Solution
Managed EDI

EDI for Dropshipping

Every consumer order a retailer sends you is a purchase order, a ship confirmation, an invoice, and an inventory update waiting to happen. Our fully managed dropship EDI turns that stream into automated 850, 856, 810, and 846 documents that flow straight into and out of your ERP, ecommerce platform, or 3PL, with branded packing slips and carrier tracking handled along the way.

35+
Years of Excellence
Any
Trading Partner
★★★★★
Top Rated

Let's Connect

From Retailer Spec to Live Orders

Our team of EDI experts handles the retailer's requirements, the mapping, and the certification, so your first dropship order ships without anyone rekeying it.

Analyze Your Dropship Program

We review each retailer's dropship vendor guide, the documents and schedules they require, and how orders should land in your ERP, ecommerce platform, or 3PL.

Build the Integration

We map 850 orders to your sales orders with the consumer ship-to, set up packing slips in the retailer's format, and wire shipments, tracking, invoices, and stock levels back out as EDI.

Certify With the Retailer

We run the retailer's test scripts end to end, from test order to ASN to invoice to inventory feed, and clear their vendor compliance checks before you go live.

Launch & Monitor

Dropship orders flow in and confirmations flow out around the clock. We watch every document, chase down retailer rejections, and add new dropship programs as you win them.

One Order, Five EDI Documents

Dropshipping runs on the same ANSI X12 documents as wholesale, but each one carries a shopper's order instead of a pallet's worth of product.

Shopper
Buys your product on the retailer's website

The retailer takes payment and passes the order to you instead of picking it from a distribution center.

Retailer to you
Sends the order as a dropship PO
850 Purchase Order

Includes the consumer's ship-to address, requested carrier, and any gift or packing-slip message. You confirm with an 855.

You to shopper
Ship direct with the retailer's packing slip
856 Ship Notice

The ASN carries the carrier and tracking number so the retailer can email the shopper and close the order on their side.

You to retailer
Invoice the retailer, update your stock
810 Invoice 846 Inventory

The invoice matches the PO for payment, and the 846 feed keeps the retailer from selling units you no longer have.

Retailer → You (Inbound)

850
Dropship Purchase Order
One per consumer order. Created as a sales order in your system with the shopper's ship-to and the retailer's order number.
860
PO Change Request
Address corrections, quantity changes, or cancellations from the retailer before you ship.
997
Functional Acknowledgment
Confirms the retailer received your ASNs, invoices, and inventory feeds. Missing 997s are flagged for follow-up.

You → Retailer (Outbound)

855
PO Acknowledgment
Accept, reject, or backorder each line within the retailer's response window.
856
Advance Ship Notice
Carrier, service level, tracking number, and ship date, sent as soon as the label prints.
810
Invoice
Matched to the 850 line by line so the retailer's payables system approves it without a deduction.
846
Inventory Inquiry/Advice
Scheduled stock feed, hourly to daily, with safety-stock buffers you control.
870
Order Status Report
Backorder dates, partial ships, and cancellations for programs that require it.

Built for Dropship Programs

Retailer-branded packing slips
UPS, FedEx & USPS shipping labels
Tracking number capture on the ASN
Scheduled 846 inventory feeds
Consumer ship-to address validation
Gift messages & retailer order numbers
AS2, SFTP & VAN connectivity

Hundreds of Orders, Zero Room for Error

Wholesale EDI moves a handful of large POs a week. Dropship EDI moves a purchase order for every shopper, and retailers score you on every one of them.

Ship-by windows are measured in hours

Most dropship programs expect the 855 within hours and the 856 within one to two business days. Late confirmations trigger chargebacks and lower your vendor scorecard. Our monitoring flags orders approaching their window before they miss it.

The inventory feed decides what gets sold

If your 846 says 40 units and you have 4, the retailer sells 40 and you cancel 36. Cancellation rates are the fastest way to lose a dropship program. We pull live stock from your system and send the feed on the retailer's schedule.

The packing slip is the retailer's, not yours

The shopper bought from Wayfair or Macy's, so the box has to look like it came from them: their logo, their order number, their return policy, no mention of your pricing. We generate each retailer's slip format from the 850 data automatically.

Every order goes to a different address

A wholesale PO ships to one DC. A day of dropship POs ships to hundreds of homes. Consumer addresses arrive with apartment numbers missing and residential surcharges attached, so we validate ship-to data before it reaches your label software.

Invoices are matched line by line

Retailer payables systems auto-reject dropship invoices that do not match the PO on price, quantity, or order reference. We build the 810 from the original 850 and the shipped quantity so it clears on the first pass.

Each retailer writes its own rules

Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot, and Wayfair all use the 850 and 856, and none of them use them the same way. Our team of EDI experts already maintains the maps for these programs and updates them as the retailers change their specs.

Compliant With Today's Dropship Programs

We already exchange dropship documents with these programs and thousands of other trading partners. New retailer, same integration.

+ 1000s more · View all trading partners →

Connected to your systems

Dropship orders land as sales orders in NetSuite, QuickBooks, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Acumatica, Cin7, or Shopify, and shipments, tracking, invoices, and stock levels flow back out from your ERP, ShipStation, or 3PLs such as ShipBob, ShipHero, and Extensiv. Vendors without a back-office system can process every dropship order through Infocon Systems WebEDI.

