How to add a Shopify store to ShipStation, what features are available, other need-to-know details, and troubleshooting tips.
Shopify is a hosted-shopping-cart system which means you don’t have to have your own server. Shopify’s large network of partners and its application store offer additional features for your ecommerce store. ShipStation's Shopify integration supports order and product imports, custom fields, as well as customer-requested shipping services and customizable options for email confirmations.
Need an account? Sign up for a free 14-day Shopify trial!
Connection Requirements:
-
An active Shopify account.
-
Your Shopify store domain.
Order Import Requirements:
-
The order has been created within 90 days of the current date.
-
Orders must contain at least one physical product.
-
Orders will not import if certain fields are missing in the feed (e.g., address line 1, postal code, etc)
-
Include a Ship To address.
To connect your Shopify store to your ShipStation account:
-
Select the Shopify tile.
-
Enter your Shopify Domain, then click Test Connection to ensure that you correctly entered the URL.
To find your Shopify Domain, log in to your Shopify account and go to your dashboard. Copy the part of the URL after https:// but before /admin:
-
If Test Connection is successful, click Connect.
-
After you click Connect, you'll be redirected to Shopify and the ShipStation Application will be added to your Shopify account. If you're already logged in to Shopify, no additional action is needed. If you're not logged in to ShipStation, you'll be prompted to log in now.
Once the application installs, you'll be redirected back to your ShipStation account, where you can update the store-specific settings in ShipStation.
ShipStation's integration with Shopify supports these standard features:
ShipStation's integration with Shopify allows for these additional features:
|
Feature |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Send ShipStation rates to Shopify Checkout |
ShipStation's Checkout Rates Options allow you to send the rates you get in ShipStation to your store checkout. Shopify Plan: To use the Checkout Rates Options, you must be on a Shopify Advanced plan or higher. Alternatively, you could also gain access by switching your Shopify plan monthly payment to an annual payment. Or you may request access to Shopify's third-party calculated shipping rates that Shopify charges an additional fee for. Please see our Send Rates to Store Checkout for setup instructions. |
|
Connects to Shopify's Inventory features |
ShipStation can display Shopify's inventory stock count, and will reduce stock from the appropriate inventory location when ShipStation sends the shipment update to Shopify. See Shopify Inventory for more information. |
|
Supports Partial Shipping |
If you split a Shopify order in ShipStation, the shipment update we'll send to Shopify will only include the products within the shipped order. |
|
Supports Shopify POS |
ShipStation will import Shopify POS orders as long as they are for a physical product and as long as they require shipping. |
You can enable the following options in the Shopify Store Settings in ShipStation:
-
Map "partially_paid" To Awaiting Payment
When enabled, ShipStation will import Shopify orders in the Partially Paid status into ShipStation's Awaiting Payment status. If this setting is not enabled, Partially Paid orders will import into Awaiting Shipment instead.
-
Shopify Discount Codes In Notes
Enable this if your customers use discount codes with their orders and you want that discount code to appear in the order's Internal Notes in ShipStation.
-
Import Closed Orders
When enabled, ShipStation will import orders in the Closed or Archived status from Shopify into the Shipped status in ShipStation. If this setting is not enabled, ShipStation will not import these orders from Shopify.
-
Check for On-Hold Fulfillment Orders
When enabled, this setting will automatically import Shopify orders into On Hold in ShipStation if ShipStation detects any of the Shopify fulfillment orders are in a Fulfillment Hold state. After a store refresh, if ShipStation detects the order has been released from a Shopify Fulfillment Hold, it will move the order to the appropriate ShipStation status and update fulfillable quantity accordingly. If you are not yet using Line Item Adjustments (fulfillable_quantity) there will be no difference to the quantity values you see.
-
Custom Fields
Shopify sends additional order details to ShipStation that are not mapped to a ShipStation field by default. If you need these details in ShipStation, you can map them to ShipStation's Custom Fields #1, #2, and #3.
Select the item you wish to map to a custom field from the drop-down menu and save your changes. Going forward, ShipStation will pull that data into the assigned Custom Field in ShipStation when the order imports (previously imported orders will not be affected).
