Orders & fulfillment

Every order lives in Orders in your admin. Each order tracks three independent things at once: where it is in its lifecycle (open, closed, canceled), whether it’s paid, and how far it is fulfilled.

Diagram viewer: scroll horizontally to inspect the full flow.

A paid order can remain unfulfilled, while a fulfilled order can later be partially refunded. Order cancellation is tracked on the lifecycle axis.

Note

Fulfilment in Sellerlane is a two-layer model. Each order is broken into one or more fulfillment orders — an operational plan of what each location should fulfil — and you then record fulfillments against them — the actual shipment, pickup, digital grant, or gift-card issue, with packages and tracking. The two layers are explained in detail below.

Payment statuses

Status	Meaning
pending	Payment started but not confirmed (e.g. UPI approval in progress, or a manual payment method awaiting your confirmation)
authorized	Amount reserved by the gateway, not yet captured
paid	Captured or otherwise confirmed payment, including a manual collection you marked paid
partially_refunded	Some amount refunded
refunded	Fully refunded
voided	Authorization released without capture

Tip

Payment confirmations arrive by gateway webhook and a background reconciliation sweep that re-checks the gateway every few seconds. A slow webhook never strands an order — it will flip to paid on its own. See Payments for how authorize/capture works.

Fulfillment statuses

The order’s overall fulfillment status is one of three values — there is no order-level “cancelled” fulfillment status. Cancellation happens at the fulfillment-order or line-quantity level instead (covered later).

Status	Meaning
unfulfilled	Nothing fulfilled yet
partially_fulfilled	Some line quantities fulfilled
fulfilled	Every fulfillable quantity is fulfilled

Working the Orders list

The Orders list is your daily queue. The toolbar gives you filter tabs, search, sort, a location filter, and — once you select rows — a bulk-action bar.

1. Filter by tab. Switch between All, Open, Unfulfilled, Unpaid, Closed, and Canceled. The Unfulfilled tab shows orders with items still to fulfil; Unpaid shows orders pending payment.

2. Search. Type an order number, customer name, email, or phone to narrow the visible rows.

3. Sort. Choose Newest first, Oldest first, Highest / Lowest total, or Highest / Lowest order number.

4. Filter by location. Pick a location to see only orders tied to it, or leave it on All locations.

Bulk actions

Tick the checkbox on one or more rows (or Select page) to reveal the bulk bar. Before any action runs, Sellerlane re-fetches the selected orders so it acts on fresh data, and only the records that actually qualify are touched.

From the Bulk actions menu:

• Hold fulfillment orders — put open fulfillment orders on hold with a reason you type.
• Release fulfillment holds — release held fulfillment orders back to open.
• Close fulfillment orders — close open or on-hold fulfillment orders.
• Cancel fulfillment orders — cancel fulfillment orders that have nothing fulfilled yet.
• Capture authorized payments — capture gateway authorizations.
• Void authorized payments — release authorizations without capturing.
• Mark manual payments paid — settle manual-method orders that are still payment-pending.

Each bulk action returns a summary toast — for example “7 of 10 succeeded” or “5 succeeded, 2 failed” — so you always see how many records changed. Every bulk call carries an idempotency key, so an accidental double-click won’t apply the action twice.

Export, print, and copy

The bulk bar also has utilities for the selected orders:

• Export downloads a CSV with columns: order number, created at, customer, email, phone, location, lifecycle, payment, fulfillment, channel, item count, total, currency, and shipping option.
• Print opens a printable page of order summaries (number, customer, date, location, the status trio, total, and line items).
• Copy numbers copies the selected order numbers to your clipboard.

Caution

The Print summaries are not a packing slip — they list line items but no shipping address and no SKUs. Use them for an at-a-glance pull list, not for the box.

Fulfillment orders

Open an order and find the Fulfillment orders card — the operational plan for what each location should fulfil. An order is split into a fulfillment order per delivery group and location, which is why a single order can have several of them (for example, two items shipping from two warehouses produce two fulfillment orders). Each carries a status:

Status	Meaning
open	Ready to fulfil
on_hold	Paused with a reason; won’t fulfil until released
closed	Finished — no more work expected
canceled	Cancelled before fulfilment

Per fulfillment order you can:

• Fulfill — record a fulfillment for some or all of its remaining quantities (see below).
• Move — transfer its items to another location or to a new destination.
• Hold / Release — pause it with a reason, then resume it.
• Edit plan — adjust the planned quantities.
• Close — finish it without further fulfilment.
• Cancel — cancel it (only while open or on hold).

Note

A non-shipping-only order (all digital, gift card, or event) may be auto-fulfilled without any shipping fulfillment order at all — the card can legitimately read “No fulfillment orders.” See Automatic fulfillment below.

