagged to the vendor location. Order Page. The canonical record of an order. Header shows Order ID, placement timestamp, and actions (Cancel Order, Download Invoice, Start Fulfillment). Tabs: Order Items (contract price, qty, discount, adjustment, total + price breakdown); Canceled Items (conditional; product, qty canceled, reason); Shipping (carrier, delivery-status badge, tracking, Track Package per packing slip — auto-captured from the label in operator-managed mode, or the manually entered number in vendor-managed mode); Activity (reverse-chronological timeline); Invoice (preview + download). Activation Mechanics. To flip a vendor to Active: at least one Item Mapping must exist, and a Primary Contact phone number must be on record. The dropship location group with its workflow assignment must also exist, or vendor fulfillment will not route.

​

4. Key Capabilities and Business Applications

​

Self-Service Vendor Onboarding via a Configurable Stepper

A newly invited vendor is guided through Basic Corporate Information, Add Users, Business Verification, and Integration Setup, with a right rail showing completion progress. The document set is operator-configurable (title, Required/Optional); rejected documents carry a comment back with the upload re-enabled. Vendors can build locations and platform while document review is in progress, removing the usual onboarding bottleneck.

​

Item Mapping with Contracted Pricing

Performed operator-side, it bridges the operator UPC to the vendor SKU and captures the contract cost. It gates activation (≥1 mapping required) and drives vendor-facing prices and invoices, distinct from the storefront selling price. Example — Electronics retailer: a smart-lock retails at $199 but is mapped at a $90 contracted cost; a two-unit order shows the vendor $90/unit and a $180 invoice total, with no markup exposed.

​

Unified Routing Across Owned and Third-Party Inventory

Vendor locations are exposed to the same routing engine as owned locations and evaluated on proximity, hours, cut-offs, capacity, and routing attributes — no distinction between owned and vendor nodes, so the same scenarios, sort strategies, and assignment preferences apply. Example — B2B distributor: 6 owned warehouses + 25 vendors are evaluated together; a vendor 80 miles away with stock and capacity wins over a distant owned warehouse, preserving owned capacity and avoiding a parallel routing system.

​

Two-Step Fulfillment with Partial-Fulfillment Branching

Every order flows through Order Acknowledgement (Step 1) and Prepare Shipments / ASN (Step 2). In Step 1 the vendor validates stock; if any quantity is reduced, the row highlights, a banner shows the partial count, and on confirmation the system creates a separate Canceled order with the unfulfilled units and reasons while the original proceeds with fulfilled quantities. Reason capture supports apply-to-all, per-product overrides, a defined catalog, and a free-text “Other”. Example — DTC brand: a vendor finds 1 of 4 units damaged, reduces to 3, selects “Damaged Or Defective Item”; a one-unit Canceled order is created, the three-unit order ships, and reporting can later quantify damage-driven cancellations.

​

Operator-Managed Location Mapping with Bidirectional Sync

The Mapped Locations section makes the Vendor Profile the single source of truth for a vendor’s fulfillment footprint. Operators map existing Kibo Admin locations via a searchable, multi-select modal and remove them via a guarded confirmation that flags active orders. Mapping/unmapping is immediate with no approval. Vendor-created locations surface to the operator automatically and vice versa, eliminating context-switching between Vendor Management and Location Management. Example — Dropship operator: an operator pre-maps a vendor’s two DCs before activation; when the vendor later opens a third warehouse in the portal, it appears in the operator’s table automatically.

​

Dual-Mode Shipping — Operator Carrier Labels or Vendor Tracking

A single tenant-level setting governs shipping. In the default vendor-managed mode, vendors enter tracking numbers. In operator-managed mode, vendors generate labels in Step 2 on the operator’s carrier accounts (manual tracking retained as fallback), inheriting carriers, packages, and units from the Location Group. Carrier/service pre-select from the order’s shipping method; predefined packages lock dimensions; weight is manual; tracking is captured automatically; one label per packing slip with reprint/edit support. Example — Apparel retailer: the operator enables operator-managed shipping tenant-wide so every dropship parcel ships on negotiated FedEx/UPS rates with operator branding and hands-off tracking; smaller vendors ship at enterprise rates without their own carrier accounts.

