Dellevering: send en del af ordren nu og resten senere

Sometimes you can’t ship the entire order all at once. Two of the three items are in stock, the last one is on backorder, and the customer is waiting. Until now, you had two options: ship everything later, or ship what you had and keep track of the rest yourself.

With partial shipping, you can ship part of the order now and the rest later. The order remains a single order, with a single price, a single invoice, and a single payment transaction. Shoporama keeps track of what’s been shipped, what’s missing, and when the order will be complete.

How to ship part of an order

You can create a partial shipment in three places in the admin panel:

• From the picking list. At the bottom of the order card, you’ll find the “Partial Delivery” button next to “Pending,” “Complete,” and “Shipped.” This is where most partial deliveries occur, since it’s at the packing table that you realize something is missing.
• From the order list. Tap the three dots on the far right of the order and select “Partial Shipment.” This option only appears while the order is marked as “New,” “In Progress,” “Pending,” or “Ready”—if it has already been shipped, there’s nothing left to split up.
• From the order. If the order already has at least one package, the New Split Delivery button is located at the bottom of the Shipments card.

You’ll be taken to the New Partial Shipment page, where you select what to include in the package. The quantities are pre-filled with everything that’s missing, so you just reduce the quantities for items you don’t have on the shelf.

You then have two options:

• "Send X of Y items now " marks the package as shipped immediately, and the customer is notified.
• "Save without shipping" saves the package as prepared. Use this if you’re packing today but won’t drop it off with the carrier until tomorrow. You can still edit it later.

You can enter the tracking number right away or wait until the shipping label is generated. If you’ve set up GLS or PostNord, you can order the label directly from the package, and the number will be added automatically.

What happens to the order

A partial shipment does not change the order status to “Shipped.” If the order status is “New,” it will change to “In Progress,” so it remains on the picking list. If you’ve set it to “Pending” or “Ready” yourself, it will remain there. Only when the last item has been shipped will it automatically change to “Shipped.” This is the most important detail of the entire feature, because it’s the status change to “Shipped” that triggers the rest:

• The invoice number is assigned
• The payment is debited if you’ve set it to be debited upon shipment
• The order is transferred to your accounting software if you’ve set it to transfer upon shipment

All of this happens exactly once, with the last package, just like on a regular order. Just later. There are never two invoices or two payment deductions for a single order.

Here’s how it looks in the order list

Partially shipped orders are marked directly in the list as “4 of 7 items shipped.” The number counts items, not line items, so an order with one line item of five pieces can easily be partially shipped. If the order is complete and was shipped in more than one package, it will instead say “Shipped in 2 packages.”

If you want to view them all together, you can filter: click “Shipping ” in the filter row above the order list, and select “Partially Shipped Only ” under “Partial Delivery.”

What the customer sees

The customer receives an email for each package, so they know what’s on the way and what’s coming later:

• If something is still missing: “Part of your order #2093 from Mortens Kafferisteri has been shipped”
• If it’s the last package: “The last part of your order #2093 from Mortens Kafferisteri has been shipped”

The email shows only the items in that specific package and its tracking number. This means the customer doesn’t receive a list of the entire order every time, and they can track the specific package that’s on its way.

The email is only sent if the shipping method is configured to send a notification upon shipment. You can manage this under "Delivery" for each individual shipping method, just as before.

If you’ve entered a custom text in the “Order Shipment Subject” field under “Settings,” that text will be used for all shipment emails, including partial shipments. This means the subject line will be the same for both the first and last packages. Leave the field blank if you want the two different subject lines mentioned above.

If you’re using one of Shoporama’s built-in themes, the text is already in place. If you’ve had your own theme custom-built, the email template must be updated before it can distinguish between a partial and a full shipment. Until then, the theme will send the standard shipping email listing all items in the order, once per package. You don’t have to figure this out on your own: the first time a partial shipment triggers an email from a theme that doesn’t support this feature, Shoporama will send you a message under “Messages” in the admin panel so you can see how many customers received the incorrect email. Email support@shoporama.dk, and we’ll help you set up the template.

Shipping Labels

If you have GLS or PostNord set up, you can order a shipping label directly for the package. The label is generated based on the package’s weight and contents, not the entire order, so you don’t pay for items that aren’t in the box. For shipments outside the EU, only the items in the package are used for the customs declaration.

DAO and Burd do not support this yet. If you try to order a label from them for an order with partial shipments, nothing will happen, and you’ll receive a message in the admin panel instructing you to use GLS or PostNord instead, or to enter the package number manually. The reason is that these two integrations can only handle one tracking number per order and would overwrite the first one.

Packing slip for the package

Each package has its own packing slip. Click the printer icon next to the package—either on the “Shipments” tab of the order or on the partial shipment page—to open a slip that shows only the items in that package.

The slip is labeled Package 1, Package 2, and so on, and indicates whether the rest will arrive later or if this was the final part. The amounts are not listed on a package slip, as the order total does not match a box containing only a portion of the items. Instead, it refers to the invoice for the order.

