Once you have orders in ShipStation, you can view and manage them in the Orders tab.
ShipStation offers several ways to view, search, and sort your orders so you can find the orders you need when you need them. This includes viewing your orders based on order status, using the search tool, and sorting the grid by field.
To learn how to use filters, review the Filter Orders article.
The sidebar of the Orders grid displays the various order statuses your orders could be in. ShipStation displays Awaiting Shipment orders by default.
If the order is paid for and ready to ship, the order status in ShipStation should be Awaiting Shipment. Most of your orders will import directly into this status.
Once you create a label for an order, the order will automatically move into the Shipped status. Other actions you take can move orders into other statuses. Also, depending on the stores you connect, orders can sometimes import into other statuses like Awaiting Payment. Review the details in the status table below to learn more about how order statuses work in ShipStation.
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Status |
Details |
|---|---|
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Awaiting Payment |
Any order indicating it is unpaid will import into Awaiting Payment. Not all stores support importing unpaid orders. Check our Integrations Help articles for order import details specific to your stores. ShipStation will update the order status to Awaiting Shipment when the store sends updated information indicating the order has been paid for. Or, you can manually mark the order as paid. You cannot create labels for orders that are in the Awaiting Payment status! |
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On Hold |
On Hold orders are orders that you do not want to ship right away. You can move orders out of the Awaiting Shipment status so your shippers don't accidentally ship them before they are ready. For example, if an order contains an item for an out-of-stock product or has a fraud alert, you can move it to On Hold status until you are ready to ship it. You can manually put orders on hold at any time or use an Automation Rule to move orders to the On Hold status when they import. You can also manually remove a Hold on an order from the Orders tab or from within the Quicksearch and Advanced Search. A few stores, like Magento, support an On Hold status and can send that status to ShipStation as well. Check our Integrations Help articles to see specific details about your selling channel. |
|
Awaiting Shipment |
Ready to ship orders will import into the Awaiting Shipment status. This is where most of your order management will take place. |
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Pending Fulfillment |
Orders you send to fulfillment but are not yet fulfilled will move to Pending Fulfillment. Additionally, Amazon Seller Fulfilled Prime orders will import as Pending Fulfillment unless you have added Amazon Buy Shipping to your ShipStation account. |
|
Shipped |
Once you print a label for an order, ShipStation will move the order into the Shipped status to indicate no more work needs to be done on this order. Orders will also move here when you mark them as shipped. Once the status has changed to Shipped, the order no longer receives updates from the marketplace. ShipStation can import Shipped orders from your store so you can have a complete reporting of shipped orders in ShipStation. |
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Cancelled |
When you cancel an order in ShipStation, the system will move it to the Cancelled status. Once cancelled, it no longer receives updates from the marketplace. ShipStation also does not notify your store when you cancel orders in ShipStation. For this reason, we recommend canceling orders in your store first and then refreshing ShipStation. This way, you ensure the order status is the same on both platforms. ShipStation can still import cancelled orders from your store if you need a complete reporting of all orders in ShipStation. |
The statuses for orders in your store may not exactly match the statuses ShipStation uses. That's because ShipStation statuses relate directly to your shipping workflow, which might require different statuses than what your store provides. ShipStation uses a process called mapping to determine which store statuses correspond to which ShipStation statuses.
For example, the status in your store for an order that is ready to ship might be Paid, Unfulfilled, or Authorized. ShipStation imports orders with these statuses into Awaiting Shipment.
Once you ship an order or mark it as shipped in ShipStation, however, we send a notification to your store so the store will update the order. This ensures the order status remains consistent between both ShipStation and your store platform.
Order Statuses in Your Stores
Each store handles order statuses according to its own standards, and not all stores support all statuses.
For details on supported features and statuses, as well as limitations for specific store platforms, review our Store & Marketplace Integrations articles for the stores you connect to ShipStation.
ShipStation has two search options for orders:
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Use Quicksearch to quickly search for orders based on Recipient Name, Order Item, SKU, Order Number, or other criteria. Quicksearch is a Starts-with style search in the Orders tab, meaning the results of the search are items that start with the search value.
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Use Advanced Search when you want to search across all or specific order statuses by combining filtering options and date criteria. Advanced search is a Contains style search for specific criteria in the Orders tab.
Search Results and Order Date
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Quicksearch has a two-year time limit for searching orders. If you need older orders, you can use Advanced Search.
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Advanced Search defaults to searching orders less than three months old, but you can customize the date filter to search orders as far back as when you started your account.
Use Quicksearch to locate orders with the following information:
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Order Number
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Buyer Name
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Recipient Name
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Company Name
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Buyer Email Address
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Username (the User's ID from a store or marketplace)
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Recipient City
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Recipient State
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Recipient Address Line 1
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Item Name
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Item SKU
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Tracking Number
To help understand how the Quicksearch function works...