​

5. Supported Capabilities & Current Behavior

How to read this section. This guide enumerates the fulfillment capabilities supported by Dropship in the current release. Dropship runs on the same Kibo OMS as owned-inventory fulfillment but intentionally exposes a focused, deterministic subset of it. Any Kibo OMS fulfillment capability not described in this guide is not part of the current Dropship release. Where Dropship’s behavior differs from the standard OMS workflow, that difference is called out under Current Behavior Notes. What Dropship supports today

• Ship to Home (STH) fulfillment — Dropship supports Ship to Home (STH) fulfillment: the vendor ships the ordered items directly to the customer’s delivery address. BOPIS (customer pickup at vendor location), Delivery, and Transfer fulfillment types are not part of the Dropship vendor workflow.
• Unified order routing across owned and vendor locations.
• Two-step vendor fulfillment (Order Acknowledgement → Prepare Shipments / ASN).
• Partial fulfillment (fulfilled units proceed; see Current Behavior Notes for the shortfall).
• Multi-package shipments with per-package tracking (manual or label-captured).
• Operator-managed location mapping with bidirectional sync.
• Dual-mode shipping (operator-managed labels or vendor-managed tracking).
• SLA visibility (On Time / At Risk / Overdue), contracted-price invoicing (incl. EDI 810), and a full audit trail.

Current Behavior Notes — intentional design boundaries that differ from the standard OMS workflow:

​

6. Platform Integration Map

Upstream Dependencies

1. DropShipEnabled tenant attribute — without it, the vendor module does not appear in Kibo Admin.
2. Dedicated dropship location group with workflow assignment (BPM) — without it, vendor shipments do not enter the Acknowledgement → ASN sequence.
3. Operator catalog with UPCs — required for item mapping.
4. Location Group carrier configuration — in operator-managed shipping, label generation reads carriers, predefined packages, and unit type from the Location Group tagged to each vendor location.

Downstream Impacts

1. Order routing — vendor hours, cut-offs, override hours, capacity, and routing attributes feed node selection; mapped locations become eligible nodes.
2. Order lifecycle — dropship orders flow through the two-step workflow, generating activity-log entries at every transition.

Synergistic Features

• Dropship + Order Routing — vendor attributes, time-zone hours, cut-offs, and overrides give the engine a rich data set; the same strategies apply to owned and vendor nodes.
• Dropship + Fulfillment SLAs — order-level On Time / At Risk / Overdue indicators draw on the platform SLA framework.
• Dropship + Item Mapping & Contracted Pricing — produces accurate vendor invoices automatically, eliminating manual reconciliation.
• Dropship + EDI (850/855/856/810/846) — for high-volume vendors, fully automated PO, acknowledgement, ASN, invoicing, and inventory exchange on the same lifecycle and audit log.

​

7. Related Conceptual Guides

• Locations & Location Groups — the dropship location group, workflow assignment, and carrier configuration are platform prerequisites.
• Catalog & Product Attributes — item mapping requires an operator catalog with UPCs.
• Order Routing — vendor location data feeds the routing engine that selects the fulfillment node.
• Order Fulfillment — how the two-step workflow expresses itself on the operator-side order record.
• Inventory and EDI & API Integrations — complementary controls and integration framework for vendor partnerships.

Dropship is delivered as a native, pre-integrated module on the Kibo platform. It adds dedicated vendor management capabilities to the existing Operator Portal (Kibo Admin) — invitation, document review, item mapping, contract pricing, location mapping, and shipping configuration — and introduces a Vendor Portal where third-party suppliers self-onboard, configure fulfillment locations, and process the orders routed to them.

1. Catalog expansion without inventory risk: Operators widen their assortment with vendor-sourced SKUs shipped directly to the customer, with zero upfront inventory investment, while preserving fulfillment quality through the same Kibo OMS that handles owned-inventory orders.
2. Native, pre-integrated capability: Dropship runs on the same data model, routing engine, inventory service, and pricing services as the rest of the platform — removing the lag, reconciliation errors, and integration overhead of a separate dropship system, and lowering total cost of ownership.
3. Predictable, auditable vendor operations: A configurable onboarding journey, document review, item mapping with contract pricing, and a deterministic two-step fulfillment workflow combine with SLA indicators, capacity limits, and an immutable activity log to deliver consistent execution across a heterogeneous vendor network.

• In Scope: Platform prerequisites; the two-portal model; the vendor lifecycle and onboarding stepper; document verification; item mapping with contracted pricing; operator-side location mapping; vendor roles; the Locations module (operating hours, cut-off times, override hours, capacity, attributes); the vendor shipping mode and in-portal label generation; the Order Module; the two-step Fulfillment Workflow; the Order Details page; and the EDI message set used in Dropship integrations.
• Explicitly Excluded: API endpoint specifications, JSON payloads, UI walkthroughs, screenshots, Kibo Admin routing-engine internals, EDI Orderful platform configuration, payment/refund processing, and theme-level customization.