The order’s standard packing slip is still accessible via the three dots in the order list, and it shows the entire order as before. If you do not use partial shipments, you will not notice any difference.

If you have your own theme, the same applies as for email: the theme’s packing slip must be updated before it can distinguish between partial deliveries. Until then, it will print the items for the entire order, and you’ll receive a message under “Messages” in the admin panel the first time this happens.

Edit, Delete, or Undo

• While the package is being prepared, you can freely edit it. Click Edit next to the package, increase or decrease the quantities, or click Delete Package.
• Once the package has been shipped, it cannot be edited. It’s already out the door, and an edit would make the record inaccurate. If you click View, you can instead cancel the package, after which its items will once again be counted as unshipped and can be repacked.

The customer will not be notified when you cancel a package, and any tracking number that has already been generated will remain on the order.

Good to Know

• Inventory is deducted at the time of purchase, as always. A partial shipment does not affect inventory; it simply records what has been shipped.
• The picking list updates automatically. An order awaiting backordered items disappears from the picking list and reappears on its own the day the item is back in stock. You don’t need to keep your own list.
• There’s no setting you need to enable. The feature is simply there, and an order for which you don’t create partial shipments behaves exactly as before.
• There is no limit to the number of packages an order can be shipped in.
• Deposit items cannot be included in a package and are skipped when you select items. They also do not count toward “4 out of 7 items shipped,” so an order with a deposit is considered complete once the physical items have been shipped.
• If you manually set the order to “Shipped” while there are packages ready for shipment, they will automatically be marked as shipped. Partial shipment is a record, not a restriction.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the order invoiced, and when is the payment processed?

Both of these actions occur only after the last package has been shipped and the order status changes to “Shipped.” The first packages do not trigger any accounting entries; they only trigger an email to the customer. The order retains a single price and a single invoice throughout the entire process, regardless of how many packages it is shipped in.

The first package is shipped on the 30th; the rest aren’t shipped until the following month. Which month is the order posted in?

The month in which the last package is shipped, because that’s when the invoice is generated and the order is transferred to the accounting system. Until then, the order is listed as “In Progress” and isn’t posted to the books. If you have many partial shipments spanning the end of one month and the beginning of the next, it’s worth keeping this in mind.

I’m at the packing table and only have 2 of the 3 items. What exactly should I do?

Stay in the picking list and click “Partial Shipment ” at the bottom of the order card. Select how many items you’re shipping now, and click “Send.” The rest will remain on the order; the customer will automatically be notified that a partial shipment is on its way, and the order will reappear in the picking list once the remaining items are back in stock.

What paperwork goes in the box when I’m only shipping half the order?

A packing slip for that specific package. It lists only the items that are actually in the box and is labeled “Package 1 · the rest will be shipped later,” so the recipient isn’t looking for something that isn’t there. You print it from the printer icon next to the package on the order.

Does the customer get notified each time, or will they just think something is missing from the package?

The customer receives an email for each package, and it clearly states that it’s part of the order, and later that it’s the final part. They still only see one price and one invoice, so there aren’t two payments to get confused about.

How can I tell if an order has only been partially shipped without opening it?

It’s listed directly in the order list as “4 of 7 items shipped.” If you want to see them all together, you can filter by “Partially Shipped” under the Shipping filter.

What if I accidentally click “Partial Shipment” on an order where everything is in stock?

It’s no big deal. As long as the package hasn’t been shipped, you can correct it or delete it entirely. If it’s already marked as shipped, you can cancel it, and the items will count as unshipped again. The customer won’t be billed or charged for this reason.

Can two packers accidentally ship the same item twice?

No. The number of items you can add to a package can never exceed the actual number that still needs to be shipped, and this is also checked when you save. If your colleague has just shipped the last two, you cannot ship them again.

Does the customer pay shipping twice when the order is shipped in two packages?

No. The customer pays the shipping fee selected at the time of order, just once. If you order a shipping label for the second package, that’s a cost you’ll have to cover yourself. It’s worth keeping this in mind if you frequently split orders.

What should I do if the remaining items never arrive?

In that case, you’ll need to correct the order so it matches what the customer actually receives. Remove or correct the item line on the order, and then mark the order as Shipped. If you simply mark it as Shipped without correcting the line, the customer will be billed for the entire original amount, including the item they never received.

Can I see which package has been delivered to the customer?

Delivery status and package pickup information are stored per order, not per package. If you ship an order in multiple packages, the status will therefore only show one of them. However, each package has its own tracking number, so you can always look up the individual package with the shipping carrier.

For those building integrations

Partial shipments are also available in the REST API as a sub-resource of the order, at /order/{id}/shipment, where you can retrieve, create, edit, ship, and delete packages. The order’s response also contains a list of shipments when it has packages. There are webhooks for ` shipment_created ` and ` shipment_sent ` under the `order` group. See the full description in the API documentation.