Supplier Portal + Auto-PO + Dropshipping
Stop chasing suppliers in Slack. Auto-generated POs from reorder-point math. A vendor portal where suppliers ship orders themselves. Dropship auto-routing across multiple vendors. Live inventory feeds via SFTP, HTTPS, and API.
ROP + EOQ
Auto-PO Math
Lead time × velocity + safety stock
5 Formats
Multi-Channel Delivery
CSV, SFTP, webhook, API, email
Live Feeds
Supplier Inventory
Sub-hourly stock-level sync
Auto-Route
Dropship Splitting
Orders across vendors automatically
Benefits
Why Businesses Choose This Feature
- Auto-PO from ROP Math
ShipWave calculates reorder points using lead time × demand velocity + safety stock — and fires the PO automatically when inventory dips. EOQ math optimizes order quantity for landed cost vs. holding cost. Stop running out of SKUs because someone forgot to check stock.
- Supplier Self-Service Portal
Invite suppliers into their own portal where they confirm POs, update lead times, ship orders directly to your customer (dropship), upload tracking, and submit invoices. No more 40-email threads to get one shipment out the door.
- Dropship Auto-Routing
For orders spanning multiple suppliers, ShipWave splits the order, routes each line to the right vendor, and tracks fulfillment per line. The customer sees one order; you manage one order; behind the scenes, three suppliers ship in parallel.
- Live Inventory Feeds
Pull stock levels from your suppliers via SFTP drops, HTTPS endpoints, public APIs, or even scraped CSV uploads. Sub-hourly sync. Drift detection alerts you when a feed stops updating — before you oversell.
- Multi-Format PO Delivery
Some suppliers want POs as emailed CSV attachments. Others want them dropped on SFTP. Some have a real API. Some want webhooks. ShipWave delivers POs in whichever format each supplier accepts — configured per vendor, not per-PO.
- Multi-Supplier Order Splitting
When a customer orders 5 SKUs from 3 different suppliers, ShipWave splits the order into 3 sub-orders, sends each to the right supplier, tracks fulfillment per sub-order, and combines them into one customer-facing tracking view.
How Supplier Workflows Run
Configure Each Supplier
Add each supplier with their preferred PO delivery method (email/SFTP/API/webhook), their lead time, their inventory feed URL, their portal access, and which SKUs they fulfill (sole source vs. multi-source).
Auto-PO or Manual Trigger
ShipWave watches inventory levels against your reorder points. When stock hits the threshold, an auto-PO drafts. You approve (or auto-approve below a value cap). The PO ships to the supplier in their preferred format.
Supplier Confirms, Ships, Invoices
Supplier confirms the PO in their portal, updates ETA if needed, ships when ready, uploads tracking, and submits invoice. Customer-facing tracking updates automatically. You receive, reconcile, and pay — all in one tool.
Why Multi-Supplier Brands Need a Real Vendor System
The Spreadsheet Wall
Most brands buying from more than 5 suppliers hit the spreadsheet wall around month 12. The inventory tracker is one spreadsheet. The lead time tracker is another. The PO log is a Google Doc. Tracking numbers live in Slack DMs. Inventory feeds get emailed as attachments and never make it into the system. The result is constant stockouts, duplicate POs, surprise lead-time blowups, and a team that spends 30% of its week reconciling supplier data manually. ShipWave was built around the assumption that real brands work with 10–100 suppliers across multiple regions, lead times, and delivery formats — and that the system needs to absorb that complexity instead of pushing it onto your team.
ROP + EOQ Math That Actually Works
Reorder-point math is taught in every supply chain textbook: ROP = (average daily demand × lead time in days) + safety stock. Sounds simple — until you implement it in software. ShipWave tracks the rolling 30/60/90-day demand velocity per SKU, adjusts for seasonality (a calendar of monthly multipliers per category), accounts for variable lead times (lead time mean + standard deviation), and applies the service-level Z-score for safety stock to your chosen fill rate target (95%, 98%, 99%). Then EOQ math layers on top: given order cost, holding cost, and demand variance, what’s the economically optimal quantity to order? The math is the same every textbook teaches — but actually running it on live data, refreshing nightly, and firing POs automatically is where the real value lives.
