Creating a Vendor and Vendor Inventory List

This article will guide you through setting up a Vendor and Vendor Inventory List in Solid Commerce, including when to use the Vendor option.

What we cover in this article:

1. Should I Add a Warehouse or Vendor?
2. Adding a Vendor and Vendor Inventory List
3. Viewing Your Vendor Inventory List
4. Viewing and Editing Your Vendor
5. Other Vendor Options
6. Related Articles

 

Should I Add a Warehouse or Vendor?

In Solid Commerce, a Warehouse and a Vendor are both locations that store products. The differences are that:

• A Warehouse is your own facility.
• A Vendor is another business that drop-ships products when you contact them, or sends you daily consolidated shipments.

After you create a Vendor, you need to give that Vendor a warehouse, which we call a Vendor Inventory List. Vendor Inventory Lists can do everything a Warehouse can do. In fact, when we say "Warehouse," we actually mean "Warehouse or Vendor Inventory List."

In terms of function, the major difference between a Warehouse and a Vendor is that a Vendor offers exciting options that keep you in two-way contact by automatically:

• Updating your Solid Commerce account — with up-to-date information from your vendor.
• Sending your vendor orders.

Adding a Vendor and Vendor Inventory List

1) In the Products menu -> Inventory Manager.

2) Click the Add button.

• From the drop-down menu, select New Vendor.

• You can also add or edit a Vendor from the Vendors menu.

3) Enter the name of your vendor in the Vendor Display Name field. 

4) Optionally, you can enter other vendor data in the proper fields below, but stay in the Vendor details section. We'll come back to the other sections another time.

5) Scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the Add New button.

6) Now it's time to create a Vendor Inventory List, which is really just the Warehouse for the Vendor.

• Head back over to the Inventory Manager page, by going to the Products menu -> Inventory Manager.
• Click the Add button.
• From the drop-down menu, select New Vendor Inventory List.

7) Vendor Inventory List details: 

• Enter a List Name.
• In the Select vendor drop-down menu, choose the vendor you created.
• Click the Create vendor list button.

You can create more Vendors and Vendor Inventory Lists by repeating the steps.

Viewing Your Vendor Inventory List

1) To see the Vendor Inventory List you just added, click the + sign next to the word Vendors to expand the Vendors section.

• Then click the + sign next to My Vendors to see the vendors
• Finally, click the + sign by a vendor's name to see that vendor's inventory lists.
• Just like with our Warehouse and Market List, once we add some items to our Vendor Inventory List, the parentheses will automatically populate with the number of products in the list, and the total quantity shared by those products.

Viewing and Editing Your Vendor

1) To view and edit your Vendor's details, you need to head to the Vendors menu -> Manage Vendors.

• Click on the Pencil icon to the left of your Vendor's name.

2) Make any changes in the Edit Vendor Details pop-up window.

3) Click the Update Changes button at the bottom of the window.

 

Other Vendor Options

To get automatic inventory and product updates from your vendor, talk to your account manager about setting up the Inventory Sync Options section of your Vendor page. The easiest way to do get updated info from your vendor is to tap into their FTP feed.

You can also automate the other side of your vendor communications, by sending purchase orders to them. You'll soon be able to learn all about it in our article Automatically Emailing POs to Vendors.

Related Articles

• Creating a Warehouse

• Editing or Deleting a Warehouse, Vendor Inventory List, Market List, or Vendor
  
• Automatically Emailing POs to Vendors