Split & merge

Intro

One order does not always equal one box. Split breaks a shipment apart; merge combines shipments; Create Shipment builds one by hand. Together they keep the packing queue matching physical reality.

All structure changes require the shipment to be Awaiting — held, shipped, picked-up, or merged shipments are locked.

Split a shipment

Purpose: part of the order ships now, the rest later (backorder, second box, different warehouse).

1. Open an Awaiting shipment with multiple items or quantities.
2. Click Split Shipment.
3. Move items / quantities into the new part.
4. Click Done Splitting (or Cancel to abandon).
5. Both shipments now sit in Awaiting — rate and label each on its own.

StoresBoost also splits automatically when Shopify fulfils only part of a shipment, or when an automation rule uses Split Shipment. Each shipment records how it came to exist — Order Sync, Split (automatic or manual), Order Update, Store Unfulfill, or Manual.

Packers can also split from the bench: on Scan & Ship the Split shipment button opens a dialog with two tabs — Pick items (move some items to a new shipment; Unverified items preselects everything not yet scanned) and By box size — without leaving the packing screen.

Split into boxes

When one shipment must become several identical parcels (12 bags of live food → 6 boxes of 2), use Split into boxes… (shown in split mode on the shipment page when there is more than one unit) or the By box size tab on Scan & Ship:

1. Give each item its Units per box (or type one size, Same for all → Apply). Boxes never mix items; an item left blank stays whole on this shipment. The row previews the result, e.g. Qty 11 → 6 boxes (5 × 2 + 1 × 1).
2. Choose what This shipment keeps — Box 1 (a full box, default) or Last box (the remainder).
3. Check the plan (each box → new shipment or Stays here) and click Split into N boxes.

Every new box is a regular manual split child to the same address — activity log, lineage, unsplit, automation rules and the Cost Summary share all behave as for a hand split, and the whole operation is all-or-nothing. Limits: at least two boxes must result (That makes a single box — nothing to split), and at most 50 shipments per split. The last box size you used is remembered on this computer.

What a split does to totals and weight

Each part becomes a shipment in its own right, so its numbers follow its lines:

Unsplit reverses all of it — the lines, the pruned shipping method and the totals return to the parent.

Split Shipments Overview

From a shipment's actions menu, Split Shipments Overview shows the whole family with relationship badges — This Shipment, Split From, Split To, Original, Split Sibling, Same Split Family, Same Order — plus a Local Pickup badge where relevant. Use it to see where every item of an order ended up.

Unsplit

Unsplit rejoins a split when both parts are still Awaiting.

Merge shipments

Purpose: one box, one label, lower cost when several shipments go to the same customer.

From a shipment

1. Open the Awaiting shipment you want to keep.
2. Click Merge Into This.
3. Choose other awaiting shipments to pull in.
4. Confirm — sources become Merged; the target keeps everything.

From Merge Suggestions

Under Shipments → Merge Suggestions:

• Suggested by Rule — customers with two or more awaiting shipments that satisfy your merge rules (recalculated every minute)
• Suggested by Customer — every customer with two or more awaiting shipments, regardless of rules

1. Open a list, search if needed, and select suggestions. The Tags column shows each shipment's tag dots — including any merge conflict tags — so you can see at a glance why a pair is or is not being combined.
2. Click Combine Shipments — or Dismiss for wrong ones (a dismissed customer suggestion comes back if one of its shipments changes).
3. In Confirm Merge Shipments, check the Target and Source shipments (or create a new combined one). Warnings appear for differing addresses, differing delivery dates or auto-split shipments — they inform, they do not block.
4. Optionally run automation rules after the merge, then confirm.

With Auto Merge on in Merge Settings, rule suggestions are executed for you.

