Wholesale operations
Enter wholesale POs into Shopify yourself, without a data-entry service
You don't need to send your buyers' purchase orders to a virtual assistant or data-entry service to retype. You can upload a PO, check it and approve it into a Shopify draft order yourself, and stay in control of every line.
Key takeaways
- You can enter wholesale POs into Shopify without a middleman: upload the PO, check the flagged lines, approve the draft.
- Handing POs to someone else to retype adds a wait, a back-and-forth for every question, and another person handling your buyers' details.
- Whatever you use, insist on three things: drafts only, nothing sent to a buyer without your approval, and unclear lines flagged, never guessed.
How do apparel brands usually enter wholesale POs?
When a boutique or store sends a purchase order, it has to become an order in Shopify before anything can be picked, invoiced or shipped. Brands usually handle that in one of four ways:
- Retype it yourself. Accurate, because you know your catalog, but slow. In apparel every style multiplies into colors and sizes. (See how to turn a PO into a Shopify draft order.)
- Hand it to someone else. A virtual assistant, a part-timer or a data-entry service retypes the PO for you.
- Ask buyers to use a portal. A B2B or wholesale app lets buyers order from you directly. It works for buyers who will log in, but many still send their own POs.
- Upload it to a tool that reads it. The tool reads the PO, matches it to your catalog and builds a draft for you to check.
What goes wrong when someone else retypes your POs?
Handing off order entry can work, but it moves the job rather than removing it:
- You still check everything. The person retyping doesn't know that "Sage" means "Sage Green", that a style was dropped, or that a color only runs to L. Questions come back to you, or mistakes go out.
- Orders wait. A PO sits until the other person gets to it, and again while their questions wait for your answers.
- More people see your buyers' details. Every PO carries store names, contacts, addresses and prices. Each hand-off is one more person and one more inbox holding them.
- It costs more as you grow. More POs means more hours to pay for, right when the season is busiest.
How self-serve PO upload works
With self-serve upload, nobody sits between you and your order. Here is how it works in Orderseam:
- Upload or forward the PO. Log in and upload the buyer's PO: a PDF, Excel, Word or CSV file, a scan, or a phone photo of a handwritten form. Or forward the buyer's email to your Orderseam address. Both end up in the same inbox.
- Orderseam reads and matches every line. Each style, color and size is matched to your Shopify catalog, including size grids, prepacks and the nicknames your buyers use. Lines it can't be sure of are marked red.
- You fix the red lines. Pick the right option for each one. Red lines are held out of the draft until you decide.
- You approve. Only when you click Approve does the order become a draft in your own Shopify admin. Nothing is charged or shipped, and you can still edit or delete the draft there.
- You send the invoice. Review the draft in Shopify and send it to your buyer as usual, or turn it into a Net-terms invoice in Orderseam (see following up on unpaid wholesale invoices).
What stays in your control
- Every order passes through you. Nothing goes to Shopify or to your buyer until you approve it. (An optional Autopilot exists for trusted buyers, but it is off unless you turn it on.)
- Drafts only. Orderseam never completes an order, charges anyone or changes your products.
- Your POs are private to your brand. Only your team and Orderseam support can see them.
- You can download the original PO from the order page at any time, so you can always compare the draft with what the buyer sent.
What happens behind the scenes, plainly. No person retypes your orders. To read a file, Orderseam uses an AI service, and forwarded emails arrive through an email provider. Both process your data only on Orderseam's behalf, and your orders are never used to train AI. Every one of these providers is listed in our privacy policy.
When a data-entry service still makes sense
If a person on your team already knows the catalog well and has time to spare, or you get only a few POs a season, retyping by hand is fine. Self-serve upload helps most when POs pile up at the start of a season and you want them in Shopify the same day without adding another person to the chain.
Common questions
- Do I need a data-entry service to enter wholesale orders into Shopify?
- No. You can retype POs yourself, or use a tool that reads the PO and builds the draft order for you to check. A data-entry service or virtual assistant is one option, but it adds a hand-off, a wait and another person handling your buyers' details.
- Is it safe to upload buyers' purchase orders to a tool?
- Check what the tool does with them. Look for a privacy policy that lists every service that processes your files, says your data isn't sold or used to train AI, and says when it is deleted. Also check that the tool creates drafts only and sends nothing to buyers without your approval.
- What happens if the tool reads a line wrong?
- A good tool should flag lines it isn't sure of instead of guessing. In Orderseam those lines are marked red and held out of the draft until you choose the right style, color or size, so a doubtful line never reaches Shopify on its own.
Upload, check, approve. That's it.
Orderseam turns the POs you upload or forward into Shopify draft orders, with every size grid matched and anything unclear flagged for you. Your first 10 POs are free, up to 30 days, with no card and no contract.
Start free: 10 POs, no card