Why Businesses Choose Infocon Systems

"From the very beginning, their team demonstrated deep technical expertise and a clear understanding of retail compliance requirements. They worked closely with ours to ensure smooth mapping, testing, and validation across all required documents including POs, ASNs, invoices, and acknowledgements. What stood out most was their hands-on support during integration into our ERP system — they took the time to understand our workflows and customized the setup to ensure everything functioned properly with minimal disruption. If you are looking for a reliable EDI partner, I highly recommend Infocon Systems."

SJ

Sunny J.

Director, Retail · Verified Review · via Capterra

"Overall, our experience with Infocon Systems WebEDI has been very positive. The platform has improved the accuracy and efficiency of our order processing, reduced manual work, and provided strong reliability. Their support and communication set them apart. They're attentive, professional, and truly care about customer satisfaction. It's been a great partnership, of 20 plus years, and we're confident continuing to work with them."

EC

Esly C.

Account Manager, Consumer Goods · 20+ Year Customer · Verified Review · via Capterra

Ready to Automate Your Dropship Orders?

Tell us which retailers you ship for and what system you run, and we'll map out the integration, the timeline, and a quote based on your order volume.

Free consultation & demo
No commitment required
Response within 24 hours
Any retailer dropship program

Reach out to us directly:

1.888.339.0722 sales@infoconn.com

Dropship EDI FAQ

What is EDI for dropshipping?

EDI for dropshipping is the electronic exchange of order, shipping, invoice, and inventory documents between a retailer and the vendor who ships directly to the retailer's customer. Instead of the retailer receiving pallets into a distribution center, each consumer order becomes an EDI 850 purchase order sent to the vendor, who ships the item and returns an 856 ship notice with tracking and an 810 invoice. Infocon Systems is a fully managed EDI provider that has run dropship EDI programs since 1988, handling the mapping, retailer compliance testing, and daily monitoring so vendors can fulfill dropship orders without building EDI in-house.

Which EDI documents are used in dropshipping?

Most retailer dropship programs use the same core set: 850 Purchase Order (one per consumer order, with the shopper's ship-to address), 855 PO Acknowledgment (accept, reject, or backorder), 856 Advance Ship Notice (carrier, tracking number, and ship date), 810 Invoice, and 846 Inventory Inquiry/Advice (a scheduled stock feed so the retailer only sells what you can ship). Many programs add 860 PO Change, 870 Order Status Report, and 997 Functional Acknowledgment. Infocon Systems maps every one of these to the exact specification each retailer publishes, including the retailer-specific fields dropship programs are known for.

Do I need EDI to become a dropship vendor for a major retailer?

In most cases, yes. Retailers such as Walmart, Amazon, Wayfair, Home Depot, Lowe's, Macy's, Kohl's, and Chewy require dropship vendors to exchange orders, ship confirmations, invoices, and inventory through EDI or a retailer-approved equivalent, and they test vendors for compliance before the first order goes live. Infocon Systems handles that certification for you: our team of EDI experts already knows each retailer's dropship specifications, runs the test scripts, and stays on the account after go-live so late-ASN and invoice chargebacks do not eat into your margin.

How does an 846 inventory feed work for dropshipping?

The 846 Inventory Inquiry/Advice tells the retailer how many units of each SKU you can ship right now, so the retailer's website only sells what is actually in stock. Dropship programs typically require the feed on a fixed schedule, from once a day to every hour, and penalize vendors who cancel orders on items they reported as available. Infocon Systems pulls live stock levels from your ERP, warehouse system, or 3PL, applies any safety-stock buffers you set, and sends the 846 to every retailer on their required schedule automatically.

Can dropship EDI connect to my ERP or ecommerce platform?

Yes. Infocon Systems integrates dropship EDI with any ERP, order management, ecommerce, or warehouse platform, including NetSuite, QuickBooks, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Acumatica, Cin7, Shopify, BigCommerce, ShipStation, and 3PL systems such as ShipBob, ShipHero, and Extensiv. Incoming 850 dropship orders are created as sales orders in your system with the consumer's ship-to address, and shipments, tracking numbers, invoices, and inventory flow back out as EDI without anyone rekeying data. Vendors without a back-office system can process dropship orders through Infocon Systems WebEDI.

How long does it take to set up dropship EDI?

A new retailer dropship connection through Infocon Systems is typically live within days once the retailer issues its test scripts, and most of that time is the retailer's own testing window. Because Infocon Systems is already compliant with thousands of trading partners and their dropship programs, the maps, communication setup, and packing-slip formats are usually pre-built. Adding a second or third retailer to an existing dropship integration is faster still, since your ERP connection is already in place.

How much does dropship EDI cost?

Dropship EDI pricing depends on how many retailer programs you connect, your monthly order volume, and whether you need ERP integration or WebEDI. Because dropshipping generates one EDI purchase order per consumer order, volume matters more than it does in traditional wholesale EDI, and Infocon Systems prices accordingly with plans that scale as your dropship business grows. Contact Infocon Systems at 1.888.339.0722 for a free consultation and a quote based on your retailers and order volume.