Drop-ship vendor setup

How do we set up a drop-ship vendor with the catalog, the shipping terms and the compliance documents collected and approved, and the vendor enabled in order management?

Treat vendor setup as a gate the vendor clears before its first order flows. Callvu classifies the vendor (the categories, the countries it ships from and to, the integration method, the volume) and the requirements the vendor agreement and the policy set (the signed agreement with the service levels and the chargeback terms, the business verification and the bank details, the product catalog with the compliance attributes the categories need, the shipping terms and the carrier accounts, the returns handling, the product safety and labeling documents, the data and systems integration), collects each through the vendor's link, checks the catalog and the documents against the category rules, runs a test order through the integration, routes a failed test, a compliance gap or a verification problem to the vendor desk in the Decision Desk, and writes the enabled vendor with its catalog, its service levels and its routing rules to the order management system so orders route to it only within the approved scope.

In scopeComplex: multi-party handoffsCallvu moves: chase and verify, decide, write back

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Last updated November 7, 2026.

The problem today

The vendor was enabled with a catalog spreadsheet, shipped the first two hundred orders late from a country nobody knew about, and the recall letters went to the retailer.

Today, without Callvu

Drop-shipping lets a retailer sell what it does not stock, and makes the vendor's failures the retailer's. A vendor enabled from a spreadsheet ships late, from the wrong place, with products missing the safety documents the category requires, and handles returns by not answering. The retailer's reviews, its carrier costs and its regulatory exposure absorb it.

The vendor agreement sets the service levels, the chargebacks for failures and the compliance warranties; the category rules set the product attributes and the documents (safety certifications, labeling, restricted shipping); the integration must prove it can take an order and return a shipment; the business and its bank must be verified before payment. Each is a check that belongs before the first order, not after the first complaint.

A vendor gated at setup is a vendor the order management system can route to with confidence.

How it runs

From the requestto the system of record.

The merchandising team signs a drop-ship vendor. Callvu opens the setup from the agreement.

Vendor: Provides the documents, the catalog, the shipping terms and the bank details through a link, and completes the integration test.
Vendor desk: Decides failed tests, compliance gaps and verification problems in the Decision Desk.
Merchandising, compliance and integration teams: Own the category rules, the compliance review and the integration respectively, and see the checklist.
Callvu: Classifies, collects, checks, runs the test, routes and writes.

Classify the vendor and the requirements
The categories, the ship-from and ship-to countries, the integration method (an API, a feed, a portal) and the expected volume classify the requirements: the signed agreement with the service levels (the ship-within time, the tracking upload, the cancellation window, the returns handling) and the chargeback terms, the business verification and the bank details with ownership validation, the catalog with the attributes the categories require (the identifiers, the dimensions and weights, the hazardous materials flags, the age restrictions, the country of origin, the compliance certifications), the shipping terms and the carrier accounts, the product safety and labeling documents, and the data terms.
Chase and verify
Each item is collected through the vendor's link and checked: the agreement signed by an authorized signatory, the registration and the owners against the registry and the sanctions lists, the bank ownership, the catalog against the category rules (missing attributes, prohibited items, restricted shipping routes, images and descriptions meeting the standards), the compliance documents against the category requirements (the certifications, the test reports, the labeling), the shipping terms against the service levels; a gap is chased with the specifics; a test order is run through the integration end to end (the order, the acknowledgment, the shipment with tracking, the cancellation, the return) and its result checked.
Decide
A vendor whose checks and test pass is enabled by rule for the categories and the routes the evidence supports; a failed test, a compliance gap on a category, a verification problem, a prohibited item in the catalog or a sanctions hit goes to the vendor desk in the Decision Desk with the results and only the allowed outcomes (enable, enable for specified categories or routes, require corrections by a date, or decline with the reason).
Write back
The enabled vendor with its approved catalog, its service levels, its routing rules (the categories, the destinations, the priority against stock), its payment terms and the verified bank account, and its document expiry dates is written to the order management system, the system of record, so orders route to the vendor only within the scope, and the performance monitoring (the ship-within compliance, the cancellation rate, the return handling) starts from the first order.

