Orders vs Shipments

Intro

An order is the purchase the customer placed on Shopify. A shipment is the box (or the pickup) your team actually handles.

StoresBoost creates a shipment from every order that is allowed to ship. From then on, the warehouse works the shipment. The order stays as the record of what was bought.

The short version

Work the shipment. Use the order when you need the purchase. Do not pack, label, or hold from the order page.

Why shipments exist

A Shopify order is one checkout. Your team ships boxes. A shipment is one of those boxes, so each box can be packed, labeled, held, and closed on its own while the order stays the record of the purchase.

• More than one box. A big order, or items that should travel separately, leaves in two parcels. Each shipment has its own contents, weight, label, and tracking number. The customer still has one order.
• Send part of it today. Something is out of stock, or the customer asked for the rest later. Split the shipment. What can leave is packed and labeled now. What cannot leave stays Awaiting, with its own place in the queue.
• Two places. Part of the order is at the warehouse and part is at another location. Each place gets its own shipment, so the pick list and the label match the stock in front of that packer.
• One box for two orders. The same customer checks out twice. Merge puts both into one box and one label, so you post one parcel to that door. The two orders stay two orders.
• Collect in store, and send the rest. The customer picks up some items and wants the rest delivered. Pickup sits on the pickup queue. The parcel sits on Awaiting. The packing line only shows parcels.
• One box is stuck. Payment is missing, or a line needs a check. Put that shipment On Hold. Any other shipment on the same order can still be packed and labeled.
• You can see what is still open. One shipment can be Shipped while another is still Awaiting. The order only says Partially fulfilled. The shipment list shows which box has left and which one is still on the bench, with its own tracking once it goes.

That is the point of a shipment. The warehouse works a box. The order keeps the purchase.

What lives on the shipment

These belong to the box, not to the checkout:

• The items in this box, and the fulfillment location of each line
• Weight, dimensions, the container, and the packing materials
• The carrier, the service, the quoted rate, and the label
• Who packed it
• Notes for this box
• Tags that tell the bench what to do with this box
• Whether it is waiting, on hold, shipped, or picked up

The order keeps the customer, the payment, the full list of what was bought, and Shopify's fulfillment status. Printing a packing slip or buying a label from the order would mix two boxes together.

A normal day

1. The order arrives from Shopify and shows under Orders.
2. StoresBoost builds one or more Awaiting shipments from it. Rules may split, tag, or hold them before anyone opens the queue.
3. The packer opens Shipments → Awaiting, or scans the shipment in Scan & Ship. They never start from the order.
4. They verify the lines, choose the box, compare rates, and buy the label on that shipment.
5. The shipment moves to Shipped (or Picked Up). Shopify is updated from that shipment, and the order's fulfillment status follows.

If something looks wrong — a missing item, or a second box that should have been its own shipment — fix the shipment. Changing the order in Shopify does not pack the box.

When to open the order

Open Orders to answer a customer question: what they bought, what they paid, whether Shopify shows the order fulfilled, or which shipments belong to it. From the order you jump into those shipments. You do not buy the label there.

Related

• Orders — the purchase and its Shopify status
• Shipments — the queue you pack from
• Split & merge — one order, many boxes, or many orders, one box
• Scan & Ship — packing a shipment at the bench
• Local Pickup — pickup shipments stay off the parcel queues