Dropship operates across two surfaces. The Operator Portal (Kibo Admin) gains vendor management, document review, item mapping, contract pricing, location mapping, and the vendor shipping-mode setting. The Vendor Portal is a separate, vendor-facing interface where each vendor self-onboards, configures fulfillment locations, and processes routed orders. An order travels through the system as follows. A customer places an order on the operator’s storefront. The Kibo order routing engine evaluates eligible locations — owned and dropship-vendor — against the routing strategy, operating hours, cut-offs, attributes, and capacity limits, and creates a shipment per fulfillment node. A shipment assigned to a vendor location appears in that vendor’s Order Module as an incoming order; the vendor-facing PO Number and order id equals the operator’s Kibo Admin shipment number, so the record is trackable from both sides. The vendor then runs the order through the two-step Dropship workflow — Order Acknowledgement (Step 1) and Prepare Shipments / ASN (Step 2) — and the operator sees real-time progress on the corresponding shipment in Kibo Admin.

1. Operational: A configurable document set and in-app review let vendors go live without out-of-band email. Vendor locations participate in the same routing engine, inventory service, and SLA framework as owned locations — no parallel system to operate or reconcile.
2. Financial: Contracted pricing on every item mapping makes vendor invoices reflect negotiated cost, not storefront price. Capacity limits guard against overcommitment, and SLA indicators expose late-fulfillment risk at the order-list level.
3. Customer experience: A unified routing engine over owned and third-party inventory gives consistent availability and delivery promises. A deterministic two-step workflow, partial-fulfillment branching, multi-package shipments with per-slip tracking, and a full audit log deliver traceable fulfillment across a heterogeneous vendor network.
4. Catalog expansion add-on: A merchant already on Kibo wants incremental revenue without growing inventory exposure; Dropship is added on the existing platform.
5. System consolidation: A merchant replacing operational systems adopts Dropship alongside an OMS/commerce replacement, eliminating a separate dropship platform.
6. Invitation — operator creates a vendor record (Vendor Name, invitation email, vendor type). Duplicate names/emails error before the invite is sent.
7. Onboarding In Progress — the invited user registers and works through the four-step stepper; operators review documents and map items in parallel.
8. Active — operator flips status to Active once requirements are met; orders begin to flow.
9. Inactive — operator can deactivate at any time; inactive vendors stop receiving routed orders.

​

Prerequisites

Before Dropship can be used, three platform prerequisites must be in place: the DropShipEnabled tenant attribute is enabled by Kibo support; the operator creates a dropship location group with the dropship fulfillment workflow assigned; and the catalog must include the UPCs that vendors will be mapped to. Once these are configured, a vendor reaches Active status as soon as at least one item mapping exists and a primary-contact phone number is on record.

1. Platform Foundation — the DropShipEnabled tenant attribute and a dedicated dropship location group with the dropship fulfillment workflow assigned. These activate the module and route vendor-destined shipments into the two-step sequence.
2. Operator Portal — Vendor Module — the vendor listing, Invite New Vendor flow, and per-vendor record with three tabs: Overview (vendor information, status control, and the Mapped Locations section), Documents, and Item Mapping. The operator also sets the vendor shipping mode at Settings → Vendor.
3. Vendor Portal — three modules: Onboarding (four-step stepper), Locations (Location, Hours, Cut-Off Times, Attributes), and Orders (summary cards, list, fulfillment workflow, order details).
4. Fulfillment Workflow — a deterministic two-step sequence on every order: Step 1 (Order Acknowledgement and stock validation, with partial-fulfillment branching) and Step 2 (Prepare Shipments / ASN, packing slips, tracking, invoice). In Step 2 the shipping experience branches on the vendor shipping mode — label generation on the operator’s carrier accounts, or manual tracking entry.

​

Configuration-Level Deep Dive

​

Vendor Invitation Fields (Operator Portal)

​

Onboarding Step 1 — Basic Corporate Information

​

Item Mapping & Contracted Pricing (Operator Portal)

Maps the operator’s UPC to the Vendor SKU and stores the Contracted Price (the cost the operator pays — not the storefront price). At least one mapping is required before activation; the contract price drives vendor-facing order items and invoices.

​

Mapped Locations (Operator Portal).

On the Overview tab, lists every location a vendor can fulfill from, with a running count. Operators Add Location from a searchable, multi-select modal (effective immediately, no approval) and Remove via a confirmation. The relationship is bidirectional: operator-added locations appear in the Vendor Portal automatically, and vendor-created locations appear here automatically.

