Purchase orders across multiple Shopify locations

Most purchase order guides assume one warehouse. The moment you open a second Shopify location — a second store, a warehouse separate from your retail floor — every PO needs an answer to one more question: where is this stock actually going?

Why this isn't optional

Shopify tracks inventory per location, not per store. Receiving a purchase order increases stock at a specific location's inventory count — there's no "just add it to the total" option once you have more than one. Get the location wrong on receiving and your online store can show stock that's actually sitting in the wrong warehouse.

How this should work in practice

Per-PO location. Each purchase order specifies where its stock is going, set when the PO is created.
A store-wide default. If a PO doesn't set one explicitly, it should fall back to a default location configured once in settings — so a single-location merchant never sees the field, and staff at a multi-location store who always order for the same warehouse don't have to pick it every time.
Receiving updates the right count. When a PO is received, the inventory mutation should target that PO's location specifically, not whatever location happens to be "primary" in Shopify.

The mixed-shipment case

One wrinkle that shows up fast with multiple locations and multiple suppliers: a single physical shipment sometimes needs to be received against several open purchase orders at once, not just one. That's a related but separate problem from picking the destination location — see receiving a shipment across multiple purchase orders for how that works.

Setting a sane default

If 90% of your purchase orders go to one warehouse, set that as your default location once and never touch the field again — only override it for the occasional PO that's genuinely going somewhere else. The goal is that multi-location support doesn't turn into extra clicks on every single order for stores that rarely split shipments.

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Frequently asked questions

Does Shopify require a location on every purchase order?

Inventory has to land somewhere in Shopify, so yes — every received item needs a destination location. Shopify's own admin has no purchase order feature at all, so this is really a question about whatever app you use for POs.

What happens if I don't pick a location?

A well-built PO app should fall back to a default location set once in your store settings, so single-location merchants — and staff at multi-location stores who don't need to think about it — never hit an empty required field.

Can I receive one purchase order into two different locations?

Not from a single PO — a PO ships to one destination. Splitting stock across locations means two purchase orders, or receiving into one location and transferring internally afterward.

Does the location affect which products I can order?

No — the product catalog is store-wide. Location only determines where the inventory count increases once the PO is received.