Dropship Routing for Multi-Supplier Orders
If you sell SKUs from multiple suppliers, every customer order is potentially a routing puzzle. SKU A ships from Supplier 1 (NY). SKU B ships from Supplier 2 (CA). SKU C ships from Supplier 3 (TX). One customer, three shipments, three tracking numbers, three potential delivery exceptions. ShipWave handles this natively: the order splits automatically by supplier, each sub-order routes to the correct vendor in their preferred PO format, and the customer-facing tracking page combines all three shipments into one timeline. Supplier 1 ships first? Customer sees "partial shipment, 2 more on the way." All three deliver in a 4-day window? Customer sees "order delivered." Without auto-routing, every multi-supplier order needs manual splitting, manual PO creation per vendor, and manual tracking aggregation. With it, your team never touches the order.
Inventory Feed Reality
Suppliers expose stock data in every conceivable format. The well-organized ones offer an HTTPS endpoint with JSON. Some have an API but make you authenticate per request and rate-limit aggressively. Many drop CSVs on SFTP nightly. A few email an Excel attachment to a specific address. A handful let you scrape a vendor portal page. ShipWave handles all of these: configure the feed source, the format, the refresh interval, and the field mapping (SKU → your SKU, qty → your qty), and the system pulls and normalizes the data on schedule. Drift detection watches for feeds that go silent — if a supplier’s SFTP drop hasn’t updated in 24 hours, you get an alert before you oversell. Stale-data flagging marks SKUs with old feed data as "verify before promising" until the feed catches up.
The Supplier Portal That Suppliers Actually Use
A supplier portal only works if suppliers actually log in. The trick is making the portal useful to them, not just to you. ShipWave’s supplier portal shows each vendor only their own POs, their own product list, their own lead times. They can confirm POs with one click, push back on ETAs without an email thread, upload tracking and invoices, view their performance scorecard (on-time ship rate, fill rate, defect rate), and even auto-import tracking from their own carrier accounts via OAuth. The portal is mobile-friendly so suppliers shipping from a small warehouse can confirm and update from their phone. Customers report 80%+ supplier portal adoption within 30 days — because once a supplier sees they can ship faster and get paid faster with the portal, they actually use it.
ShipWave Supplier Portal vs. Inventory-Only Tools
Most inventory tools track stock. ShipWave automates the entire supplier workflow.
| Feature | ShipWave | Inventory-Only Tools (Cin7 / Inflow / Katana) |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-PO from ROP | Built-in, runs nightly | Manual or limited |
| Supplier self-service portal | Full portal per vendor | Email only |
| Dropship auto-routing | Multi-supplier order splitting | Not supported |
| Inventory feed formats | SFTP / HTTPS / API / CSV / webhook | API only or upload-by-hand |
| PO delivery methods | 5 formats per supplier | Email only |
| Feed drift detection | Automatic alerts | N/A |
| Supplier scorecards | On-time, fill rate, defect | Manual tracking |
Supplier Portal Capabilities
Everything suppliers need to ship faster and everything you need to manage them at scale.
- Configurable reorder points per SKU with safety stock formulas
- EOQ math for economic order quantity
- Auto-PO trigger with approval thresholds (auto-approve below $X)
- Per-supplier lead time tracking with variance
- PO delivery in CSV (email), SFTP drop, HTTPS API, webhook, or supplier API
- Supplier portal with PO confirmation, tracking upload, invoice submission
- Multi-supplier order splitting for dropship
- Live inventory feeds via SFTP, HTTPS, API, scraped CSV
- Sub-hourly feed sync with drift detection alerts
- Supplier performance scorecards (on-time, fill rate, defect rate)
- Per-supplier rate cards for landed cost tracking
- OAuth carrier sync for auto-import of supplier tracking numbers
Brands Using the Supplier Portal
Multi-Brand Houseware Companies
Houseware brands sourcing from 20–60 suppliers across Asia, US, and EU run auto-PO on their core SKUs, dropship for long-tail SKUs, and manage everything from one operator dashboard.
