Shopify orders and emailed trade orders, in one queue
We build order platforms that take Shopify orders, paid retail and trade on account, check them against your ERP and send them on, alongside the purchase orders trade customers still email in.
- Shopify
- Unleashed
- Microsoft 365
- OpenAI
Shopify order automation, done properly, means every order from your store reaches your ERP and warehouse without anyone retyping it, and the paid ones can go straight through without waiting for a person. Zestcode Automation builds that as a bespoke platform for UK wholesalers and distributors, and the same platform handles the trade orders that never touch Shopify because they arrive as PDFs and spreadsheets in an inbox.
That second part is usually why people talk to us. A Shopify-to-ERP connector deals with Shopify. Most wholesale businesses also have a sales office handling emailed POs, phone orders and customers who will never log in to a trade portal, and those are still keyed by hand.
Connector app, middleware or a bespoke build: which fits?
There are three honest options, and the first is often enough.
| Route | Good at | Where it runs short |
|---|---|---|
| Connector app from the Shopify App Store | Pushing store orders into a supported ERP quickly, for a monthly fee | Covers Shopify orders only; rules are limited to the app’s settings |
| Middleware or an integration platform | Joining several systems with configurable flows | Someone still builds and maintains the flows, and emailed POs need a separate tool |
| Bespoke order platform | Shopify, email, phone and manual orders in one checked queue, with your own approval rules | Higher upfront cost, and a specification to agree first |
If every order comes through Shopify and an app exists for your ERP, use the app. A bespoke build earns its keep when Shopify is one channel among several, when trade orders need checking before they reach the ERP, or when the rules you work by (which orders can skip review, which customers have special delivery terms) go beyond what a settings screen can express.
How are retail and trade Shopify orders handled differently?
A paid retail order and a B2B order on 30-day terms carry different risks, and the platform treats them that way.
- Paid retail orders can be approved automatically. Payment has been taken, the address came from checkout and the products came from your own catalogue, so a reviewer has little to add. Automatic approval is off at launch and switched on only when you ask, for exactly the order types you choose.
- Trade orders placed through Shopify’s B2B features (where your plan includes them) or a wholesale app usually sit on account. They go into the review queue like any emailed PO, matched to the customer’s ERP account, with each line checked for product code, stock and price.
- Exceptions are flagged whatever the source: a code that doesn’t exist in the ERP, a line that would take stock below zero, or a customer who looks like a duplicate of an existing account.
Web orders and inbox orders side by side
The review screen lists Shopify orders, emailed purchase orders and phone orders together, oldest first. A trade customer’s PDF, read by AI with every field given a confidence score out of 10, sits next to last night’s web orders. Scores below 7 are highlighted, and anything the AI couldn’t find is left empty rather than filled with a guess. The order review page shows the screen in more detail.
A single list matters more than it sounds. Your team stops switching between the Shopify admin, Outlook and the ERP, and the warehouse receives orders in one consistent shape whichever channel they came from. Duplicate detection runs across all of them, so a customer who orders on the store and then emails the same PO number doesn’t receive two deliveries.
After approval: ERP, warehouse and carrier
Approval creates the sales order in your ERP as your staff would key it: the right customer account, your prices, the delivery method, and the customer’s PO number (or the Shopify order number) as the reference. Unleashed, Linnworks, Cin7 and Brightpearl are among the systems we’ve connected. Your ERP stays the source of truth for stock and invoicing, so nothing changes for accounts.
If you add the later stages, approved orders appear on rugged Android handhelds in the warehouse, are picked and packed with weights and photos recorded, then booked with the carrier while the label prints by itself.
Cost, timings and who owns the result
Capture, review and ERP sync for Shopify plus emailed orders is typically £8k–£12k excluding VAT, over about six weeks. Adding warehouse devices and carrier booking brings the total to £20k–£30k across two phases. Those figures are indicative: you receive a fixed price after a free written specification, and the quote stands for 90 days.
When it goes live, the platform belongs to you. It runs in hosting accounts registered to your company, nobody pays per seat, and keeping us on for maintenance is your call. Running costs for a few hundred orders a month normally come in under £50. The pricing page has the full breakdown.
Common questions
Straight answers to what people ask us about this before a call.
Will automatic approval let a wrong Shopify order straight through to the warehouse?
Only if you switch it on, and only for the order types you name, such as fully paid retail orders. The checks still run first: a product code missing from your ERP, a stock shortfall or a suspected duplicate stops the order and sends it to the review queue for a person to look at. Every automatic approval is recorded in the audit log like any other.
Do we need to stop using our current Shopify connector app?
Not necessarily. Some businesses keep an existing app for stock levels or product sync and let the platform handle orders. What we avoid is two systems both creating the same order in your ERP, so during specification we agree which tool owns which job and switch off anything that would overlap before launch.
Can Shopify B2B orders on payment terms sit in the same queue as emailed POs?
Yes. Orders placed on account, whether through Shopify’s own B2B features or a wholesale app, are treated as trade orders: matched to the customer’s ERP account, checked line by line and held for approval. They appear in the same list as emailed and phone orders, so every trade order is reviewed in one place by the same team.
Which ERP systems can Shopify orders be sent to?
We connect through each system’s API. Unleashed, Linnworks, Cin7 and Brightpearl are among the systems we’ve worked with, and others are possible where the API allows customers and sales orders to be created. The route and the field mapping, including where the Shopify order number is stored, are written into the specification before any build starts.
What does the AI cost per order if most of ours come from Shopify?
Very little. Shopify orders arrive as structured data, so they don’t need AI to read them. The AI cost of roughly 2p to 5p an order applies to emailed POs, where the message and its attachments have to be read and scored. A business whose orders are mostly online will usually see lower running costs than one that is mostly email.