Quicksearch is a starts-with-style search. For example, if you receive an order from Saul Teesnak, ShipStation will break that name down into Saul and Teesnak. You'd be able to search for this order using Saul Teesnak, Saul, Teesnak, etc. However, you wouldn't find this order by searching for snak because the snak chunk starts with Tee.
The same applies to order numbers separated by dashes. The order number 121-657485676-89705 gets broken down into 121, 657485676, and 89705. You'd be able to find this order by typing in the whole order number, a chunk, or the beginning of any chunk.
You won't be able to Quicksearch for the last few digits of an order number, so use Advanced Search for this instead.
After running a Quicksearch, you can cancel shipments in your search results that are in Awaiting Payment, On Hold, or Awaiting Shipment statuses.
If the order has already been cancelled or shipped the option will be disabled. Hover over the Cancel button to see a tooltip explaining why you cannot cancel orders in those statuses.
ShipStation provides an advanced search option to search orders by multiple search criteria and to refine the results of your advanced search using filters.
To perform an advanced search.
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Click Advanced Search in the left-hand sidebar of the Orders grid.
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Select the criteria for your search, then click Search.
See the table below for explanations of available search criteria.
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Choose Reset to reset all fields and begin a new search, or select Exit Advanced Search and return to the regular view on the Orders grid.
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Refine and narrow your advanced search results further by applying Order Filters from the Filter bar.
The GIF below shows an advanced search within a specific store to find orders designated with Backorder tags and sending a backorder notification email. See this article to learn how to create custom email templates.
The following table lists the criteria and parameters available in an advanced search.
|
Criteria |
Parameters |
|---|---|
|
Order Status |
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Store |
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Order # |
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|
Recipient Name or Email search |
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|
Item Name |
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Item SKU |
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|
Item Option (Value) |
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|
Order Date |
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Use the column headers in the Orders grid to sort orders by criteria like Order Date, Age, Recipient Name, or other order information.
Click-and-drag columns to arrange them in any sequence you prefer. Scroll the screen left or right to view all columns.
Click the text in a column header (for example, Age, Item Name, or Store) to sort that column's contents in either ascending or descending order (alphabetical, chronological, numerical).
If you do not see a column you'd like to view:
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Click the Columns button.
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Select from the Manage Columns pop-up the column(s) you'd like to display in the Orders grid, and deselect any you do not want to see.
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Click Save Columns.
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Scroll to the right to see the columns added to the grid.
Click and drag to arrange them in your desired sequence.
The Group By feature allows you to group orders in the Awaiting Shipment status in your order grid by a variety of attributes. This can help you quickly find orders with something in common so they can be prepared together or prioritize to more easily fit into your workflow.
The Group By feature allows you to group orders by the following attributes:
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Store
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# Line Items
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Total Quantity
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Country
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Item Name
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Item SKU
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Requested Service
Once you create groups in your Orders Grid, you can further sort within the groups and bulk update all orders within a selected group.
To group your orders in the Orders Grid:
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Click the Group By button.
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Select a field to group your orders by from the drop-down menu.
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Click Combine with another field if you would like to add another field to group orders by.
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Select another attribute to group orders by, if necessary.
The Group By button will display how many attributes are currently in use.
Your orders grid will now be sorted into groups by the fields you specified.
Click column headers to further sort within the groups, or select entire groups to bulk update all orders within the group. You can also add filters while your grid is grouped to refine your view further.
To return the Orders Grid to its original state, click the Group By button and deselect the fields.
Orders with multiple items will display (Multiple) in the Item SKU and Item Name columns. These orders will also have a disclosure triangle in the Order # column that allows you to open the order and view all items contained within it directly in the Orders grid.
Available with the New Layout Only
The ability to view the individual items in a multi-item order in the Order grid is not available in ShipStation Legacy.
If you combine orders, this will also create an order with multiple items and multiple order numbers.
The images below show an order with multiple items and an order that has been combined. The combined order also displays (Multiple) in the Order # column.
Click the disclosure triangle in the Order # column to reveal the multiple items and order numbers in the grid.
When you select multiple orders in your Orders Grid, you can tell ShipStation how to group the order items in the Shipping Sidebar. You can select to group them by Orders or by Items:
|
Orders |
Items |
|---|---|
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To adjust how the items are grouped, click the action icon and select the option you wish to use.
To use this feature, you must select 2 or more orders and check the Show Sidebar option.
If you are using ShipStation Legacy, the process to sort orders differs somewhat from the new layout. The Advanced Search feature has a slightly different look to the menu, but functions the same in both layouts.
Use the column headers in the Orders grid to sort orders by to criteria like Order Date, Age, Recipient Name, or other order information.
Click-and-drag columns to arrange them in any sequence you prefer. Scroll the screen left or right to view all columns.
Click the title text (for example, Age, Item Name, or Store) in a column header to sort that column's contents in either ascending or descending order (alphabetical, chronological, numerical).