How an Online Pharmacy Traces Every Parcel in a Batch Recall

This online pharmacy and parapharmacy is operated by a community pharmacy. It sells non-prescription medicines, dermo-cosmetics, and supplements from one fulfillment warehouse. Many products carry an expiry date or a best-before date. The Magento 2 store mainly receives small, multi-line orders. Purchases are placed with pharmaceutical wholesalers and laboratories, often through the pharmacy management system (LGO).

The Challenge

Without continuous tracking, batch information stopped in a spreadsheet or was never recorded. Pickers took the nearest box with no assigned batch. Short-dated stock surfaced during an inventory count instead of through the normal outbound flow. When a recall reached the pharmacy through DP-Rappels, the recall channel run by France's Ordre des pharmaciens, the team had to work back through order history to find the affected patients.

The Solution

Batch and expiry tracking is enabled only for products that require it. At supplier receipt, the team records the batch and date; a CSV import can speed up the task. When an order enters picking, myFulfillment assigns the batch with the earliest expiry. The packer confirms that batch at the packing bench. The shipment record then records the batches packed in the parcel.

The link between a batch and an order is not reconstructed later. It is created at receipt, retained when the batch is assigned for picking, and confirmed at packing. Filtering by batch number returns the relevant shipments and customers directly.

The Results

At receipt, the batch number and expiry date are recorded against the product’s stock. During picking, the team follows the assigned batch instead of choosing a box at random. At packing, the operator confirms what actually leaves. The first-expired, first-out best practice guides assignment according to the setup. When DP-Rappels flags a batch, the pharmacist filters on that number in myFulfillment and gets the orders to review and patients to contact without rebuilding the trail across several files.