What is Orca?

Orca is an order management app for Shopify. It automatically decides which of your locations should fulfill each incoming order.

Retailers with multiple locations, such as a warehouse and several retail stores, face the same routing decision on every order: where should it ship from, and what happens when no single location has everything in stock? Orca makes this decision for you, instantly and consistently, based on rules you define.

Which orders does Orca handle?

Orca steps in only when stock has to travel before an order is complete. A sale where the customer pays at the counter and carries their purchase out the door never involves Orca, because the item is already exactly where it needs to be.

Any order where the goods still have a journey ahead of them is Orca's job. That includes every online order, a purchase made in one store for delivery to the customer's address, and a purchase collected later from a different location than where it was bought.

Orca also makes this judgment for each item on its own, not for the order as a whole. Suppose a shopper pays for a sweater and a coat in your store, wears the sweater out, and asks for the coat in another size to be delivered from elsewhere. The sweater is finished business. The coat becomes an Orca item, routed like any other.

How it works

Orca runs inside your Shopify admin. Once set up:

1. An order arrives in your Shopify store.
2. Orca evaluates your routing rules and inventory across all locations. Rules can reflect how you actually operate, such as "prefer the location closest to the customer" or "never fulfill online orders from the outlet store."
3. Orca assigns the order to the best location or locations for fulfillment.
4. If no single location can fulfill the order, Orca can create an inventory transfer to move stock where it is needed, and hold the order until the stock arrives.

Routing rules in plain English

You do not need technical knowledge to configure Orca. Describe your routing preferences in plain language, for example "ship from the warehouse first and use stores as backup", and Orca's built-in assistant converts them into working rules.

Day-to-day use

Head office staff use the Orca dashboard inside Shopify to monitor order routing, manage transfers between locations, and adjust rules as the business changes. Store staff use Orca's POS UI extension on Shopify POS devices to pack, ship, receive, and scan transfers.

Next: Before you begin, the setup checklist