Receiving supplier stock at several Shopify locations

Once you have a shop and a warehouse, or a second shop, or a market stall, receiving gets one extra question: where does this stock go? Shopify tracks inventory per location, so the answer decides what customers can buy online, what POS shows, and what your stocktake will find.

How Shopify thinks about locations

• Every tracked variant has separate quantities at each location it's stocked at.
• Online orders are fulfilled from locations according to your fulfilment settings. POS sells from the location the POS is assigned to.
• Your plan limits how many locations you can have.
• Receiving, adjustments and transfers always happen at a location, and the adjustment history records which one.

Rule 1: Receive where it arrives

If the supplier delivers everything to the warehouse, receive everything at the warehouse, even if half of it is going to the shop tomorrow. The stock really is at the warehouse until it's moved, and receiving it there means:

• your counts match the shelves at every moment;
• the receipt matches the supplier's invoice and delivery note exactly;
• the later move is recorded as a transfer, so you can see what went where.

With native purchase orders, set the destination to the location the supplier is shipping to. If you adjust quantities directly, choose that location on Products › Inventory first. Details in receiving inventory.

Rule 2: Move stock with transfers

To move part of a delivery to another location:

1. Go to Products › Transfers and click Create transfer.
2. Choose the origin and destination locations.
3. Add the products and enter the quantity to move in the Move column.
4. Optionally add a reference, note or tags, and click Save. The transfer is saved as a draft and doesn't commit inventory yet.
5. When the goods are packed, optionally use the more-actions menu to Mark as ready to ship. Stock is then committed at the origin so it can't be sold twice.
6. At the destination, open the transfer and receive the items. You can receive in admin or in Shopify POS.

Shopify's Transfers page also shows transfers created by apps, so everything is in one list.

Split deliveries: one invoice, two destinations

Sometimes the supplier delivers directly to two places on one invoice. Options:

• Receive each location's share separately, at the location where it arrived. Note on each receipt which invoice it belongs to.
• Ask the supplier for separate delivery notes per address. It makes checking much easier.

Either way, cost per item is the same for the product everywhere (Shopify stores one cost per variant, not per location), so you only update costs once.

What not to do

Don't	Why	Instead
Receive at the shop because that's where it'll end up	Online orders may be routed to stock that isn't there yet	Receive at the warehouse, then transfer
Subtract at one location and add at another by hand	No link between the two changes; easy to do only half	Use a transfer
Use the inventory CSV across all locations for one delivery	It sets totals at every location in the file	Export just the receiving location

A weekly routine for a shop and a warehouse

Most two-location shops settle into the same rhythm. Writing it down stops stock drifting between sites:

1. Deliveries: everything from suppliers is received at the warehouse on the day it arrives, checked against the invoice.
2. Replenishment: once or twice a week, someone checks what's low at the shop (filter Products › Inventory by the shop location and sort by available quantity).
3. Transfer: one transfer per trip from warehouse to shop, marked ready to ship when the van is loaded, so those units can't be sold online in the meantime.
4. Receive at the shop: the shop team receives the transfer when it arrives, in admin or on POS, and notes anything short or damaged.
5. Costs: whoever receives the supplier invoice updates cost per item once. Nobody touches costs during transfers.

Also check how online orders are routed between your locations in your Shopify shipping and order-routing settings. If the shop is first in line for online orders, stock received at the shop sells online first, which may not be what you want for display stock.

Stocktakes per location

Count one location at a time. Export the inventory CSV for that location only, enter counts in On hand (new), and import. See inventory CSV import. Afterwards, the adjustment history shows each correction against that location.

Where Box to Shelf helps

Box to Shelf asks which location to receive at on every document, and remembers your default. Stock is added only at that location; costs are updated once for the variant. Plans include 1, 3 or unlimited locations, and in settings you can choose which locations appear. To move stock between locations afterwards, use Shopify's transfers as described above.

Questions

Can one supplier delivery go to two locations?

Yes. Receive it all at the location where it arrives, then move part of it with a transfer, or receive each location's share separately.

Sources

• Shopify Help Center: Transfers
• Shopify Help Center: Creating transfers
• Shopify Help Center: Creating inventory transfers from purchase orders
• Shopify Help Center: Inventory CSV

Shopify changes its admin often. Steps were checked against the Shopify Help Center in November 2026; if a menu has moved, the help center links above have the current version.