Take consumer level orders from retailer dropship programs and networks such as CommerceHub, Dsco and Mirakl, ship the parcel on their carrier account, and send the 856 and 810 back on a schedule you set.
Dropship is the only EDI program where the ship-to is a person. One or two units, a parcel label on the retailer's account, a tracking number back the same day, and an invoice off the pick ticket. AIMS360 runs the whole loop inside the system that already holds your styles and your stock, and it can run it without anyone touching an order.
A dropship 850 is a purchase order for one shopper. The retailer sells the item on their site, sends you the order with the customer's home address in the ship-to, and you ship it direct on their carrier account. They never hold the goods. Your inventory is what their site is selling, which is why the 846 inventory advice matters more here than anywhere else.
Two documents come back: an 856 with the tracking number, and an 810 invoice generated off what actually shipped. In between, the work is small and relentless. One or two units a box, hundreds of boxes, every one of them a parcel rather than a pallet.
AIMS360 holds dropship orders on the same style, color and size record as wholesale, so a unit committed to a dropship order is not also sitting in available to sell for a bulk purchase order. That is the part a bolt-on dropship tool cannot do.
| Doc | Direction | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 846 | Out | Inventory advice. What you have available to ship, published to the retailer on a schedule you set per account, so their site only sells what exists. |
| 850 | In | Purchase order. On a dropship order it carries a shopper's home address in the ship-to, not a distribution center, and usually one or two units. |
| 856 | Out | Advance ship notice. Ship confirmation with the carrier tracking number, sent once the box is out the door. |
| 810 | Out | Invoice. Billing for what actually shipped, generated off the pick ticket rather than off the original order. |
| 997 | Both | Functional acknowledgment. The receipt for every file in both directions, so a silent failure is visible instead of guessed at. |
The 846 is the one brands underrate. It is the file that decides what the retailer's website is allowed to sell, so the schedule you put it on is effectively how stale their page is allowed to get. 997 acknowledgments are the other quiet one: they are how you find out a file never arrived, rather than finding out when the retailer asks where the order went.
AIMS360 splits dropship into two workflows, and they run independently. You can automate one and leave the other manual while you build trust in it.
There are two shipment templates. One sends the electronic 856 only and still creates the invoice inside AIMS360, which suits a retailer who does not take an electronic invoice. The other sends the 856 and the 810 together. Pick per trading partner, not per company.
The automation on this page drives dropship orders. Bulk orders shipping to a retailer's distribution center, and cross dock orders, are not covered by it. Those go through the normal pick, pack, carton marking and ASN process, which is a different shape of work because the unit of shipment is a carton on a pallet rather than a parcel.
Two other prerequisites are worth knowing before you plan around this. Multi-warehouse has to be active. And for the shipment half to close by itself, something has to tell AIMS360 the box went out: an integrated third party warehouse or WMS, a partner warehouse API, or a shipping application such as ShipStation.
Two master switches: automatically download new 850 files, and automatically upload outbound EDI files. Each has its own days of the week, hour interval and minute. Note that these are not dropship specific. Auto download pulls every incoming 850 into the staging table for review, bulk orders included.
Each account carries its own switches, one per transaction: 846 inventory advice, dropship order processing, shipment processing. Turn on only what you want automated for that retailer and leave the rest alone.
If a third party warehouse is shipping the goods, the shipped confirmation import has its own schedule too, so the pick ticket comes back and closes the loop without anyone asking for a file.
Dropship order processing can run as often as every five minutes. That does not mean everything should. Offsetting jobs by ten or fifteen minutes rather than firing them all on the hour keeps them from competing, and makes it obvious which one failed when something does.
Automation is not the only way to survive dropship volume. Shipment Processing has a batch route that turns a day of parcels into seven passes over one screen.
Create pick tickets however you normally do, including allocation profiles if you use them.
In Shipment Processing, autopack the pick tickets into shipments. Choose Drop Ship when prompted, and select the warehouse. Repeat per warehouse, because pick tickets belong to one.
Batch update style weights, then recalculate shipment weights, so the carrier rating is right.
Batch apply a carton type across the shipments, or tag groups and apply a different one to each.
Batch finalize. This tells the system the quantity, carton and weight in each pending shipment are confirmed.
Batch generate UPS or FedEx labels. One carrier per batch, so split them if you use both.
Batch print the packing slips for the trading partner. Tracking numbers are reviewable in ASN Part 2.
Two things have to be in place first. A default packing rule with a maximum quantity per container, so autopack can build the boxes: for lots of small dropship parcels in standard carrier cartons, around six units, or whatever actually fits your box. And the carrier label API switched on for your account, which is a request to support rather than a setting you flip.
Dropship automation is built on AIMS360 EDI. If your EDI is handled by an outside VAN or provider, orders still flow and part of the chain still automates, but the scheduled end to end run does not. This is the split, and it is worth knowing before anyone promises a timeline.
Read that as a cost. Six manual steps per batch, every day, is a person. It is the single largest reason brands move their EDI in-house when dropship volume starts climbing.
Hundreds of retailers are mapped, some running their own EDI and some running through a dropship network. A few of the programs brands ask about most:
Every retailer writes their own rules for turnaround time, packing slip branding and carrier account. The mapping is done for you, but the compliance terms are still theirs, so read the vendor guide before the first order lands.
Dropship inventory lives in a warehouse like everything else. Decide whether it gets its own location with its own 846 quantity, or whether it draws on general availability alongside wholesale. Settle it before the first retailer goes live, because the alternative is a website selling units that are already committed to a bulk purchase order.
