Shipping

The Shipping screen covers what happens after the sale: what is waiting to go out, what is in transit, what has arrived, and how long it all takes.

The stages

Orders move through awaiting fulfilment, in transit, and delivered. Each stage includes everything that has passed through it, so the numbers only ever go down as you move along, never up.

Some fulfilled orders sit in their own group because the carrier has not reported anything back. They are not assumed delivered. If a carrier gives us no tracking updates, we say so rather than guessing in your favour.

Cancelled and returned orders

A cancelled order can never ship, so it is left out entirely. It used to sit in the backlog forever.

A fully returned order is shown as its own outcome rather than as something still to do. Its original delivery still counts as a delivery, because it did happen.

Your backlog and on-time rate

The on-time rate is measured against every order that should have shipped, not only the ones you managed to ship. A store falling behind should not score 100% on the handful that got out of the door.

If your backlog is growing, that number will show it.

Transit time is an estimate

Shopify does not tell us when a parcel was actually delivered. We work transit time out from when the tracking record last changed, which is close but not exact, and the screen says so.

When there are too few shipments to be meaningful, we show nothing rather than an average of three parcels presented as a fact.

Methods and carriers

Shipping methods are counted by order, not by shipping line. An order with two shipping lines is one order. Getting this wrong is how a 737-order period reports 809 orders on a single method.

Carriers are ranked by how much you use them, with a failure rate where there is enough data to calculate one. Shipments with no carrier name are grouped together rather than dropped.

Related

• Refunds and Returns
• Expenses