The following fields are available from Shopify to map in ShipStation:
-
Bill Address
-
Bill Name
-
Customer Tags
-
Fraud Risk
-
Order Count
-
Order Tags
-
Shopify Order ID
-
Total Spent
-
Total Spent - Total Price
-
Note Attributes
-
In addition to those features already listed, you can request the ShipStation User Success team to enable the following settings for your Shopify store.
|
Feature |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Exclude Third-Party Fulfillment |
When enabled, ShipStation will only import products in an order if the fulfillment type is set to Manual or Shopify. This feature is primarily used if you have a fulfillment provider (like Fulfillment by Amazon) connected to your Shopify account. |
|
Map "authorized" to Awaiting Payment |
When enabled, ShipStation will import Shopify orders in the Authorized status as Awaiting Payment orders in ShipStation. If this setting is not enabled, Authorized orders import as Awaiting Shipment. |
|
Use Fulfillable Quantity |
The Use Fulfillable Quantity setting allows ShipStation to update the quantity of an item on an order in ShipStation if that value changes in Shopify. Enable this setting to allow the line items in ShipStation to update based on the actions taken in Shopify. The fulfillable quantity value in Shopify updates when orders are fulfilled within Shopify, are partially cancelled, or the line items are edited within Shopify. If any of these actions occur, ShipStation will update the quantity the next time you refresh your Shopify store in ShipStation. |
When unfulfilled order items are adjusted within Shopify, the next store refresh will prompt ShipStation to adjust the order items to match accordingly.
This feature is useful if you fulfill some products outside of ShipStation, handle partial order cancellations or refunds, or otherwise edit the quantity of ordered items on Shopify orders.
If line items change in Shopify after the order has imported into ShipStation, click the Import button 
in ShipStation to pull this new data from Shopify. ShipStation will compare the fulfillable quantity of each order's line items and do the following when the new data differs from the quantity on the existing order record in ShipStation:
-
Change the quantity of the item(s) in ShipStation to match Shopify.
-
Adjust the product total for the order in ShipStation.
-
Show an alert in the Order Details that a change has been made to the quantity of items in the order.
Please be aware of this feature's current limitations:
-
Will not adjust the weight of the order to reflect the change in item quantity.
-
Will not remove line items that change to a quantity of 0 (but ShipStation will display 0 for the item in the Qty field).
-
Will not adjust the quantity for customs declarations. If this is an international shipment, you must manually adjust the quantity in your customs declarations.
-
Will not adjust the total paid (only the product total).
-
Will not adjust the item quantity if orders have been split into multiple shipments in ShipStation.
ShipStation can import Shopify's Fraud Risk Assessment into one of your ShipStation Custom Fields. This feature helps you identify at-risk orders for you to review before you ship them.
You can use this imported risk assessment to automatically tag at-risk orders and perform other actions necessary for your workflow.
To import the Shopify Fraud Risk assessment into ShipStation:
-
Click Edit Store Details next to your Shopify store.
-
Then click Edit Shopify Settings to edit the Custom Fields.
-
Select Fraud Risk from a Custom Field drop-down under Custom Field Mappings section.
-
Click Save.
Tip
Be sure to review Shopify's Fraud Analysis help page if you are unfamiliar with how Shopify handles fraud risk or if you have not yet enabled this feature on your Shopify store.
This section explains how to create an automation rule in ShipStation to automatically tag at-risk orders when they import. This automation rule will then move those at-risk orders to the On Hold status in ShipStation for further review. However, you can use an automation rule to perform any action you require, not just adding tags and moving orders to On Hold status.
To use automation to tag an order, you must first create the tag in ShipStation. If necessary, review the instructions for creating tags in ShipStation first.
Shopify has three levels of fraud alerts: low, medium, and high. Here is how each assessment will appear in ShipStation:
-
Low risk = Accept
-
Medium risk = Investigate
-
High risk = Cancel
For example, a Shopify order considered to be high risk will show the word Cancel in your Custom Field, located in your order notes.
Create a tag for one or all of these options? You decide. After you create your tags, they will be available when you create your automation rules.
Next, you'll create an automation rule that uses the imported Custom Field from Shopify as the rule criteria, and set the rule actions to add a tag and move the order to On Hold.
If you don't know how to create an automation rule, please review the Automation Rules article for instructions.
This example rule uses Custom Field 1 as the criteria and will apply to an order that is medium risk.
This rule states: For any order that contains the text "Investigate" in Custom Field 1, ShipStation will apply the Shopify - Investigate tag and move the order to the On Hold status for 10 days.
You could add another action that sends an email to your warehouse manager, that assigns the order to a specific account user, or that does any number of other actions.