​

Locations & Fulfillment Settings (Vendor Portal).

Each location captures basic information, address (with latitude/longitude for routing), and contact. Fulfillment settings include Processing Times (feed EDD and the SLA timer) and Capacity Limits (max orders/day; once reached the location is skipped in routing). Operating Hours and Cut-Off Times are time-zone-scoped and feed routing and EDD; Cut-Off Times also support holiday/maintenance overrides.

​

Vendor Shipping Mode & Label Generation (Operator Portal setting + Vendor Portal Step 2)

A single tenant-level setting (Settings → Vendor) selects how vendors ship; it defaults to vendor-managed (manual tracking). In operator-managed mode, vendors generate shipping labels in the portal using the operator’s carrier accounts, with manual tracking as a fallback. Carriers, predefined packages, and unit type are read from the Location Group tagged to the vendor location. Order Page. The canonical record of an order. Header shows Order ID, placement timestamp, and actions (Cancel Order, Download Invoice, Start Fulfillment). Tabs: Order Items (contract price, qty, discount, adjustment, total + price breakdown); Canceled Items (conditional; product, qty canceled, reason); Shipping (carrier, delivery-status badge, tracking, Track Package per packing slip — auto-captured from the label in operator-managed mode, or the manually entered number in vendor-managed mode); Activity (reverse-chronological timeline); Invoice (preview + download). Activation Mechanics. To flip a vendor to Active: at least one Item Mapping must exist, and a Primary Contact phone number must be on record. The dropship location group with its workflow assignment must also exist, or vendor fulfillment will not route.

​

4. Key Capabilities and Business Applications

​

Self-Service Vendor Onboarding via a Configurable Stepper

A newly invited vendor is guided through Basic Corporate Information, Add Users, Business Verification, and Integration Setup, with a right rail showing completion progress. The document set is operator-configurable (title, Required/Optional); rejected documents carry a comment back with the upload re-enabled. Vendors can build locations and platform while document review is in progress, removing the usual onboarding bottleneck.

​

Item Mapping with Contracted Pricing

Performed operator-side, it bridges the operator UPC to the vendor SKU and captures the contract cost. It gates activation (≥1 mapping required) and drives vendor-facing prices and invoices, distinct from the storefront selling price. Example — Electronics retailer: a smart-lock retails at $199 but is mapped at a $90 contracted cost; a two-unit order shows the vendor $90/unit and a $180 invoice total, with no markup exposed.

​

Unified Routing Across Owned and Third-Party Inventory

Vendor locations are exposed to the same routing engine as owned locations and evaluated on proximity, hours, cut-offs, capacity, and routing attributes — no distinction between owned and vendor nodes, so the same scenarios, sort strategies, and assignment preferences apply. Example — B2B distributor: 6 owned warehouses + 25 vendors are evaluated together; a vendor 80 miles away with stock and capacity wins over a distant owned warehouse, preserving owned capacity and avoiding a parallel routing system.

​

Two-Step Fulfillment with Partial-Fulfillment Branching

Every order flows through Order Acknowledgement (Step 1) and Prepare Shipments / ASN (Step 2). In Step 1 the vendor validates stock; if any quantity is reduced, the row highlights, a banner shows the partial count, and on confirmation the system creates a separate Canceled order with the unfulfilled units and reasons while the original proceeds with fulfilled quantities. Reason capture supports apply-to-all, per-product overrides, a defined catalog, and a free-text “Other”. Example — DTC brand: a vendor finds 1 of 4 units damaged, reduces to 3, selects “Damaged Or Defective Item”; a one-unit Canceled order is created, the three-unit order ships, and reporting can later quantify damage-driven cancellations.

​

Operator-Managed Location Mapping with Bidirectional Sync

The Mapped Locations section makes the Vendor Profile the single source of truth for a vendor’s fulfillment footprint. Operators map existing Kibo Admin locations via a searchable, multi-select modal and remove them via a guarded confirmation that flags active orders. Mapping/unmapping is immediate with no approval. Vendor-created locations surface to the operator automatically and vice versa, eliminating context-switching between Vendor Management and Location Management. Example — Dropship operator: an operator pre-maps a vendor’s two DCs before activation; when the vendor later opens a third warehouse in the portal, it appears in the operator’s table automatically.

