Combine Shipments

If you have items from multiple orders you wish to combine into a single shipment, use the Combine Shipments option. 

Combine Shipments allows you to combine items from separate orders into a single shipment while maintaining the integrity of each order for accurate record keeping. ShipStation can accurately communicate shipment statuses and tracking numbers to your selling channels for each order. 

ShipStation University Preparing Orders for Shipping Course

If learning by doing is more your style, take the ShipStation University Preparing Orders for Shipping course. The lesson videos will show you the different ways you can configure your shipments as well as how to split orders into multiple shipments or combine multiple shipments into one.

Combine Order Requirements

Orders MUST BE COMBINED IN THE AWAITING SHIPMENT STATUS before you create any labels.

  1. If you must combine orders and have already created a label for one of the shipments, you must VOID the label first. This order will then move back into the Awaiting Shipment status.

    Use Case: Perhaps you created a label and then realized afterward that the shipment needed to be combined with another shipment.

  2. Once the first label is voided, you can then combine items from the orders into a single shipment and create a new label.

Combine All Items

To ship all items from separate orders together:

Combine Some Items

If you want to ship only some of the items in each order together, first use the Split into Shipments process to split the items you will not include in the combined shipment into their own shipment. You can then use the above steps to combine the remaining items into a single shipment.  

Combine Order Alerts

ShipStation also provides Combine Order Alerts to let you know when orders import and can be combined. These alerts appear in a bubble on your profile icon.

Toolbar closeup, with red arrow pointing to the number of alerts (147) on the Profile icon.

You can also view Combine Shipment alerts through the sidebar on the Orders tab.

Click Order Alerts, then Combine Shipments.

V3_ORD_SB_OrderAlerts_MRK.png

A pop-up menu will appear, displaying a list of the alerts.

V3_ORD_OrderAlerts_CombineShipments_MRK.png

You can click on the order to view, take the recommended action (here, Combine Shipments), or dismiss the alert(s) altogether.

Combine Order Alert Requirements

For a combine order alert to appear, two or more orders must have both a matching customer ID and Ship To address.

View Combined Shipments in Orders Grid

Orders containing multiple items can be expanded in the Orders grid so you can see exactly what items are included in each order without opening the Order Details screen.

To view the order's items, click the disclosure triangle to the left of the order you wish to view.

Orders grid. Boxes outline a multi-item order and an order that has been combined.
Orders grid with multi-item order expanded, showing the items and Order # of the combined order

Revert a Combined Shipment

If you need to revert or "uncombine" shipments you have previously combined within ShipStation, you must:

Split the Items Into a New Shipment

The first step moves the combined items to a separate shipment that can then be removed from the order.

  1. Click either of the combined order numbers to open the Order Details screen.

    A combined order is expanded showing both combined order numbers.
  2. Make a note of which item(s) were combined.

    Combined items have a call-out indicating the original order from which they were combined, such as *from SH600002 .

    Items are displayed and a message indicating they were combined from another order is highlighted for each item.
  3. Click Split Ship.

    The Split Ship link is highlighted on the order details screen.
  4. Click the Shipment drop-down menu for the combined item(s) and select a new shipment to move them to. New shipments are indicated by (creates new), such as Shipment 2 (creates new).

    Be sure to select the new shipment from the drop-down menu for all of the combined line items that you are uncombining.

    The shipment drop-down box shows the subsequent order in the combined order.
  5. Click Save.

The order details screen will update with the items in a new shipment.

The new shipment, shipment 2 of 2, is shown on Order Details.

Remove the New Shipment

You can now remove the shipment containing the combined items from the order.

  1. Click either of the combined order numbers to open the Order Details screen.

    A combined order is expanded showing both combined order numbers.
  2. Select the shipment you wish to remove. Then, click Remove shipment.

    The shipments is selected on the order details screen and the remove shipment button is highlighted.
  3. Verify that you wish to remove the shipment from the current order by clicking the Remove shipment button.

    The remove shipment modal is displayed with the remove shipment button selected.

This action uncombines the items from the order you have open and reverts the items to their original order. Notice that when you close the Order Details window, the orders return to their separate state.

Uncombined orders are shown on the orders grid.

Notes about Combining Shipments

Before You Combine Orders!

Not all selling channels support the shipment update we send after an order has been combined. 

At this time, orders combined in ShipStation for Amazon, OpenSky, SellerActive, or TradeGecko will not update correctly on the selling channel, so we do not recommend combining orders from these selling channels in ShipStation. If you have done so, you will need to update the selling channel with your shipment information manually. See our Integrations Guide for more information.

  • ShipStation will notify the marketplace for each order separately, but the customer notification emails will be combined into a single email that lists all the products in the combined shipment.

  • ShipStation will use the default email template assigned to the store, even if all individual orders were set to use a different template.

  • If using the [Order Number] field replacement for Label Messages, Packing Slips, or Email Templates, ShipStation will use the Order Number for the first order created.

field replacement

Combine Orders Legacy Layout

If you use ShipStation's Legacy Layout and receive multiple orders that ship to the same destination, you may want to combine them into a single order so you can ship them in a single shipment.

Before You Combine Orders!

Not all selling channels support the shipment update we send after an order has been combined. 

At this time, orders combined in ShipStation for Amazon, OpenSky, SellerActive, or TradeGecko will not update correctly on the selling channel, so we do not recommend combining orders from these selling channels in ShipStation. If you have done so, you will need to update the selling channel with your shipment information manually. See our Integrations Guide for more information.

ShipStation will combine all selected orders and their items into a single surviving order, and the other orders will disappear from your Orders grid. These orders cannot be restored, though you can split the order into multiple orders again if necessary (this will result in new order records). 

Try ShipStation's New Layout

ShipStation's new layout lets you combine items from multiple orders into a single shipment without combining multiple order records into a single order in ShipStation. This lets the order records in ShipStation match what you have in your selling channel and produces more accurate order and shipment reports.

field replacement