Order routing
How to automate warehouse order routing
Whether you're routing orders simply based on a customer's zip code or dynamically assigning fulfillment centers based on inventory and proximity, manual order routing slows down fulfillment and increases your risk of breaching SLA—and quickly becomes unsustainable as you scale. While many teams have insane Excel macros, Airtable formulas, or Netsuite rules set up to handle routing, these processes very quickly become impossible to manage because of their complexity and nuance across systems—especially when dealing with messy data.
With Parabola, you can build order routing logic tailored to your operations—whether you're assigning orders based on a zip code lookup or dynamically filtering for fulfillment centers with available inventory. Pull and consolidate orders from every sales channel in your network, dynamically identify the optimal fulfillment center, and push updates back to your WMS, OMS, or sales channel in real-time.
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Order routing is the process of assigning customer orders to specific fulfillment centers based on criteria like customer location, available inventory, and warehouse capabilities. Brands often use order routing to minimize shipping time and cost, ensure inventory is optimally used, and segment orders by 3PL or internal warehouse capacity.
- Use steps like Pull from Shopify or Pull from Netsuite to pull in orders.
- If applicable, pull in your reference data: something like a zip-code-to-warehouse mapping table for simple logic or current warehouse inventory levels per SKU.
- Use Combine tables to match customer zip codes to the correct warehouse. For more advanced logic, use Filter rows and Sort rows to isolate warehouses that have the right SKUs in stock and are closest to the destination.
- Use the Add if/else column step to apply routing rules (e.g., exclude certain warehouses based on cutoffs or capacity).
- For more complex order routing logic, use the Custom transform step.
- Send routed orders to the correct system using steps like Send to API or Email a file attachment.
- For zip-based routing, maintain and update a centralized reference sheet with zip code → warehouse mappings to keep logic clean and editable.
- When doing inventory-based routing, normalize your inventory feeds early using Edit columns and Standardize with AI to ensure consistent SKU and location formats.
- Leverage the Custom transform step to handle your most complex logic.
- Use Sort rows to prioritize routing logic by lowest shipping zone, highest inventory, or fastest SLA depending on your business goals.
- Always test new logic with sample orders and compare outcomes before going live.
- To start building your own order routing Flow, check out Parabola University.