​

Dual-Mode Shipping — Operator Carrier Labels or Vendor Tracking

A single tenant-level setting governs shipping. In the default vendor-managed mode, vendors enter tracking numbers. In operator-managed mode, vendors generate labels in Step 2 on the operator’s carrier accounts (manual tracking retained as fallback), inheriting carriers, packages, and units from the Location Group. Carrier/service pre-select from the order’s shipping method; predefined packages lock dimensions; weight is manual; tracking is captured automatically; one label per packing slip with reprint/edit support. Example — Apparel retailer: the operator enables operator-managed shipping tenant-wide so every dropship parcel ships on negotiated FedEx/UPS rates with operator branding and hands-off tracking; smaller vendors ship at enterprise rates without their own carrier accounts.

​

5. Supported Capabilities & Current Behavior

How to read this section. This guide enumerates the fulfillment capabilities supported by Dropship in the current release. Dropship runs on the same Kibo OMS as owned-inventory fulfillment but intentionally exposes a focused, deterministic subset of it. Any Kibo OMS fulfillment capability not described in this guide is not part of the current Dropship release. Where Dropship’s behavior differs from the standard OMS workflow, that difference is called out under Current Behavior Notes. What Dropship supports today

• Ship to Home (STH) fulfillment — Dropship supports Ship to Home (STH) fulfillment: the vendor ships the ordered items directly to the customer’s delivery address. BOPIS (customer pickup at vendor location), Delivery, and Transfer fulfillment types are not part of the Dropship vendor workflow.
• Unified order routing across owned and vendor locations.
• Two-step vendor fulfillment (Order Acknowledgement → Prepare Shipments / ASN).
• Partial fulfillment (fulfilled units proceed; see Current Behavior Notes for the shortfall).
• Multi-package shipments with per-package tracking (manual or label-captured).
• Operator-managed location mapping with bidirectional sync.
• Dual-mode shipping (operator-managed labels or vendor-managed tracking).
• SLA visibility (On Time / At Risk / Overdue), contracted-price invoicing (incl. EDI 810), and a full audit trail.

Current Behavior Notes — intentional design boundaries that differ from the standard OMS workflow:

​

6. Platform Integration Map

Upstream Dependencies

1. DropShipEnabled tenant attribute — without it, the vendor module does not appear in Kibo Admin.
2. Dedicated dropship location group with workflow assignment (BPM) — without it, vendor shipments do not enter the Acknowledgement → ASN sequence.
3. Operator catalog with UPCs — required for item mapping.
4. Location Group carrier configuration — in operator-managed shipping, label generation reads carriers, predefined packages, and unit type from the Location Group tagged to each vendor location.

Downstream Impacts

1. Order routing — vendor hours, cut-offs, override hours, capacity, and routing attributes feed node selection; mapped locations become eligible nodes.
2. Order lifecycle — dropship orders flow through the two-step workflow, generating activity-log entries at every transition.

Synergistic Features

• Dropship + Order Routing — vendor attributes, time-zone hours, cut-offs, and overrides give the engine a rich data set; the same strategies apply to owned and vendor nodes.
• Dropship + Fulfillment SLAs — order-level On Time / At Risk / Overdue indicators draw on the platform SLA framework.
• Dropship + Item Mapping & Contracted Pricing — produces accurate vendor invoices automatically, eliminating manual reconciliation.
• Dropship + EDI (850/855/856/810/846) — for high-volume vendors, fully automated PO, acknowledgement, ASN, invoicing, and inventory exchange on the same lifecycle and audit log.

​

7. Related Conceptual Guides

• Locations & Location Groups — the dropship location group, workflow assignment, and carrier configuration are platform prerequisites.
• Catalog & Product Attributes — item mapping requires an operator catalog with UPCs.
• Order Routing — vendor location data feeds the routing engine that selects the fulfillment node.
• Order Fulfillment — how the two-step workflow expresses itself on the operator-side order record.
• Inventory and EDI & API Integrations — complementary controls and integration framework for vendor partnerships.

Dropship is delivered as a native, pre-integrated module on the Kibo platform. It adds dedicated vendor management capabilities to the existing Operator Portal (Kibo Admin) — invitation, document review, item mapping, contract pricing, location mapping, and shipping configuration — and introduces a Vendor Portal where third-party suppliers self-onboard, configure fulfillment locations, and process the orders routed to them.

1. Catalog expansion without inventory risk: Operators widen their assortment with vendor-sourced SKUs shipped directly to the customer, with zero upfront inventory investment, while preserving fulfillment quality through the same Kibo OMS that handles owned-inventory orders.
2. Native, pre-integrated capability: Dropship runs on the same data model, routing engine, inventory service, and pricing services as the rest of the platform — removing the lag, reconciliation errors, and integration overhead of a separate dropship system, and lowering total cost of ownership.
3. Predictable, auditable vendor operations: A configurable onboarding journey, document review, item mapping with contract pricing, and a deterministic two-step fulfillment workflow combine with SLA indicators, capacity limits, and an immutable activity log to deliver consistent execution across a heterogeneous vendor network.

