Your first order, start to finish

An order has two states that people confuse: whether it is paid, and whether it is shipped. They move independently, and the admin shows them separately on purpose.

When an order arrives

You get a notification, and the order appears in Orders. Open it and read, in this order: what was bought, what was paid, where it goes.

With a manual payment method the order waits for you to confirm the money arrived. Nothing else in the system can know that.

Getting it out

Prepare the parcel, create the label with your courier, and mark the order shipped with its tracking number. The customer gets the number automatically — do not send it by hand as well, or they will get it twice.

When something is wrong

• Wrong quantity or item — cancel and create the order again rather than editing it into something it never was. The customer sees a clean record.
• Cancelled — say why. The reason you write is what the customer receives.
• Payment did not finish — the order stays unpaid and the customer gets a link to complete it. Nothing is shipped until it does.

What to check after the first one

• The confirmation that went to the customer says what they actually bought, including quantities.
• The money is in your account, not just marked paid in the admin.
• The tracking number opens the courier's page.

An order marked shipped is a claim. The courier's tracking page is the evidence.