Create a rule for each fraud risk status you'd like to tag. ShipStation will apply the actions when the orders import.
Tip
To apply the rule to orders that have imported already, click the Reprocess Automation Rules button in the Settings > Automation > Automation Rules screen.
-
Orders in Shopify have 3 different types of statuses: Order, Fulfillment, and Payment.
-
Order status can be Open, Archived, or Cancelled
-
Fulfillment status can be Fulfilled, Unfulfilled, Partially Fulfilled, Scheduled,and On Hold
-
Payment status can be Authorized *, Paid, Partially Paid**, Pending, Refunded, Unpaid, and Voided
-
-
Orders in the Authorized status will import as Awaiting Shipment by default. If you want ShipStation to treat Authorized orders as Awaiting Payment instead, please contact ShipStation support.
-
Partially Paid orders in an Open status will import into Awaiting Shipment by default. If you enabled the store setting Map "partially_paid" To Awaiting Payment those orders will instead import into Awaiting Payment.
-
If an order imports into Awaiting Payment from Shopify, the order status should update to Awaiting Shipment if the order is updated to Paid in Shopify (upon next store refresh).
-
A customer record will not be created if an order imports into Awaiting Payment (even if email is present). The customer record will be created after the order moves to Awaiting Shipment.
-
By default, ShipStation will ignore Shopify orders in the Closed or Archived status.
-
ShipStation cannot import orders while they are in the Draft status.
-
Updating On Hold orders: ShipStation will update orders in the On Hold status if changes are made to the order on Shopify. If expected changes do not appear in ShipStation after you have refreshed the store, contact ShipStation support to request they set your refresh date back to the date the change occurred and refresh the store again.
-
Shopify will only import orders with physical products into ShipStation.
-
If you are using Shopify's Inventory features, link the Ship From Location to a Shopify Inventory source so you can view your stock counts in ShipStation. See Shopify Inventory for more information.
-
Automatic Discounts: A discount applied at checkout that does not require the customer to manually enter a code at checkout. ‘Automatic Discounts’ from Shopify do not import into ShipStation. These discounts are a different type of discount than the ‘Discount Codes’ that would import as a line item. This difference may be why you see a discrepancy between Order Total and Amount Paid.
Here are some common issues experienced by users, potential causes, and available troubleshooting tips.
|
Issue |
How to troubleshoot or resolve |
|---|---|
|
An order refunded in Shopify may still import into ShipStation if its order status hasn’t changed. |
When you refund a Shopify order, you must also update its order status to Cancelled so the order will not import into ShipStation. |
|
Shopify's subscription-based order placement not supported |
ShipStation does not currently support orders placed using Shopify's new subscription-based order placement feature because this new feature causes confusion with mapping for the Requested Service. While the Shopify orders will import, the orders placed through this new method cause Shopify to send us multiple Requested Service values within the order feeds. ShipStation can only display a single value for the Requested Service at a time on any order. SOLUTION 1: The best workaround is to map the newly displayed Requested Service value shown in the orders to use a particular service. SOLUTION 2: If service mapping won't work for you, consider adding an Order Tag to these "subscription orders" in Shopify and mapping the Order Tags to a Custom Field through the Store Settings. This way, you can use an Automation Rule to assign services as needed. |
|
A Shopify order is not importing into ShipStation |
There are multiple reasons why a Shopify order would not import into ShipStation, but here are the most common:
In these cases, your best option is to update the order in Shopify, if possible. If you cannot update the order, ShipStation will be unable to import the order. In addition, ShipStation by default does not import orders that are Closed or Archived. If you need to import Closed and Archived orders, enable the Import Closed Orders option in your Store Settings page. |
|
After creating a label, ShipStation updated the Shopify order but only left a note with the tracking information and did not update it as fulfilled |
This happens when ShipStation tries to create a fulfillment update for the Shopify order, but we receive an error from Shopify that the fulfillment could not be created for one of the following reasons:
If this occurs, ShipStation will not be able to update the order as fulfilled. You may be able to update the order directly on Shopify. |
|
Prompted to upgrade Shopify plan to use Checkout Rates even when on the appropriate Shopify plan |
Shopify does not always automatically update permissions on all stores when billing plans change, so they may need to manually make the update to your store. Contact Shopify support and request access to the CarrierServices endpoints for your store. If your Shopify billing plan meets the requirements for ShipStation Checkout Rates, then you are entitled to this access. |