Shop, marketplace and warehouse kept in step without anyone watching
The shop sells on its own Shopify store, on a European marketplace and to wholesale customers, and ships from a 3PL warehouse. We built the n8n workflows between those systems, so stock, orders and returns move without someone watching each one.
Each hand-off is its own small workflow, triggered the moment something changes.
- Team
- E-commerce operations
- Built with
- n8n
- Shopify
- Gorgias
- Marketplace API
- 3PL warehouse
- Slack
The problem
Every sales channel added a hand-off.
Stock changed in Shopify, but the marketplace only knew when someone updated it. Between updates, the shop could sell what it no longer had.
Some products ship in glass. Orders with several of them needed a carrier that handles fragile parcels better, and someone had to spot those orders and change them by hand.
Returns needed a notice at the warehouse and a label for the customer. Wholesale accounts needed a welcome email with trading terms. Both were small, repeated tasks that waited for whoever had time.
What we built
Stock pushed on every change
Each time stock changes in Shopify, a webhook starts an n8n workflow that pushes the new level to the marketplace. Products without a barcode or a marketplace listing raise a Slack warning instead of failing quietly.
Fragile orders moved to a safer carrier
Every new order is checked for glass items. For home deliveries with 3 or more, the warehouse order switches to a carrier that handles fragile parcels better. Very large orders get a different shipping code and an email to logistics. If the order has not reached the warehouse yet, the workflow waits and tries again.
Return labels from the help desk
When a return goes through the help desk, the workflow creates the return notice at the warehouse and a return label PDF, then adds the label link to the ticket as an internal note. The support agent sends it to the customer.
Wholesale accounts welcomed after approval
Once a wholesale account is approved, the workflow sends the welcome email with trading terms through the help desk, then closes the ticket so it does not sit in anyone's queue.
Guardrails
Rules that keep orders moving
Each workflow does one job and says so when it cannot.
- Missing barcodes or listings raise a warning instead of a silent skip
- Orders not yet at the warehouse are retried, not dropped
- Very large fragile orders go to a person
- Return labels reach the customer through a support agent
- Wholesale welcome emails go out only after an account is approved
Why we built it this way
Push on change, not on a timer
Overselling happens in the gap between syncs. Pushing on every stock change closes that gap instead of shrinking it.
One job per workflow
Stock, fragile orders, returns and onboarding are separate workflows. When one fails, the others keep running, and the alert says which job broke.
Customer messages keep an owner
Labels and welcome emails go out through the help desk, so every message to a customer has a person and a history behind it.
Measured
What the team can see
Problems show up as messages, not as complaints.
- Products missing a barcode or marketplace listing
- Orders moved to the safer carrier
- Large glass orders flagged to logistics
- Return labels attached to tickets
More case studies
Other systems our team built.
- Customer supportAn AI support desk where a person still decides what gets sentRead the case →
- FinanceA finance back office that reads its own post and supplier mailRead the case →
- OperationsProduction planning that is done before the team arrivesRead the case →
- Product and contentShopify product pages built from one approved recordRead the case →
- Leadership and engineeringReports that draft themselves and alarms that fire before things breakRead the case →
Related
Selling in more than one place?
Tell us where you sell and who ships for you. We'll show you which hand-offs between them can run on their own.
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