Where it ends: The vendor was enabled only after the agreement, the verification, the catalog, the compliance documents and the integration test all passed, with the exceptions decided by the vendor desk, and the order management system routes to it within the approved scope with its performance monitored. The Decision Trace shows the classification, each check, the test and any decision; the Audit Trace shows each upload, the test run and the write with time.

Runtime enforcement

What is enforcedwhile the work runs.

The regulations preloaded in Callvu Studio and the bank's own policies, applied as steps that run, not lines in a binder. A step that breaks a rule does not run, so a completed run was compliant.

Regulations

Product safety and labeling rules by category (the Consumer Product Safety Act and the CPSC rules including the children's product certification and tracking label requirements; the FTC labeling rules for textiles and country of origin; the hazardous materials shipping rules under 49 CFR 171 to 180): A product sold by the retailer must meet the category's safety standards with the certifications and test reports the rules require, carry the required labels, and ship under the hazardous materials rules where they apply; the retailer that sells a drop-shipped product carries the seller's obligations, so the catalog and document checks apply the category rules before enabling.
FTC Mail Order Rule (16 CFR 435) and the state consumer protection statutes: The retailer must ship within the time stated or thirty days and handle delays with notice and consent, so the vendor's ship-within service level and the tracking upload are conditions of enablement, and a vendor's failure is the retailer's obligation to the customer.
Vendor agreement, business verification and payment rules (the agreement's service levels and chargebacks; the sanctions screening obligations; the bank account validation rules for new payees; the data processing terms): The agreement's service levels and chargebacks are the performance monitoring's basis; the business and its owners are screened; the bank account's ownership is validated before payment; the vendor processes customer data under signed terms.

Company policies

No vendor receives an order before the agreement, the verification, the catalog, the compliance documents and the integration test pass.
The catalog is checked against the category rules item by item; prohibited and restricted items never enable.
The vendor desk decides exceptions with the results; merchandising sees status.
The order management system holds the vendor within its scope and monitors its performance from the first order.

Controls

Vendor and requirement classification.
Document and catalog collection with reading.
Registry, sanctions, bank, category and compliance checks.
End-to-end integration test.
Decision Desk for failures and gaps.
Scoped enablement in order management with performance monitoring.

Clocks and deadlines

Setup: The merchandising service level from the signed agreement, with the checklist's status visible.
Ship-within service level: The agreement's time from the order, monitored from the first order with chargebacks by rule.
Document expiry: Certifications and insurance chased before their dates; a lapse suspends the affected categories.

Documents and checks

The agreement and the service levels
The verification results and the bank validation
The catalog with the attribute and compliance checks
The integration test result
The decision and the order management record

In the Decision Trace

The requirements and each check.
The test result and any decision with the person.

In the Audit Trace

Each upload and check with time.
The test run.
The enablement and the write.

The handoff

Between the front doorand the back office.

The front door

The vendor's link from the agreement; merchandising sees the checklist.

The back office

The vendor desk decides only exceptions; the compliance and integration teams see their items; order management routes within scope.

The Decision Desk

A failed test, a compliance gap, a verification problem, a prohibited item or a sanctions hit goes to the vendor desk in the Decision Desk with the results and only enable, enable for specified categories or routes, require corrections by a date, or decline with the reason.

Proof

In scope.Proof at scale, not one process at a time.

The kind of process Callvu runs in production for customers in this industry. Ask for a reference on this exact process. The results below are the industry's published proof; each claim code links to its record on agents.callvu.com.

More than 1,000 processes are live across Callvu customers.

Across Callvu customers

Questions

What buyers ask next,answered plainly.

What is checked before a vendor is enabled?

The signed agreement and service levels, the business and bank verification, the catalog against the category rules, the safety and labeling documents, the shipping terms and an end-to-end integration test; a gap is chased and the vendor desk decides exceptions.

What is in the test order?

The order, the vendor's acknowledgment, the shipment with tracking, a cancellation and a return, run through the integration and checked before any live order routes.

How is the vendor monitored after setup?

From the first order against the agreement's service levels (ship-within time, tracking, cancellations, returns) with chargebacks by rule and the documents' expiries chased.

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