Fulfillment center and shipping arrangement

A fulfillment center represents a place from which products are shipped to customers. Inventory counts are maintained separately for each fulfillment center. The OrderItemAdd and OrderItemUpdate commands assign a fulfillment center to each order item in an order by calling the ResolveFulfillmentCenterCmd task command (for non-ATP enabled stores) or by calling the AllocateInventoryCmd task command (for ATP enabled stores). The default implementations of these task commands assign fulfillment centers based on inventory availability, shipping address, and the precedence attributes of the applicable shipping arrangements.

A shipping arrangement is a relationship object that enables a store to use a fulfillment center. A fulfillment center will only be assigned to an order item if an enabling shipping arrangement exists (in the SHPARRANGE table) between the store and the fulfillment center. A shipping arrangement has an optional validity period, and may be limited to a particular shipping mode, and to shipping addresses in certain shipping jurisdictions.

Shipping charges and taxes for an order item can be calculated differently depending on the assigned fulfillment center. (See the SHPJCRULE and TAXJCRULE tables, and the WebSphere Commerce Calculation Framework Guide for details.)