How to Split and Partially Fulfil Shopify Orders

In many real-world situations, merchants need to ship part of an order while holding the rest, due to backorders, pre-orders, or longer processing times. Partial fulfilment helps manage this, but handling it efficiently can be challenging without the right tools.

The PH Multi Carrier Shipping Label app simplifies this process by integrating directly with Shopify. You can:

• Generate labels and fulfil only the ready-to-ship items first.
• Later, print labels and fulfil the remaining items once they’re available.

This setup ensures faster deliveries, better customer experience, and complete control over multi-stage shipments. Here’s how to split Shopify orders and fulfil them using the PH Multi Carrier Shipping Label app, ensuring a smooth and trackable process.

Article Contents:

1. Split the orders in Shopify
2. Fulfilling Ready to Ship Items First
3. Fulfilling the Remaining Items Once Ready
   • Release Items from On-Hold Status
   • Fulfil the Remaining Items

1. Split the orders in Shopify

When a customer’s order includes multiple items, and not all of them are ready to ship, Shopify lets you split the order into multiple shipments. This way, you can fulfil the available items immediately while keeping the remaining ones pending for future fulfilment.

Here’s how you can split the order(s) by putting them on hold:

• Go to your Shopify admin > Orders and click on the order with the unready items

• In the Unfulfilled section, click the three-dot menu (⋯) and choose “Hold fulfillment”.

• Select the item(s) you want to put on hold and choose a reason.

• These product(s) will be excluded from the current fulfilment cycle but remain within the order for future processing.

2. Fulfilling Ready-to-Ship Items First

Once items are on hold in Shopify, only the ready-to-ship items appear in the PH Multi Carrier Shipping Label app. You can now process and ship these available items.

• Go to the order in the Orders tab. Confirm item details, carrier, service, packaging, and address. You can edit any of this before continuing. Refer to this guide for details on editing order information.
• Click Generate Label to create shipping labels for the ready items.

• Click Print Documents to get the shipping labels for your orders. The app will automatically redirect you to print the shipping labels. To print the other documents, like the tax invoice, packing slip, picklist, etc, select Print Documents > All option.

• Once ready for shipping, request a pickup within your Shopify store by selecting the order and clicking Request Pickup.

• After the request, check the Pickup tab to view pickup status and other details.

• Go back to the Orders tab, select the same order, and click Mark As Fulfilled.

• Shopify automatically updates the order status. Check the Shopify > Orders page to confirm tracking info and fulfilment status.

• Click on the order to see that the products shipped using the app are automatically marked as fulfilled in Shopify, while the other product(s) still remain on hold.

• The app sends tracking details to the customer via the Shopify Order Shipped Email.

• To track your orders, click Track Your Orders or visit the Tracking tab.

• The app displays the live tracking status of all shipments.

3. Fulfilling the Remaining Items Once Ready

Once the on hold products are available, begin the next stage of order fulfillment.

Release Items from On Hold Status

First, you’ll need to release the held items in Shopify to make them available for shipping.

• Go to the original order in Shopify > Orders. Find the items under the On Hold section and click Release hold.

• Shopify updates the order status to Partially Fulfilled.

• Go to the PH Multi Carrier Shipping Label app and click the Refresh icon next to the order.

• Open the order. The released items now appear in the order details and are ready to process.

Fulfil the Remaining Products

You can now generate labels and fulfil the order to complete the second shipment.

• In the app, open the order. Only the remaining items that were previously on hold appear in the order summary page.

• Review all shipping details. Click Generate Label or use Generate Label and Fulfill to handle both steps in one click.

• Click Print Document to print the shipping label and related documents (if required).

For details on scheduling a pickup, fulfilling the order, and tracking the shipment, you can refer to the steps outlined earlier in this article.

Partial fulfilment in Shopify offers flexibility. When paired with the PH Multi Carrier Shipping Label app, it transforms your shipping process. From label generation to pickups, fulfilment syncing, and real-time tracking, everything is streamlined.

If you’re managing split shipments, this setup helps deliver orders faster and more efficiently. You’ll enhance both your shipping workflow and your customers’ experience.