• In Scope: Platform prerequisites; the two-portal model; the vendor lifecycle and onboarding stepper; document verification; item mapping with contracted pricing; operator-side location mapping; vendor roles; the Locations module (operating hours, cut-off times, override hours, capacity, attributes); the vendor shipping mode and in-portal label generation; the Order Module; the two-step Fulfillment Workflow; the Order Details page; and the EDI message set used in Dropship integrations.
• Explicitly Excluded: API endpoint specifications, JSON payloads, UI walkthroughs, screenshots, Kibo Admin routing-engine internals, EDI Orderful platform configuration, payment/refund processing, and theme-level customization.

Dropship operates across two surfaces. The Operator Portal (Kibo Admin) gains vendor management, document review, item mapping, contract pricing, location mapping, and the vendor shipping-mode setting. The Vendor Portal is a separate, vendor-facing interface where each vendor self-onboards, configures fulfillment locations, and processes routed orders. An order travels through the system as follows. A customer places an order on the operator’s storefront. The Kibo order routing engine evaluates eligible locations — owned and dropship-vendor — against the routing strategy, operating hours, cut-offs, attributes, and capacity limits, and creates a shipment per fulfillment node. A shipment assigned to a vendor location appears in that vendor’s Order Module as an incoming order; the vendor-facing PO Number and order id equals the operator’s Kibo Admin shipment number, so the record is trackable from both sides. The vendor then runs the order through the two-step Dropship workflow — Order Acknowledgement (Step 1) and Prepare Shipments / ASN (Step 2) — and the operator sees real-time progress on the corresponding shipment in Kibo Admin.

1. Operational: A configurable document set and in-app review let vendors go live without out-of-band email. Vendor locations participate in the same routing engine, inventory service, and SLA framework as owned locations — no parallel system to operate or reconcile.
2. Financial: Contracted pricing on every item mapping makes vendor invoices reflect negotiated cost, not storefront price. Capacity limits guard against overcommitment, and SLA indicators expose late-fulfillment risk at the order-list level.
3. Customer experience: A unified routing engine over owned and third-party inventory gives consistent availability and delivery promises. A deterministic two-step workflow, partial-fulfillment branching, multi-package shipments with per-slip tracking, and a full audit log deliver traceable fulfillment across a heterogeneous vendor network.
4. Catalog expansion add-on: A merchant already on Kibo wants incremental revenue without growing inventory exposure; Dropship is added on the existing platform.
5. System consolidation: A merchant replacing operational systems adopts Dropship alongside an OMS/commerce replacement, eliminating a separate dropship platform.
6. Invitation — operator creates a vendor record (Vendor Name, invitation email, vendor type). Duplicate names/emails error before the invite is sent.
7. Onboarding In Progress — the invited user registers and works through the four-step stepper; operators review documents and map items in parallel.
8. Active — operator flips status to Active once requirements are met; orders begin to flow.
9. Inactive — operator can deactivate at any time; inactive vendors stop receiving routed orders.

​

Prerequisites

Before Dropship can be used, three platform prerequisites must be in place: the DropShipEnabled tenant attribute is enabled by Kibo support; the operator creates a dropship location group with the dropship fulfillment workflow assigned; and the catalog must include the UPCs that vendors will be mapped to. Once these are configured, a vendor reaches Active status as soon as at least one item mapping exists and a primary-contact phone number is on record.

1. Platform Foundation — the DropShipEnabled tenant attribute and a dedicated dropship location group with the dropship fulfillment workflow assigned. These activate the module and route vendor-destined shipments into the two-step sequence.
2. Operator Portal — Vendor Module — the vendor listing, Invite New Vendor flow, and per-vendor record with three tabs: Overview (vendor information, status control, and the Mapped Locations section), Documents, and Item Mapping. The operator also sets the vendor shipping mode at Settings → Vendor.
3. Vendor Portal — three modules: Onboarding (four-step stepper), Locations (Location, Hours, Cut-Off Times, Attributes), and Orders (summary cards, list, fulfillment workflow, order details).
4. Fulfillment Workflow — a deterministic two-step sequence on every order: Step 1 (Order Acknowledgement and stock validation, with partial-fulfillment branching) and Step 2 (Prepare Shipments / ASN, packing slips, tracking, invoice). In Step 2 the shipping experience branches on the vendor shipping mode — label generation on the operator’s carrier accounts, or manual tracking entry.

