Clark Rubber is an Australian franchise retailer of pool, rubber, foam and cleaning products, with more than 60 stores run by franchisees. Its website, clarkrubber.com.au, has run on Core dna since 2022, when Clark Rubber moved its franchise eCommerce off Shopify Plus.
The stores fulfil online orders from their own stock, and online sales go to the franchisee whose store fulfils the order. This story covers how that works: how stock is handled across the network, which store gets each order, and how the sale reaches the franchisee. The stock and order rules run in Core dna's order management system with inventory built in.
The challenge
In a franchise network, every store is a separate business. Each franchisee holds their own stock and earns their own revenue. A national website has to work across all of them: show customers what they can buy, decide which store prepares each order, and make sure the store that does the work gets the sale.
Clark Rubber's previous platform, Shopify Plus, could not support what this model needed, including split ordering, multi-store fulfilment and personalised customer portals. Clark Rubber needed a platform that treated each store's stock as that store's own, while still running one website and one checkout for the whole brand.
What Clark Rubber needed
- Stock held by store for every store in the network, visible to the website.
- Each online order sent to a store that can fulfil it.
- Online sales credited to the franchisee whose store fulfils the order.
- Click & Collect from the customer's chosen store.
- Delivery costs and free shipping based on the store that sends the order.
- One catalogue, one brand and one checkout across the network.
How multi-location inventory management runs on Core dna
Stock for 60+ stores in one place. Core dna reads stock by store across Clark Rubber's network. The stock data sits alongside the catalogue and checkout, so when a customer checks out, the website knows which stores can fill the cart.
Orders routed to one store. At checkout, as soon as the customer enters their postcode, Core dna picks the closest store with every item in the cart in stock. The checkout shows the store the order ships from, and delivery costs and free shipping eligibility are based on that store's location, so the customer sees the delivery fee before paying. The order goes to that store when it is placed. At launch, a cart could be split across several stores. Since 2026 each order goes to one store, so the store gets a complete order and the customer gets one delivery.
Click & Collect from the customer's store. Customers can choose a store and collect their order there. The chosen store prepares the order and contacts the customer when it is ready to collect.
Online sales credited to the franchisee who fulfils them. Clark Rubber's online channel directs its sales to franchisees' stores. When a store fulfils an online order, the sale goes to the franchisee who runs that store, so the store that does the work gets the sale.
Returns at any store. Customers can return an online order to any Clark Rubber store, and the refund is processed through the online store.
For the platform behind this, see orders and inventory and the franchise platform.
Want to see how it works?
Book a call with Core dna. We'll walk you through how stock by store, order routing and franchisee sales run on one platform, and how that would work for your network.
How can retailers manage product catalogs across multiple stores?
At Clark Rubber, the product catalogue is managed once for the whole network. Stock and fulfilment sit with the stores, and the Clark Rubber team manages product content centrally:
- Product FAQs are loaded in bulk from a spreadsheet of SKUs, questions and answers.
- Reviews collected in Reviews.io sync into the site's own review display every day.
- The On Sale page order is set product by product, or in bulk through the product import.
- Dangerous goods details, such as the code, class and description for pool chemicals, are loaded in bulk.
Every store's stock sells through the same product pages. Read more on managing product catalogs across sites.
Questions to answer before selling franchise stock online
Any franchise network that sells online has to settle the same questions. Here is how Clark Rubber answers them.
- Where is stock held? In each franchise store. Core dna reads it by store.
- Which store fulfils an order? The closest store with every item in the cart in stock, or the store the customer picks for Click & Collect.
- Who gets the sale? The franchisee whose store fulfils the order.
- How is delivery priced? From the location of the store that fulfils the order. Checkout shows that store and the delivery fee before the customer pays.
- Where do returns go? Any Clark Rubber store, with the refund processed through the online store.
For the website side of a franchise network, see franchise website development essentials and how to run several stores from one platform.
What's next
The next planned phase replaces the distance rule for free shipping with postcodes. For qualifying postcodes, such as metro Melbourne, any store in the state will be able to fulfil the order, which widens the stock each order can draw on. Clark Rubber is also updating how backorders appear at checkout.
Read the main story: how Clark Rubber moved franchise eCommerce off Shopify Plus.