What a merge does

• Items move into the target; sources get status Merged and point at the target.
• Target selection, which delivery / ship-by date survives, and which shipping method becomes primary follow the strategies in Merge Settings.
• Pickup and parcel shipments never merge; two pickup shipments may merge only when they are for the same pickup location (or Merge Local Pickup to Local Pickup is on with Auto Merge). Different delivery dates do not block a merge by themselves: a manual merge only warns (Different delivery dates detected), and rule suggestions are kept apart only when the merge rule has an Order → Delivery Date · Must be same condition — the surviving date then follows the Delivery Date Strategy.
• Sources must not be shipped, on hold, picked up or already merged, and must not sit in another pending suggestion. A shipment held by Hold Shipments Until Paid therefore cannot be merged until the order is paid.
• Both shipments log Merged / Merged away activities; the Shopify orders can receive a Merged tag if enabled.
• A combined shipment keeps every order's shipping method: the primary follows the Shipping Method Primary Strategy, and each line still carries the method its own order paid for. A box merged from several orders can therefore list more than one Requested method (say overnight for corals, ground for supplies, and Add to an existing order for the add-ons) — that is a record of what each customer chose, not a conflict.

Should have merged, but did not

Two orders from the same customer sometimes stay apart only because a shipping address or a delivery date differs. With Tag Shipments That Should Have Merged on in Merge Settings, both shipments get the tag you mapped to that mismatch (for example Merge Error Address, Merge Error Date). Fix the address or date — or use Merge Into This — and the tags clear on the next sweep.

Unmerge

Open the target shipment → Unmerge → pick the source shipments to restore. Works while the target is still Awaiting.

Create Shipment (manual)

Purpose: build a shipment yourself — corrective ops, combining chosen orders, or flows automation did not cover.

1. Open Shipments → Create Shipment.
2. Select Orders — search and pick eligible orders (merge hints appear when relevant).
3. Review & Create — adjust quantities.
4. Create Shipment, then open it in Awaiting to configure and label.

Make Label

Shipments → Make Label buys a carrier label without an order — returns, replacements, or anything ad hoc. Create rates and purchases; History lists labels bought this way.

• Ship to → Saved addresses: pick a saved recipient from the dropdown (Enter new address to type one), tick Save this address / Update saved address and give it a Name in dropdown (defaults to First Last — City). The address is saved as soon as street, city and postal code are filled — toast Address saved — including its residential flag; the trash icon removes one (Remove "…" from saved addresses?).
• Label format sits next to Buy + Print and defaults to Advanced → Printing. After purchase the label prints automatically — PDF opens the print dialog, ZPL / EPL follow this computer's thermal print method.
• The purchased card and each History row offer Print, Download and Void (Void only while the label is still active; a label the carrier already voided is treated as voided).
• What's in the box is printed on UPS labels as the shipment description (50 characters) and Reference on label as the UPS reference (35 characters).

Customers Shipments

Purpose: see one customer's open shipments side by side. Rows highlighted amber are already part of a pending merge suggestion. Investigate here; combine from Merge Suggestions or Merge Into This.

Cancel a shipment

Open an Awaiting shipment → Cancel Shipment. If it already shipped, void the label first — the shipment returns to Awaiting, then cancel.

Cancelled automatically

StoresBoost also cancels an Awaiting or On Hold shipment itself when nothing is left on it to ship: every line was refunded or removed on the store, moved elsewhere, or fulfilled on Shopify outside this shipment. The shipment's activity reads Cancelled — No items left on shipment, the order gets a matching entry, and a pending request at the fulfillment provider is withdrawn. A shipment that already has an active carrier label is left alone — voiding a paid label is a human decision. Shipments created in the last five minutes are skipped too, so a store update that briefly leaves a shipment empty mid-sync does not cancel it. If items are added back to the order later, they go on a new shipment; the cancelled one stays as history.

Related

• Shipment settings — merge rules, strategies, tagging merged orders
• Labels & rates — after the structure is right
• Views — a "Merge candidates" queue
• Alerts — Merge evaluation stuck and Duplicate shipment items