​

Configuration-Level Deep Dive

​

Vendor Invitation Fields (Operator Portal)

​

Onboarding Step 1 — Basic Corporate Information

​

Item Mapping & Contracted Pricing (Operator Portal)

Maps the operator’s UPC to the Vendor SKU and stores the Contracted Price (the cost the operator pays — not the storefront price). At least one mapping is required before activation; the contract price drives vendor-facing order items and invoices.

​

Mapped Locations (Operator Portal).

On the Overview tab, lists every location a vendor can fulfill from, with a running count. Operators Add Location from a searchable, multi-select modal (effective immediately, no approval) and Remove via a confirmation. The relationship is bidirectional: operator-added locations appear in the Vendor Portal automatically, and vendor-created locations appear here automatically.

​

Locations & Fulfillment Settings (Vendor Portal).

Each location captures basic information, address (with latitude/longitude for routing), and contact. Fulfillment settings include Processing Times (feed EDD and the SLA timer) and Capacity Limits (max orders/day; once reached the location is skipped in routing). Operating Hours and Cut-Off Times are time-zone-scoped and feed routing and EDD; Cut-Off Times also support holiday/maintenance overrides.

​

Vendor Shipping Mode & Label Generation (Operator Portal setting + Vendor Portal Step 2)

A single tenant-level setting (Settings → Vendor) selects how vendors ship; it defaults to vendor-managed (manual tracking). In operator-managed mode, vendors generate shipping labels in the portal using the operator’s carrier accounts, with manual tracking as a fallback. Carriers, predefined packages, and unit type are read from the Location Group tagged to the vendor location. Order Page. The canonical record of an order. Header shows Order ID, placement timestamp, and actions (Cancel Order, Download Invoice, Start Fulfillment). Tabs: Order Items (contract price, qty, discount, adjustment, total + price breakdown); Canceled Items (conditional; product, qty canceled, reason); Shipping (carrier, delivery-status badge, tracking, Track Package per packing slip — auto-captured from the label in operator-managed mode, or the manually entered number in vendor-managed mode); Activity (reverse-chronological timeline); Invoice (preview + download). Activation Mechanics. To flip a vendor to Active: at least one Item Mapping must exist, and a Primary Contact phone number must be on record. The dropship location group with its workflow assignment must also exist, or vendor fulfillment will not route.

​

4. Key Capabilities and Business Applications

​

Self-Service Vendor Onboarding via a Configurable Stepper

A newly invited vendor is guided through Basic Corporate Information, Add Users, Business Verification, and Integration Setup, with a right rail showing completion progress. The document set is operator-configurable (title, Required/Optional); rejected documents carry a comment back with the upload re-enabled. Vendors can build locations and platform while document review is in progress, removing the usual onboarding bottleneck.

​

Item Mapping with Contracted Pricing

Performed operator-side, it bridges the operator UPC to the vendor SKU and captures the contract cost. It gates activation (≥1 mapping required) and drives vendor-facing prices and invoices, distinct from the storefront selling price. Example — Electronics retailer: a smart-lock retails at $199 but is mapped at a $90 contracted cost; a two-unit order shows the vendor $90/unit and a $180 invoice total, with no markup exposed.

​

Unified Routing Across Owned and Third-Party Inventory

Vendor locations are exposed to the same routing engine as owned locations and evaluated on proximity, hours, cut-offs, capacity, and routing attributes — no distinction between owned and vendor nodes, so the same scenarios, sort strategies, and assignment preferences apply. Example — B2B distributor: 6 owned warehouses + 25 vendors are evaluated together; a vendor 80 miles away with stock and capacity wins over a distant owned warehouse, preserving owned capacity and avoiding a parallel routing system.

​

Two-Step Fulfillment with Partial-Fulfillment Branching

Every order flows through Order Acknowledgement (Step 1) and Prepare Shipments / ASN (Step 2). In Step 1 the vendor validates stock; if any quantity is reduced, the row highlights, a banner shows the partial count, and on confirmation the system creates a separate Canceled order with the unfulfilled units and reasons while the original proceeds with fulfilled quantities. Reason capture supports apply-to-all, per-product overrides, a defined catalog, and a free-text “Other”. Example — DTC brand: a vendor finds 1 of 4 units damaged, reduces to 3, selects “Damaged Or Defective Item”; a one-unit Canceled order is created, the three-unit order ships, and reporting can later quantify damage-driven cancellations.

