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Setting Up a Self Fulfillment Warehouse

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Written by Sam E.

If you ship your own orders — no third-party logistics (3PL) provider and no fulfillment software — you can still sell through Acenda. Add the Self Fulfillment integration, create a warehouse that uses it, and you're ready to receive orders.

The setup is the same three steps as any other warehouse: add the fulfillment integration, create the warehouse, and map it to your sales channels. The difference is what happens afterward — nothing syncs automatically, so you add tracking by hand and keep stock counts current yourself.

Before you start: Self Fulfillment is for orders you ship yourself, with no outside system involved. If a 3PL or fulfillment software (ShipStation, ShipHero and similar) ships your orders instead, set up that fulfillment provider integration instead — you don't need Self Fulfillment.

Step 1: Add the Self Fulfillment integration

  1. In the sidebar, under CHANNELS, click Integrations.

  2. Under Fulfillment Providers, click New.

  3. Select the Self Fulfillment tile. There's no account or credentials to enter for it.

  4. Click Add.

Step 2: Create your warehouse

Create the warehouse the same way as any other, and point it at Self Fulfillment:

  1. In the sidebar, under CHANNELS, click Warehouses, then + New Warehouse.

  2. Fill in the Warehouse Details. For Fulfillment Provider ID, choose Self Fulfillment from the list. Leave Inventory Tracking at basic, and set Type to physical (or virtual if it doesn't hold stock itself).

  3. Enter the warehouse's Address, Country, State, City and Zip Code.

  4. Set Respect Allocations on (recommended, so units already promised to open orders come out of what's available to sell) and Active on, then click Save.

See Adding and Managing Warehouses in Acenda for the full field-by-field walkthrough.

Step 3: Map the warehouse to your sales channels

A sales channel only sees stock from the warehouses you map to it, so do this for every channel this warehouse should supply:

  1. In the sidebar, under CHANNELS, click Integrations, then Edit next to the sales channel.

  2. Open the Settings tab. In the General section, scroll down to Warehouse Details.

  3. Click + Add Warehouse Detail, choose the channel's own location under Channel Warehouse and your new warehouse under Warehouse, then click Save.

Full details, including warehouse priority and routing, are in Adding and Managing Warehouses in Acenda.

How orders reach a Self Fulfillment warehouse

Acenda routes orders to a mapped warehouse with available stock the same way for every warehouse, regardless of fulfillment provider. Once an order routes to your Self Fulfillment warehouse, Acenda creates a ship advice on the order — the instruction telling that warehouse which items to ship. You'll see it on the order's Ship Advice tab.

The one difference: with a connected 3PL, that system tells Acenda when it ships and the order updates on its own. With Self Fulfillment, nothing does that for you — the ship advice sits open until you add the tracking yourself.

Step 4: Adding tracking by hand

  1. Open the order and click its Ship Advice tab.

  2. On the ship advice card, click Fulfill Items.

  3. Enter the Carrier, Tracking Number and shipping Cost (0 is fine), set the quantity shipped for each item, then click Create.

The order moves to partially_shipped or shipped automatically as you add fulfillments — there's no status to set by hand. Full steps and every error message are in Updating Orders with Tracking Information.

Step 5: Keeping stock current

Acenda still tracks allocation for you: placing an order reserves stock, and recording a shipment (Step 4) lowers the warehouse's on-hand count by the same amount automatically — that part works the same as any warehouse.

What's different is how stock gets added. A connected 3PL or inventory system pushes its counts into Acenda on its own schedule. A Self Fulfillment warehouse has no such feed, so after a recount, a new delivery, or any stock change outside Acenda, update the count yourself — either one item at a time or by importing a file for several items at once. See How Inventory Syncs to Your Marketplaces for how that count turns into what each channel sees.

Watch out for: Because nothing feeds stock into a Self Fulfillment warehouse automatically, a channel can keep selling stock you no longer have if you forget to update the count after selling elsewhere or receiving a return outside Acenda. Make updating this warehouse part of your regular stock routine.

How this differs from a provider-backed warehouse

  • No account, credentials or settings to configure — adding the integration is a single click.

  • It never shows a Connection Unhealthy warning on the Integrations page, since there's no outside connection to check.

  • Nothing acknowledges shipments or pushes stock counts in for you — tracking and inventory are entirely up to you, by hand or by import.

Troubleshooting

  • Orders aren't routing to this warehouse: Confirm it's mapped under that channel's Warehouse Details (Step 3) and set to Active, and that it has enough on-hand stock for the order. If the order shows pending or partially_routed, open its Ship Advice tab and click Retry.

  • No + New Warehouse button on the Warehouses page: You need at least one fulfillment provider integration first. Add Self Fulfillment (Step 1), then come back.

  • A channel shows 0 or out of stock: Check that this warehouse is mapped and Active for that channel, and that its on-hand count is actually current — remember nothing syncs stock into a Self Fulfillment warehouse for you.

  • The order never shows as shipped on the channel: Someone needs to add the tracking by hand on the order's Ship Advice tab (Step 4) — a Self Fulfillment warehouse won't send it on its own.

Still have questions? Contact Acenda Support.

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