Order Statuses and Tags
What the built-in statuses mean, adding your own, and using tags for the orders that do not fit.
Settings, Order Statuses and Sales, Order Tags. Two ways of marking where an order has got to, for different jobs.
The Built-In Statuses
| Status | Means |
|---|---|
| Pending | Placed, nothing done yet |
| Processing | Being picked and packed |
| Shipped | Gone, tracking recorded |
| Delivered | Carrier says it arrived |
| Completed | Finished, nothing outstanding |
| Cancelled | Will not be fulfilled |
Remember that this is separate from payment. An order can be processing and unpaid, or paid and pending. Reports count money by payment status, not by this one.
Adding Your Own
A status has a name, a colour and a position in the list. Add one when your process has a step the standard ones do not describe: Awaiting Stock, With Framer, Ready for Collection.
Keep the list short. A status nobody updates is worse than no status, because the order list then shows a state that is not true.
Changing status can email the customer
Each status change can trigger a notification, depending on what is switched on under Settings. Add a status and decide at the same time whether the customer should hear about it. An internal step such as With Framer usually should not send anything.
Tags
A tag is a label you attach to an order, and an order can carry several.
Statuses describe where an order is in your process, and every order has exactly one. Tags describe the exceptional thing about this particular order: Waiting on Customer, Damaged in Transit, Chased Twice, Gift Wrap.
Use a tag when the thing is true of a handful of orders rather than being a stage everything passes through. If you find yourself tagging most orders with the same label, it should have been a status.
Filtering
The order list filters by status, by payment status, by date and by tag. Those four combinations cover nearly every question you will ask of it.
The most useful daily filter is paid plus processing, which is exactly the list of what you should be packing. Printing from any wider filter is how an unpaid order gets shipped.
A Workable Process
For most shops: orders arrive pending, you move them to processing when you start picking, shipped happens by itself when tracking is added, and completed when nothing is outstanding.
Delivered is worth using only if your carriers actually report it, otherwise it becomes a status nobody sets and the order list fills with shipped orders from months ago.