Furniture & Home Decor Dropshippers
Furniture sellers with virtual-warehouse business models route every order to the manufacturer for direct ship. The supplier portal handles confirmation, tracking, and exception reporting at scale.
Outdoor & Sporting Goods
Brands with seasonal demand spikes use ROP math that accounts for category seasonality. Auto-PO fires earlier into peak season to account for longer supplier lead times.
Specialty Food & Beverage
F&B brands buying from 30–80 small producers manage POs across producers who have wildly different communication styles — some via SFTP, some via email, some via phone. ShipWave normalizes the workflow.
Pet Brands with Co-Manufacturers
Pet brands using co-manufacturers for treats, toys, and food run auto-PO at quantities optimized for production minimums and freight container fill.
Beauty & Personal Care
Beauty brands buying components (bottles, caps, ingredients) from multiple suppliers feed into manufacturing orders downstream. The supplier portal handles the inbound, then BOMs consume components.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I onboard a new supplier?
Add the supplier from the Suppliers dashboard. Enter their preferred PO delivery method, their lead time, their portal email (we send them an invite), their inventory feed source (if any), and the SKUs they supply. Most onboardings take 15–30 minutes per supplier. Auto-PO can start running on their SKUs immediately.
What can suppliers do in the portal?
Confirm POs, update ETAs, upload tracking numbers, submit invoices, view their performance scorecard, message you in-portal (audit-logged), and see historical PO data. Read-only by default; you grant write permissions for tracking upload and invoice submission per supplier.
How does feed drift detection work?
For each inventory feed source, ShipWave tracks the timestamp of the last successful update. If a feed source hasn’t updated within the expected interval (e.g., daily SFTP drop didn’t arrive by 9 AM), we alert you and mark all SKUs from that supplier as "verify stock before promising" until the feed refreshes. This prevents the most common cause of overselling: stale supplier data.
How does multi-supplier order splitting work?
When a customer order contains SKUs sourced from different suppliers, ShipWave splits the order into sub-orders, one per supplier, each shipping independently. The customer sees a unified order with multi-tracking; your supplier portal sees individual POs scoped to their SKUs. If one supplier delays, only that sub-order is affected.
Can a SKU be sourced from multiple suppliers (multi-source)?
Yes. Configure primary and secondary suppliers per SKU. Auto-PO defaults to the primary; if the primary is out of stock or has a lead time spike, the system can either escalate to you for review or auto-fall-back to the secondary (configurable per SKU).
How does invoicing work with suppliers?
Suppliers submit invoices through the portal (PDF upload + structured data entry). ShipWave matches each invoice to its PO and flags discrepancies — over-billing, missing line items, freight surprises. Approved invoices export to your accounting system (QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite) or sit in an exportable queue.
What if my supplier doesn’t want to use a portal?
Email-only suppliers are supported. POs send as CSV email attachments with HTML body. Suppliers reply with tracking numbers that we parse via inbox automation, or you can manually log tracking on their behalf. The portal is preferred, but the system works around suppliers who refuse to adopt it.
Explore More
Related Features
Warehouse Management
Receive supplier POs into specific warehouses with putaway, cycle counts, and FEFO/FIFO logic.
Learn more →
Landed Cost
Track true landed cost per supplier including freight, duties, and exchange rates.
Learn more →
Automation Rules
Route orders to suppliers by stock availability, geography, or business rules.
Learn more →
Stop Chasing Suppliers in Slack
See how multi-supplier brands replace spreadsheets and Slack threads with auto-PO, a real vendor portal, and dropship auto-routing — all in one platform.