Overview
A combined warehouse is a warehouse that aggregates stock and/or sales from multiple other locations.
Combined warehouses can be used to calculate forecasted needs and replenishment recommendations using those combined levels. You can create multiple combined warehouses in the same account, and there are no extra fees associated with creating combined warehouses.
A combined warehouse is a Replenishment Warehouse, not a true physical location. When creating a purchase order using a combined warehouse, you will need to select a different warehouse as the true destination warehouse.
When to use a combined warehouse
Combined warehouses should be used when an overview of multiple locations is necessary. The following scenarios are examples of merchants who might find a combined warehouse useful:
Amazon sellers using a staging or overflow warehouse before forwarding inventory to an FBA (fulfilled by Amazon) warehouse. In this case, the extra warehouse is set up as an IP warehouse to show stock levels.
Merchants with multiple locations or sales channels want to see the total demand for products to order from overseas vendors.
Stores selling both on their own domain and Amazon that want to see demand for different regions. In this case, Amazon US + Amazon CA + yourstore.com can be shown together. Then, Amazon GB + yourstore.co.uk can be shown in a different combined warehouse.
A merchant selling on their own domain and FBM (Amazon fulfilled by the merchant). A combined warehouse is useful when these two sales channels fulfill orders from the same stock in the same physical warehouse.
Combined warehouses should be used for replenishment planning based on a "global" view of stock and/or sales information. Perhaps you need to consider reserve stock before placing a purchase order for additional items, or, conversely, perhaps there are multiple locations/warehouses pulling from the same stock. A combined warehouse ensures that the correct information is being considered to generate accurate forecasting and replenishment recommendations.
If you need to evaluate forecasting and replenishment for individual selling locations or warehouses, make sure to enable them in your warehouse settings. If you don’t need to evaluate forecasting or replenishment for the individual locations, you can disable them and only include them in a combined warehouse view.
Note: You do not need to enable individual warehouses if it's sufficient to include them in the combined warehouse configuration. Nevertheless, it's advisable to have at least one real warehouse enabled in order to keep your stock information fully up to date with changes. If no real warehouses are enabled, sales information will sync, but stock data may be out of date.
Note that the warehouses must be enabled when setting up the combined warehouse, or if any changes are made to the warehouse after combining.
Setting up a combined warehouse
To set up your combined warehouse, go to Account > Settings > Connections & Warehouses.
Next, click “+ New Combined Warehouse”.
Name your combined warehouse, choose the warehouse currency and decide whether or not to ignore stockouts.
Use the “+ Add Warehouse” button to define the locations you want to combine.
Note that you can select disabled warehouses.
Important: When setting up combined warehouses, the warehouses must be enabled at the point of combining in order for information to sync properly. Similarly, if a disabled warehouse's information changes, it must be re-enabled to sync the changes so that they are reflected in the combined warehouse's forecast.
In the Combine Method column, select how you handle stock.
Warehouse settings can be configured to:
Combine sales, stock, and purchase orders with another warehouses. Sales History (units sold), stock, and purchase order quantities will be summed up with other warehouses.
Combine sales, ignore stock, and purchase orders for a warehouse. Unique products in this warehouse won't appear in the combined one. Select this option when fulfilling more than one 'warehouse' from the same stock. This ensures that stock will not be double-counted when calculating replenishment recommendations.
Combine sales, share stock, and purchase orders with another warehouse. Sales History (units sold are combined). The stock will be taken from the shared warehouse if any, otherwise it's taken from the current warehouse. Then the stock is combined with other locations. Purchase orders will be combined using the same logic as shared stock.
Combine purchase orders and stock, ignore sales. Select this option when integrating with a warehouse management system that supplies accurate stock information but not sales order history. For example, if sales history is supplied by Shopify, but accurate stock information is supplied by integration with ShipHero, then select this option for your combined warehouse.
Combine purchase orders, ignore sales and stock. Select this option to strictly focus on incorporating purchase orders from an additional location (no sales or stock information), so that "on order" quantities remain accurate.
Next, choose whether you want to combine the forecast.
Combining the forecast means the forecast in the combined warehouse will be combined from all physical locations instead of being based on the combined sales velocity, so adjustments to forecasts in the individual physical warehouses will affect the forecast in the combined warehouse.
You can then set default settings for stock orders created using the combined warehouse.
Pick a default warehouse to be used as the destination warehouse when stock orders are created using the combined replenishment warehouse and enter your billing and shipping addresses.
You can also set the maximum number of units of stock that the warehouse can hold, and set a default priority.
Finally, click “Save”.
Forecasting with combined warehouses
Warehouses marked as enabled appear in the main Replenishment screen when "All Warehouses" is selected:
Enabled warehouses also appear in the location dropdown in the top left filter:
In a combined warehouse, a question mark icon appears next to stock and sales related metrics. You can click this button to see how data is broken down by location.
Note: If an option was selected to "ignore" the stock (or sales) information from a specific location, they still appear in this view - but are not counted in the displayed amount on the main Replenishment table.
A combined warehouse is not a true, physical warehouse. Instead, it is a replenishment warehouse, intended for calculating forecast needs and replenishment recommendations based on combined stock and/or sales from multiple locations.
Forecasts and replenishment are created independently for a combined warehouse. Adjustments in a single warehouse do not impact forecasts or replenishment recommendations in a combined warehouse. If the stock cannot be transferred or shared between warehouses to fulfill customer orders, you should create purchase orders using forecasts and replenishment for each individual location/warehouse instead.
Setting up lead times and days of stock for combined warehouses
You will need to configure lead time and days of stock for a combined warehouse independently. A new warehouse will default to a lead time of 14 days and 30 days of stock.
The lead time should represent the time between placing a purchase order with the supplier and receiving the new stock at your fulfillment location. If there are multiple fulfillment locations (e.g. if using Amazon FBA), it is recommended to use the greatest lead time to consider the full amount in replenishment recommendations.
The days of stock should represent the desired coverage in days once stock arrives. Inventory Planner forecasts your stock position for variants at the end of their lead time and recommends replenishment to cover forecasted needs during the next “X” days after they’ve been received, where “X” is your days of stock. Set days of stock as the frequency of purchasing + any additional buffer (safety stock) that is needed.
Select variants and use Bulk Actions to adjust their lead time and days of stock in the combined warehouse.
If the purchase order needs to be split once it arrives to the destination warehouse, you can create transfer orders to send stock to another location.
Select the warehouse where stock should be sent in the top left of the Replenishment screen, then set the lead time for that specific location as the time it takes to transfer stock.
Creating purchase orders using combined warehouses
The combined warehouse is a replenishment warehouse, not a true physical location, so when creating a purchase order using a combined warehouse you will need to select a true destination warehouse.
To set a default destination warehouse for purchase orders using a combined warehouse, go to Account > Settings > Connections & Warehouses and select the gear icon next to the combined warehouse to edit its settings:
Then use the "Default destination warehouse" dropdown to select the warehouse that should be used by default on future purchase orders using the combined warehouse.
Purchase orders should be received and adjusted for the true destination warehouse where the new order will be received.
Deleting a combined warehouse
To delete a combined warehouse, click on the trash can icon beside the warehouse under Settings > Connections and warehouses.
If a combined warehouse is deleted, the information related to the parent warehouses will be retained, as long as the warehouses are enabled.
Any information relating specifically to the combined warehouse will be deleted.