Fulfillment 101: Everything You Need to Know

With Castiron, your customers will always be required to select a fulfillment option prior to paying and completing an order. For this reason, it's critical to understand how to set up fulfillment methods within your shop that work best for you!

Castiron supports three different types of fulfillment: local pick-up, local delivery, and shipping. 

This article will cover:


Prefer to see it live? Check out our tutorial below, OR keep reading.

Let's get started!

First, let's find where fulfillments live in Castiron! To get started, login to Castiron and go to "Online Ordering" on the left-hand side of your navigation panel and select "Fulfillments".


This will take you to your fulfillment home screen, where you can edit, delete, and add fulfillment methods to your store. Select "Add Fulfillment" to create a new option for your customers.


Creating a Local Pick-Up Option

Let's start by adding a local pick-up option! Start by giving your Local Pick-Up option a title, such as "Local Pick-Up in (Your Area)".


Next, select your lead time for this fulfillment option. Lead time can be set in hours or days. For example, if I need a week's time to prep for any local pick-up orders, then my lead time would be 7 days.


Next, set your pick-up schedule! You can choose to provide your customers with specific dates and times to choose from, helping you set boundaries and manage your own schedule efficiently, or you can choose to "remain flexible".

If you choose to create a fulfillment schedule, select "Specific Date(s)" and enter your applicable pick-up dates and times.

If you have a recurring pick-up option, such as every Saturday morning, check "Repeat this option every week" to have this fulfillment option available for every Saturday.

If you do not have a set fulfillment schedule, choose "I'm Flexible" instead. You can provide any notes on your availability or preferences in the box below.



Next, add your Pick-Up Details, including your neighborhood, borough, or zip code, and your pickup details.

Lastly, if you would like to apply any fees or minimums to your pick-up option, do so under the "Fees & Minimums". By setting an order minimum, this fulfillment option will not be available to any customer who has a cart value of below the minimum you've set.

Press "Save" to finalize your pick-up option! 

When your customers add instant check-out products to their cart, they'll be required to select a fulfillment option from the types you've created.

When selecting Local Pick-Up, your customer will be able to view the date and time slots you've created. In this case, the weekly Saturday pick-up presents itself to the customer.


PICK UP REMINDERS

You can now schedule pick up reminders to be automatically sent to your customer 24 hours before their scheduled pick up time. Simply check the box next to "Automated Reminders".

*Please note a specific pick up date must be indicated for this to be active for the order.

Creating a Local Delivery Option

Creating a local delivery option is very similar to creating a local pick-up option as outlined above. You can set your fulfillment schedule, your lead-time, set your delivery details, etc. Unlike local pick-up, however, you will want to specify where exactly you'll be delivering. If necessary, create multiple delivery options if you plan on charging varied rates depending on a customer's zip code.

Lastly, be sure you are charging for delivery! You can set your fees and minimums on the right-hand side. Orders that do not meet your minimum delivery amount will not be able to select delivery as a fulfillment option.


Add details, including the neighborhoods, boroughs, or zip codes you will deliver to and press "Save". Your local delivery options will appear under the available fulfillments upon check-out and any delivery fees will be automatically applied to your customer's cart.

Your customers will be prompted to enter their delivery address upon check-out as well.


Creating a Shipping Option in Castiron

Adding a shipping option is easy on Castiron. Title your shipping option, and set it to "active".

Next, add your Shipping Details, including your standard processing time, and any details your customers may need to know below.

Finally, be sure to charge for shipping! Remember to account for packaging. And while it's not always necessary to set an order minimum, sometimes it's helpful to only offer shipping when the price of the product makes it long worth your while!

How Lead Time Works in Castiron

For local pick-up and local delivery, you are able to set your "lead time" for certain orders. This means that your fulfillment option will only appear to customers when the date the order is placed aligns with the lead-time you've set.

Let's look at an example:

I have set my local pick-up to have a lead time of 6 hours. In this option as well, I had previously created a local pick-up fulfillment option for 9/21 from 11 am - 2 pm and 9/22 from 1 pm - 3 pm.

Today it is 9/21 at 10:30 am as I am attempting to check-out on this website. As the customer, when I attempt to check-out, I am unable to see 9/21 from 11 am - 2 pm as an option because I am outside of the 6-hour lead time window. I can only see pick-up for 9/22 because that applies to the lead-time rules I have set within my shop.


Custom Order Fulfillment vs. Instant Check-Out Fulfillment

Remember that you create fulfillment options across your entire shop. This means that no matter where you plan on using a fulfillment option, you should create all fulfillment options under "Fulfillments" on the left-hand side of your navigation panel.


That said, there are some slight nuances on how fulfillment is handled between custom orders and instant check-out products. The main difference between custom order and instant check-out fulfillment lies in the overall check-out process.


Instant check-out products allow customers to add a product to their cart, select a fulfillment option that you've created, enter their card info, and pay— all at once!


When a customer submits a custom order form, they are only requesting a fulfillment option. Plus, they will be asked their preferred fulfillment date up front. When you receive your customer's custom order request, you have the option to evaluate the fulfillment options, apply unique delivery fees, etc. Fulfillment requests on a custom order form looks like this:

Another difference is that you can customize what type of fulfillment options are available for certain custom orders. To customize what's available on an order form, go to "Order forms" on the left-hand side of your navigation and then select the order form you'd like to edit.

Scroll to the right-hand side of your order form and locate "Fulfillment Methods". Toggle your preferred fulfillment options on or off. In this example, local pickup and shipping options have been selected, meaning that only local pickup and shipping options will be visible on this particular custom order form.

This is how that will appear on the custom order form. Note how only local pickup and shipping are available.


How to Customize Fulfillment for Instant Check-Out Products

Don't want to offer shipping for your cakes, but want to offer shipping for your cookies? Only willing to deliver a few items? Look no further! You can actually customize what fulfillment types are available for each product.

First, navigate to your Products tab and select the product you'd like to edit fulfillments for.


Next, select "Fulfillments" in the bottom right corner, just beneath "Insights". Toggle what fulfillment options you would like to be available to your customers. Any "blue" fulfillment option will be available for your customers to select upon checkout.


Fulfillment FAQs & Tips and Tricks

I don't ship every product. How can I make sure that some customers don't try to select shipping for products I don't ship?

See "How to Customize Fulfillment for Instant Check-out Products".

How can I charge different delivery rates for different addresses?

We recommend creating different fulfillment options with varying rates for unique zip codes, neighborhoods, or locations within your area! That way, your customers can identify their own zip code and select the delivery option that works best for them.

How can I create a Pre-Sale on Castiron?

Castiron is amazing for running your pre-sales! Be sure to create the instant check-out products for pre-sale first (leave it as Inactive so it wont show in your regular shop). Next, create a presale fulfillment options (leave as "inactive" so they wont appear in your regular shop). We recommend giving your local pick-up option a very specific title, such as "Halloween Cookie Pre-Sale Pickup". Next, create your unique date and time slots for every pick-up option that you'll be offering during this pre-sale.

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