​

Operator-Managed Location Mapping with Bidirectional Sync

The Mapped Locations section makes the Vendor Profile the single source of truth for a vendor’s fulfillment footprint. Operators map existing Kibo Admin locations via a searchable, multi-select modal and remove them via a guarded confirmation that flags active orders. Mapping/unmapping is immediate with no approval. Vendor-created locations surface to the operator automatically and vice versa, eliminating context-switching between Vendor Management and Location Management. Example — Dropship operator: an operator pre-maps a vendor’s two DCs before activation; when the vendor later opens a third warehouse in the portal, it appears in the operator’s table automatically.

​

Dual-Mode Shipping — Operator Carrier Labels or Vendor Tracking

A single tenant-level setting governs shipping. In the default vendor-managed mode, vendors enter tracking numbers. In operator-managed mode, vendors generate labels in Step 2 on the operator’s carrier accounts (manual tracking retained as fallback), inheriting carriers, packages, and units from the Location Group. Carrier/service pre-select from the order’s shipping method; predefined packages lock dimensions; weight is manual; tracking is captured automatically; one label per packing slip with reprint/edit support. Example — Apparel retailer: the operator enables operator-managed shipping tenant-wide so every dropship parcel ships on negotiated FedEx/UPS rates with operator branding and hands-off tracking; smaller vendors ship at enterprise rates without their own carrier accounts.

​

5. Supported Capabilities & Current Behavior

How to read this section. This guide enumerates the fulfillment capabilities supported by Dropship in the current release. Dropship runs on the same Kibo OMS as owned-inventory fulfillment but intentionally exposes a focused, deterministic subset of it. Any Kibo OMS fulfillment capability not described in this guide is not part of the current Dropship release. Where Dropship’s behavior differs from the standard OMS workflow, that difference is called out under Current Behavior Notes. What Dropship supports today

• Ship to Home (STH) fulfillment — Dropship supports Ship to Home (STH) fulfillment: the vendor ships the ordered items directly to the customer’s delivery address. BOPIS (customer pickup at vendor location), Delivery, and Transfer fulfillment types are not part of the Dropship vendor workflow.
• Unified order routing across owned and vendor locations.
• Two-step vendor fulfillment (Order Acknowledgement → Prepare Shipments / ASN).
• Partial fulfillment (fulfilled units proceed; see Current Behavior Notes for the shortfall).
• Multi-package shipments with per-package tracking (manual or label-captured).
• Operator-managed location mapping with bidirectional sync.
• Dual-mode shipping (operator-managed labels or vendor-managed tracking).
• SLA visibility (On Time / At Risk / Overdue), contracted-price invoicing (incl. EDI 810), and a full audit trail.

Current Behavior Notes — intentional design boundaries that differ from the standard OMS workflow:

​

6. Platform Integration Map

Upstream Dependencies

1. DropShipEnabled tenant attribute — without it, the vendor module does not appear in Kibo Admin.
2. Dedicated dropship location group with workflow assignment (BPM) — without it, vendor shipments do not enter the Acknowledgement → ASN sequence.
3. Operator catalog with UPCs — required for item mapping.
4. Location Group carrier configuration — in operator-managed shipping, label generation reads carriers, predefined packages, and unit type from the Location Group tagged to each vendor location.

Downstream Impacts

1. Order routing — vendor hours, cut-offs, override hours, capacity, and routing attributes feed node selection; mapped locations become eligible nodes.
2. Order lifecycle — dropship orders flow through the two-step workflow, generating activity-log entries at every transition.

Synergistic Features

• Dropship + Order Routing — vendor attributes, time-zone hours, cut-offs, and overrides give the engine a rich data set; the same strategies apply to owned and vendor nodes.
• Dropship + Fulfillment SLAs — order-level On Time / At Risk / Overdue indicators draw on the platform SLA framework.
• Dropship + Item Mapping & Contracted Pricing — produces accurate vendor invoices automatically, eliminating manual reconciliation.
• Dropship + EDI (850/855/856/810/846) — for high-volume vendors, fully automated PO, acknowledgement, ASN, invoicing, and inventory exchange on the same lifecycle and audit log.

​

7. Related Conceptual Guides

• Locations & Location Groups — the dropship location group, workflow assignment, and carrier configuration are platform prerequisites.
• Catalog & Product Attributes — item mapping requires an operator catalog with UPCs.
• Order Routing — vendor location data feeds the routing engine that selects the fulfillment node.
• Order Fulfillment — how the two-step workflow expresses itself on the operator-side order record.
• Inventory and EDI & API Integrations — complementary controls and integration framework for vendor partnerships.