When an order is packed, create its shipment on the order’s Fulfilment tab: choose the delivery provider, add the tracking number, and decide whether the parcel has already left. Your customer then sees the tracking on their order page.
Before you can create a shipment
You can create a shipment when both of these are true:
- The order is Confirmed, Preparing or Ready to ship.
- Its payment is authorised or paid, or it is a cash on delivery order.
- In the sidebar, open Orders and open the order.
- Select the Fulfilment tab. On an order that is Ready to ship, Ship under Next step opens it too, or Assign when the order has no delivery provider yet.
The Create shipment panel says Available now when you can go ahead. Otherwise it says Not available now and, under Shipment creation unavailable, tells you why.
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| Confirm the order before creating a shipment. | Confirm the order first. See Confirm a new order and start preparing it. |
| Payment must be completed or authorized before shipment. | The customer has not paid yet. Wait for the payment to arrive. |
| Payment must be authorized, paid, or COD before creating a shipment. | The payment failed or was refunded. Sort out the payment before you ship. |
| This order’s shipment is on its way. Update it below. | The order is Shipped or Out for delivery: its parcel is already with the provider. Update that shipment on the same tab; see Update a shipment’s status. |
| This order is delivered or closed, so it takes no new shipment. | The order is delivered, completed, cancelled, refunded, failed, or returned in full or in part. Nothing more is shipped on it. |
| Move the order to confirmed, preparing, or ready to ship before creating a shipment. | The order is at a stage that does not ship, such as Partially refunded before it went out. |
Creating shipments needs the Manage shipments permission. See Staff roles: what each one can see and do.
No delivery provider yet
A shipment always belongs to one of your delivery providers. If you have none, or all of them are inactive, the panel shows Add an active delivery provider before creating shipments.
Add the provider you hand your parcels to in Amman, or wherever you deliver, under Delivery providers, then come back to the order. See Add a delivery provider, or open your delivery providers (opens in a new tab).
If your store does have active providers and you still see this message, your role cannot see them: it does not include View shipping rates and delivery providers. The three built-in roles have it, so this happens only on a custom role. Ask the store owner to add that permission to your role. See add a custom role.
Choose the delivery provider
When the panel is available, the form is ready to fill in.
- Under Delivery provider, check the provider that is already chosen. To use another one, open the list and select it.
The list shows your active providers only: your default provider first, with (Default) after its name, then the rest from A to Z. We choose one for you in this order:
- the provider of the shipping rate the customer picked at checkout, if it is still active
- otherwise your default provider
- otherwise the first active provider in the list
To change which provider is the default, see Set the default delivery provider.
Tracking number and tracking link
- In Tracking number, type the number from the provider’s label or waybill. It is required, up to 100 characters. Create shipment stays greyed out until you type it.
- In Tracking URL, paste the provider’s tracking page for this parcel if you have one. It is optional.
If you leave Tracking URL empty and the provider has a tracking link saved with {trackingNumber} in it, we build the link for you from the tracking number. If the provider has no tracking link, the shipment has none either, and that is fine: the customer still sees the provider and the tracking number. See how a provider’s tracking link works and A provider with no tracking link.
The tracking number and link show on the customer’s order page in your storefront, with a button to track the parcel when there is a link.
A tracking link that is not a web address
Tracking URL only takes a full web address that starts with http:// or https://, up to 500 characters. If you type anything else, such as the words rawabiexpress tracking, the field turns red, Enter a valid HTTP or HTTPS tracking URL. appears under it, and Create shipment stays greyed out.
Paste the full address from the provider’s website, or clear the field to let the provider’s own tracking link fill it in.
Estimated delivery date and a note
- Optionally, select Estimated delivery and pick the day you expect the parcel to arrive. Pick today or a later day: the calendar also shows earlier days, but a date in the past is refused when you select Create shipment. To remove a date you picked, select the × in the field.
- Optionally, type a note for your team in Shipment notes, up to 1,000 characters, for example "Fragile — fold the dress in tissue."
The estimated delivery date prints on the packing slip and shows in the order’s Shipments list. The note shows on the order’s Fulfilment timeline. Neither is shown to the customer.
Mark order shipped: ticked or not
- Decide on Mark order shipped. It is ticked to start with.
| Mark order shipped | Use it when | The shipment starts at | The order becomes | The customer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ticked | The provider has the parcel, or you are handing it over now. | Picked up | Shipped (stage In delivery) | Gets an email that the order has shipped. |
| Not ticked | The label is ready, but the provider has not collected the parcel yet. | Label created | Ready to ship | Gets no email yet. |
If you untick it, update the shipment to Picked up when the provider collects the parcel, and leave Notify customer when supported ticked so the customer gets the shipped email then. See Update a shipment’s status.
Create shipment: what happens to the order
- Select Create shipment.
The message Shipment created. confirms it, and the form clears. Then:
- A Latest shipment panel appears on the Fulfilment tab, with the provider, the tracking number and the shipment’s status. You update it from there as the parcel moves.
- The order moves to Shipped or Ready to ship, as set by Mark order shipped.
- The shipment appears under Shipments and Fulfilment timeline on the order’s Overview tab, and Shipment created by staff is added to its Activity timeline.
- If the order’s items had not been taken out of stock yet, they are taken out now.
- When the order was marked shipped and we have the customer’s email address, they get the shipped email in your store’s language: the order number, the tracking number, the provider, and a button to track the parcel (or to view the order when there is no tracking link). Each shipment sends its own shipped email, once.
Tip
Check the provider and tracking number before you select Create shipment. A shipment created with Mark order shipped unticked starts at Label created, and you can cancel and replace it as long as the provider has not collected the parcel. A shipment created with it ticked starts at Picked up: it cannot be edited, and it can be cancelled only if its delivery fails. See Update a shipment’s status.
If the provider was deactivated while you had the page open, the shipment is refused. Reload the page and choose an active provider.
Ship it again after a failed delivery
When a delivery failed and the parcel will go out again under a new tracking number, first set the failed shipment to Cancelled on the Fulfilment tab. The order goes back to Ready to ship, and Create shipment is available again. Create the new shipment as above; the customer gets a shipped email for the new parcel with its new tracking number.
If the order’s fulfilment time has already passed, which is usual by now (it is 48 hours after the order was placed, unless you changed the Fulfilment SLA (hours)), its stage reads Needs attention with a Late fulfilment chip, and it is back in the Needs attention view until the new parcel is picked up. The next step is still Ship.
If the same parcel is simply going out again, you do not need a new shipment: update the failed one to Out for delivery. See When a delivery fails.
What to do next
- Print what your team packs from: Print packing slips and download invoices.
- Follow the parcel to the door: Update a shipment’s status.
- See exactly what your customer receives: Emails your customers get about orders.
- Open your orders list (opens in a new tab).