Guide · WooCommerce
Install the plugin, map the SKUs you might stock, and let each WooCommerce order line route itself: lines with stock at the China warehouse reserve inventory and dispatch; lines without it wait for the parcel your own supplier ships to your China warehouse address. You approve a packed quote after measurement, and tracking is written back to the order.
Most “China fulfillment” asks you to give something up first: your supplier relationships (sourcing platforms) or cash locked into stock before anything has sold (inventory-first 3PLs). This guide walks the third path end to end — you keep buying from your own suppliers, and each WooCommerce order line routes itself between supplier-parcel forwarding and optional stocked fulfillment.
Routing happens per line, in the backend, against live inventory — the plugin never treats a cached number as the source of truth. These are all the outcomes a line can have.
| What the line looks like | Routing decision | What you see on the order |
|---|---|---|
| Mapped SKU, enough stock at the warehouse | Fulfil from stock. | Inventory is reserved and a warehouse fulfillment order is raised. Nothing waits on a supplier. |
| Mapped SKU, no stock or not enough | Forwarding required. | The order waits for you to enter the domestic tracking number for the parcel your supplier is sending, with quantities allocated per product. |
| Unmapped product, or one marked “always forward” | Forwarding required. | Routes as a supplier parcel with no mapping work needed — which is why mapping can be incremental rather than a migration. |
| One order containing both a stocked line and an unstocked line | Mixed — held for your decision. | The order pauses on a recorded choice: forward everything, wait for stock, or re-evaluate inventory. It is never split automatically. |
| A product that needs a SKU link before it can be routed | Mapping required. | The order is surfaced as needing a mapping decision rather than being routed on a guess about which warehouse SKU you meant. |
| A line excluded from fulfillment (a service, a digital item, a deposit) | Excluded. | Left alone. It does not create warehouse work and does not block the rest of the order. |
| Routing cannot resolve — no configured route, invalid SKU, missing data | Routing blocked. | The order stops with the reason attached rather than being submitted into a workflow that would fail later at the warehouse. |
| Wallet balance is short when the work would be created | Held on balance. | New warehouse work waits for a top-up and resumes once funds are available. Shipments already in flight are never held. |
Sign up as a merchant, submit the in-account integration application, then install the WooCommerce plugin from WordPress.org and run "Test and connect" with a sandbox key. Activation imports no historical orders and does not read your catalog.
Products or variations map to warehouse SKUs. Anything unmapped — or marked "Always forward" — simply routes as supplier parcels, so mapping is incremental, not a migration.
When an order reaches processing, each line is checked against live warehouse inventory: enough stock → reserve and fulfill; none → supplier forwarding; mixed → the order pauses for your decision.
For forwarding lines you order from your own supplier, ship to your WooliiPorter warehouse address, and enter the domestic tracking number with per-product allocation. The forwarding order is created only when allocations cover the line.
Arriving parcels are scanned, photographed and measured; contents recorded against the parcel; exceptions flagged at intake instead of discovered at dispatch.
After packing, the measured quote arrives for your approval. Once dispatched, China-leg events and the international carrier merge into one timeline, and the settlement reconciles against the quote line by line.
Honest limits: the plugin is reviewed and listed on the WordPress.org plugin directory at version 0.7.0 (which is distinct from the WooCommerce Marketplace, and it is not represented as Marketplace approved). The Shopify app is listed on the Shopify App Store. Quotes are produced from the measured parcel and the live lane, so the number you approve is the number that was priced.
Two of these are off until you deliberately turn them on, which is the answer to “what happens the moment I activate it”: nothing.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| API key & environment | Use wp_sk_test_… for sandbox and wp_sk_live_… for production. Test and connect verifies the real key environment and refuses a mismatch. |
| API base | Production is pinned to https://api.woolii.com/v1/merchant. Developer mode accepts only exact local hosts or code-allowlisted HTTPS origins, preventing credential exfiltration. |
| Smart routing | Off by default. Enables fulfillment intents only after the platform account exposes smartRouting and this Store is registered. |
| Automatic submission | Off by default. Can be enabled only after connection, environment, scope, Store, webhook-secret and Action Scheduler checks all pass. |
| Delivery speed preference | Lowest cost | Fastest delivery. WooliiPorter quotes every delivery-time band published for the destination country and picks one by this preference; the chosen band is recorded on the order. |
| Webhook signing secret | Required in every environment. The receiver verifies HMAC, Store identity, intent identity (when known), timestamp and eventId deduplication before writing order state. |
Every claim in this guide is checkable on a staging store with a sandbox key, which is the point: none of it should have to be taken on trust.
| Claim | How to check it |
|---|---|
| The plugin is real and reviewed | It is listed in the WordPress.org plugin directory at version 0.7.0, with a changelog and a downloadable zip you can hash. The directory is distinct from the WooCommerce Marketplace; the plugin is not represented as Marketplace approved. |
| Activation does not touch your catalog or your history | Connect a staging store. Activation imports no historical orders and does not read your catalog; catalog sync is a separate, explicit step. |
| Nothing is submitted until you say so | Automatic submission is off by default and can only be turned on after connection, environment, scope, Store registration, webhook secret and scheduler checks all pass. |
| The sandbox is really a sandbox | Test keys and live keys are different prefixes, and “Test and connect” verifies the real environment of the key and refuses a mismatch. |
| A mixed order is never split silently | Place an order with one stocked line and one unstocked line on a sandbox key. It should pause for a recorded decision. |
| The bill reconciles against what you approved | Take a sandbox order through to settlement and diff the line items against the packed quote you approved. |
Not with this model. You keep choosing suppliers, negotiating prices and paying them directly. The fulfillment layer receives what your suppliers ship to your China warehouse address and coordinates from there — it never buys goods and never touches the purchase payment.
No. A store can run entirely on supplier-parcel forwarding: sell first, buy from your supplier, have them ship to the warehouse, forward to the customer. Stocking is a per-SKU option you add when a product has earned it.
The plugin pauses the order for an explicit decision — forward everything, wait for stock, or re-evaluate inventory. Version 0.7.0 never splits a mixed order automatically, and the choice is recorded on the WooCommerce order.
After packing and measurement: the packed parcel is quoted from the live rate table and you approve that quote before dispatch. Earlier estimates are always labelled as estimates, and the final bill reconciles line-by-line against the packed quote.
Nothing to your store. Activation imports no historical orders and does not read your catalog. Smart routing and automatic submission are both off by default, and automatic submission can only be enabled after connection, environment, scope, Store registration, webhook-secret and scheduler checks have all passed.
Against live warehouse inventory, per line, in the backend. A mapped SKU with enough stock reserves inventory and raises a warehouse fulfillment order; a mapped SKU without stock, an unmapped product, or one marked “always forward” routes to supplier forwarding; an order containing both pauses for your recorded decision. Lines that cannot be resolved surface with a reason rather than being submitted on a guess.
Create a merchant account, submit the integration application in-account, and install the plugin (version 0.7.0, WordPress 6.4+ / WooCommerce 8.2+ / PHP 7.4+) with a sandbox key first. Automatic submission stays off until you enable it.