Customers can visit the order status page to check the progress of their order as it's fulfilled. The order confirmations that you send by email, SMS, or through the Shop app can include a link to the order status page.
The type of notification the customer receives depends on the contact information they enter at checkout. If the customer enters a phone number at checkout, then they receive an order confirmation by SMS. If a customer enters an email at checkout, then they receive an order confirmation by email, followed by order and shipping updates. Order and shipping updates aren't sent by SMS. You can give customers who enter a phone number at checkout the choice to opt-in to receive order and shipping updates by email.
To track their order on the order status page, customers can log into their customer account. Alternatively, to confirm their identity after a certain amount of time has passed, customers without an account might be required to verify their email address or phone number along with the order number to view the order details. Customers can locate the order number in the order confirmation sent to them by email or phone.
If you want to send your customers order status updates by email, then you need set up your email templates to automatically include a link to the order status page.
You might also consider customizing your order status page to display special notes and messages.
On this page
- Real-time shipping updates
- Orders with multiple shipments or carriers
- Protecting order status page information
- View a customer's order status page
Real-time shipping updates
If you ship through a supported carrier, then the order status updates in real time and the shipment location is displayed on a map.
The order status page updates in real time as the status of the shipment changes. Possible statuses are:
- Confirmed - A customer created an order, but you haven't shipped or fulfilled the order yet. This is a good time to capture payment.
- On its way - You marked the order as fulfilled or partially fulfilled in your Shopify admin, and the shipment is in transit.
- Out for delivery - The shipment arrived in your customer's area and will be delivered to your customer soon.
- Delivered - The customer received their shipment.
- Attempted delivery - The carrier attempted to deliver the shipment to the destination address, but was unsuccessful.
If you use an unsupported shipping carrier, then the order status page has a tracking number that links to the shipping carrier's website. From the carrier's website, your customers can get more information about the status of their order. The order status isn't displayed, and the pin on the map doesn't update in real time.
Orders with multiple shipments or carriers
The order status page works with partial fulfillments, even if they're made through different shipping carriers. Shopify creates new sections on the order status page for multiple fulfillments.
Protecting order status page information
Although the information provided in the order confirmation, including the link to the order status page, might seem to be publicly accessible, your customers' information remains secure and isn't visible to anyone else.
To ensure the security of customer information when accessing the order status page from an email or SMS order notification, a login requirement is enforced depending on how and when the customer accesses the order status page. Customers can access their order status page from their order confirmation email for 3 weeks without logging in, when using the same browser. When using different browsers, customers can access their order status page for 2 weeks without logging in, across a maximum of 5 different browsers.
When logging in is required, customers need to either log in to their customer account or provide two credentials to access the page:
- The order number (which can be retrieved from their order confirmation email or SMS receipt)
- The email address or phone number used during checkout
If the customer doesn't log in, then only limited details about the order, such as the items purchased, order total, discounts applied, and the order's status display on the order status page. Customer information such as their name, shipping and billing addresses, payment methods, shipping method, and tracking number aren't displayed.
Customers can choose to share the link to their order status page with friends to inform them about their purchases. However, when customers share their order status page link, only the limited order details display due to the login requirement.
View a customer's order status page
You can visit a customer's order status page from your Shopify admin. However, you can only access limited order status page details due to the customer login requirement.
Steps:
- From the Orders page, open the order that you want to track.
- Click More actions > View order status page.
