What does fulfill orders mean?
When a customer places an order from your Shopify store, you need to ship it to that customer. This process of shipping orders to customers is called as ‘order fulfillment’ by Shopify.
While you fulfill orders, there are a few essentials that you need to bear in mind, to ensure that your orders are processed and fulfilled accurately.
How to fulfill complete orders manually?
Shopify allows you to choose your order fulfillment preferences by configuring your Checkout settings.
The good part about manually fulfilling orders is that you can choose when the orders are sent out and you can keep an eye on your inventory. It makes sense for you to fulfill all your orders manually when you:
- Make your products based on orders
- Provide products that can be pre-ordered
- Have the chances of running out of stock
- Wish to easily offer customers partial fulfillment without going through hassle of providing a refund.
Steps to fulfill orders manually, :
Description:
- From your Shopify Admin, select Orders.
- Via Orders page, select the orders that come under the category ‘Unfulfilled’.
- In the Orders Details section, choose Continue next to Buy postage and Ship Order to go to the order’s Fulfillment page.
- Defacto, every line item is set to be fulfilled, but you can choose to fulfill just a part of the order if you wish to.
- In case you’re using Shopify Shipping, you can buy a shipping label for your order, then find the Select fulfillment method section, and select Buy and print a shipping label.
- If you’re using a carrier besides Shopify Shipping, then choose Mark as fulfilled, and type the tracking number from your shipping provider:
- Your customer will be able to see the tracking URL in their Shipping confirmation and Shipping update emails.
- In case you wish to notify your customer right away via email, then choose Send a confirmation email to the customer for this shipment.
- This option will show only if the customer’s email id is available on file.
- When the task is completed, click Fulfill items to mark the order as Fulfilled. In case you’re using Shopify Shipping, then select Buy label and fulfill items instead. The order screen will update to display the order’s fulfillment status.
- You can also fulfill orders in bulk from your Shopify admin.
Fulfill part of an order manually
There are times when a customer places an order and pays for an order of multiple products, but one or more products from that order are out-of-stock, then you might want to fulfill only part of that order so that you can ship the products separately.
Here’s how you do it:
- From your Shopify admin, select Orders.
- From the Orders page, choose the number of an order in the list that has a Fulfillment status of Unfulfilled.
- In the Order Details section, select Continue next to Buy postage and ship order to open the order’s Fulfillment page:
- On the Fulfillment page, revise the number of products that you wish to fulfill for each line item under the Quantity heading:
- If you’re using Shopify Shipping (for stores based in the United States or Canada) to buy a shipping label for your order, then find the Select fulfillment method section, and choose Buy and print a shipping label.
- If you’re using another Shipping Provider, then choose Mark as fulfilled, and type in the tracking number from your shipping provider.
- Your customers will be able to see the tracking URL in the Shipping confirmation and Shipping update emails.
- In case you wish to notify your customers right away via email, then select Send a confirmation email to the customer for this shipment.
- This option will show only if you have an email address for the customer on file.
- When you’re done, click Fulfill items (if you’re using Shopify Shipping, then click Buy label and fulfill items instead). The order screen updates to display the order’s Fulfilled and Unfulfilled items.
- If you want to review the order’s fulfillment details or add a tracking number, then find the Fulfillments section on the order’s page, and click the option that you want.