Automation does not remove failures, it makes them visible. Orders stop for real reasons: a style or code that is not mapped, terms or a ship via that is missing, stock that is not there. Connection failures retry on their own before being flagged. Somebody has to look at that list daily, and it should be a named person, not the team.
With few exceptions, everything the workflow does was a manual process in AIMS360 first. That is a strength, because nothing is a black box you cannot reach into. It is also an obligation: the people running dropship should know how to do each step by hand, for the day something cannot be fixed from inside the automation.
Access to the workflow module is not granted automatically. Whoever is going to monitor and re-run failed orders needs to be given it deliberately, which is a good thing on a screen that can re-fire invoices.
A retailer sends you a purchase order for a single shopper rather than for their own warehouse. The 850 arrives with the customer's home address in the ship-to, you pick one or two units, ship them direct to that person on the retailer's account, then send back an 856 with the tracking number and an 810 invoice. The retailer never touches the goods and never holds them.
Three things change. The ship-to is a person, not a distribution center. The quantities are tiny and the volume of orders is large, so the work is per parcel rather than per pallet. And there is usually no carton marking or routing request in the loop, so the compliance burden shifts from labeling and appointments toward turnaround time and accurate tracking.
Five. The 846 inventory advice goes out so the retailer knows what you can ship. The 850 purchase order comes in. The 856 advance ship notice and the 810 invoice go back out. The 997 functional acknowledgment travels both ways so you can see whether a file landed.
Yes, in two halves. An order processing workflow imports the 850, creates the order, allocates it, creates the pick ticket and exports that pick ticket to your shipping app or third party warehouse. A shipment processing workflow takes the completed pick ticket back, builds the shipment, produces the 856, invoices the order, applies the prepayment and sends the 810.
Multi-warehouse has to be switched on. Your EDI has to run through AIMS360 rather than an outside provider. And for the shipment half to work end to end you need one of three things connected: an integrated third party warehouse or WMS, a partner warehouse API, or a shipping application such as ShipStation.
No, and this is the limit worth reading twice. The automation described here applies to dropship orders only. Bulk orders shipping to a retailer's distribution center, and cross dock orders, are not driven by it. Those still run through the normal picking, packing, carton marking and ASN process.
On a schedule you set, down to every five minutes for dropship order processing. Each transaction has its own schedule with days of the week, an hour interval and a minute, so you can run the 850 import through the working day and push the 846 inventory file overnight.
Two levels. System settings control whether AIMS360 automatically downloads new 850 files and automatically uploads outbound EDI files, with their own timing. Then each trading partner account carries its own switches per transaction, so you can automate one retailer and leave another manual.
Yes. Offsetting processes by ten or fifteen minutes rather than starting them all on the hour keeps them from competing with each other. A warehouse shipment import at quarter past and an inventory file at half past is a lot healthier than four jobs at once.
Part of it still automates and part of it does not. The pick ticket still exports to your shipping app automatically, shipment data still comes back automatically, and the shipment gets built automatically in both Shipment Processing and ASN Part 2. What stays manual is the EDI sync itself, importing the 850, picking, generating the ASN file, invoicing the order, and running the sync that sends the ASN and invoice out.
No, and you should not. Automation is switched on per trading partner and per transaction. A sensible order is to automate the 850 import first so orders stop being keyed, then the pick ticket export, then the shipment side once you trust what is coming back.
Yes, and plenty of brands do it this way at lower volume. Shipment Processing has a batch path: autopack the pick tickets choosing Drop Ship, batch update style weights, batch apply carton types, batch finalize, batch generate the carrier labels and batch print the packing slips. It is seven passes over a screen rather than one order at a time.
A packing rule sets the maximum quantity that goes in one container, which is what lets autopack build the boxes for you. For high volumes of small dropship parcels in standard carrier cartons, a low maximum of around six units, or whatever genuinely fits your box, is the usual starting point.
No. Labels generate one carrier at a time, so filter the shipments to one carrier, run the batch, then filter to the other. You are prompted for the label type and the attention phone number, which can differ per warehouse.
There is a batch dropship report under the EDI reports that prints the packing slips for a set of shipments in one pass, so the paperwork for the day comes out together rather than order by order.
Usually the retailer's, which is set as freight collect on that trading partner account. Their account number, their negotiated rate, their tracking. Confirm it per retailer, because a few run it the other way.
It stops and it is labelled, rather than disappearing. Failures split into ones you can fix, such as a style or code that is not mapped or stock that is not there, and connection failures, which retry on their own before being flagged. The habit that keeps dropship clean is looking at the failed list once a day rather than once a week.
Any retailer whose dropship program AIMS360 has mapped, and the list runs to hundreds of trading partners across department stores, specialty chains and marketplaces. Some run their own EDI, and some run through a dropship network such as CommerceHub or Dsco, which AIMS360 connects to the same way.
Not if the ERP is doing the job. The reason brands end up with a separate dropship tool is usually that their ERP cannot hold consumer level orders, cannot publish inventory back, or cannot produce a parcel label. If those three are inside the system that already holds your styles and stock, a second platform is a second place for the number to be wrong.
It does unless you decide otherwise. Dropship stock lives in a warehouse like anything else, so you can hold it in its own location and publish only that quantity on the 846, or run it against general availability. Deciding this before you switch a retailer on is what stops the site selling goods that are already committed to a bulk order.
If the answer is a number somebody counted by hand, that is the conversation. Bring one retailer's vendor guide and a normal day's order volume, and we will walk the loop end to end: 850 in, label out, 856 and 810 back, and how much of it you would never see again.