Multi-location and transfers

Because fulfillment orders are scoped to a location, multi-location stores naturally split an order by where stock lives. The location on each fulfillment order ties directly to its shipping origin — see Shipping & checkout for how location groups drive rates. If stock isn’t where you expected, use Move to transfer the items to another active location (or a new destination) before fulfilling.

Recording a fulfillment

A fulfillment is the actual execution against a fulfillment order. Each fulfillment carries a method, optional packages with tracking, and a status it moves through.

1. On the fulfillment order, choose Fulfill.

2. Pick items and quantities. You can fulfil in parts as stock ships; remaining quantities stay on the fulfillment order.

3. Choose a method — ship, pickup, digital, service, or gift_card.

4. Optionally set timestamps (packed / shipped / delivered / completed) and a note, then create the fulfillment.

Packages and tracking

For shipped fulfillments, add a package with Add package:

1. Enter a tracking number (required).

2. Optionally add a carrier name, carrier code, tracking URL, and weight (grams).

3. Save. The package appears on the fulfillment as Carrier · tracking number.

Tip

A tracking link only appears where you’ve supplied a tracking URL (or a carrier code the storefront can map). Tracking number alone shows the number but not a clickable link.

Moving a fulfillment forward

Each fulfillment has its own status flow. Use the row buttons to mark Packed, then Shipped, then Complete — or Cancel the fulfillment. A cancelled fulfillment locks its actions.

Pickup and POS

The pickup method is for buyer collection rather than carrier shipping — there is no package or tracking to enter. POS orders fulfil at the selling location (the location stamped on the order), and typically carry out with no shipping at all.

Caution

Sellerlane does not send a separate shipping-confirmation email when you record a fulfillment. The demonstrable customer-facing email is the digital delivery email (download links / license keys), which you can resend. If you need to notify a buyer that something shipped, share the tracking details directly.

Automatic fulfillment

Digital products, license keys, gift cards, and event bookings don’t need packing — Sellerlane can fulfil them automatically once an order’s payment is captured, which also delivers download links, keys, and tickets. Configure it in Settings → Auto-fulfillment.

Store default

The Auto-fulfill store default controls everything non-shipping. The shipped default is Auto-fulfill everything:

Store default	What auto-fulfils on payment
Auto-fulfill everything (default)	Every non-shipping item
Only digital & gift cards	Digital products and gift cards
Only gift cards	Gift cards only
Nothing — fulfill manually	Nothing; everything waits for you

By product type

Each non-shipping type can override the store default — Digital downloads, License keys, Gift cards, and Event bookings. Per type you choose Use store default (inherit), Always auto-fulfill, or Hold for manual fulfillment. License keys fall back to the Digital downloads setting when left on Use store default.

License-key pool exhaustion

When a key pool runs dry at fulfilment time, the License keys policy decides what happens: Hold the item & alert me (the default safe behaviour) or Fail the fulfillment.

Per-product pins

You can pin a specific item to Always auto or Always manual, regardless of the type and store rules above. Search for a digital, gift-card, or event product and pin it.

Note

Items the policy holds for manual handling stay on their fulfillment order with a hold. Open the order and Release (or fulfil) them when you’re ready — the order won’t reach fulfilled until they’re handled.

Digital, license-key, and gift-card delivery

The order’s Digital delivery card shows download access, email delivery, and license assignments. Per grant you can see the download state (downloads used vs. limit), first-activated and last-downloaded times, and the expiry, plus the delivery destination email and any attached assets.

Actions per grant:

• Resend the delivery email — handy after correcting a typo’d address.
• Revoke the grant.

For license keys attached to a grant:

• Reveal (or Reveal again) a key.
• Replace — reassign a different key from the pool.

Scheduled gift cards can be sent now, rescheduled, or cancelled from their delivery card. Online event meetings (join links, reschedules, regeneration) are managed from the Events dashboard, not the order page.

Cancelling unfulfilled quantities

There is no whole-order “Cancel order” button. The primitive is Cancel items — it cancels only the still-unfulfilled quantities at the line level and releases the inventory those quantities had committed.

1. Open the order and choose Cancel items.

2. Set the quantity to cancel per line — only the cancelable (unfulfilled) quantity is offered.

3. Optionally add a reason and note, then confirm.

Caution

You cannot cancel a quantity that’s already fulfilled — undo that through a return, not a cancellation. Cancelling does not move money: refund the buyer separately via Refunds & returns. Buyers can also request cancellation of unfulfilled orders themselves through self-service — you approve, or it auto-approves per your rules.

Manual & authorized payments before fulfilling

Manual-payment orders stay payment-pending until you settle them. From the order (or in bulk from the list):

• Capture an authorized gateway payment to take the money.
• Void an authorization to release it without charging.
• Mark manual payment paid for offline methods (bank transfer, cash, etc.).

See Payments and Manual payment methods for the full flow.

Timeline and notes

The Timeline card aggregates activity from fulfillment, return, receiving, refund, and payment events, plus order creation, newest first. It is read-only — there’s no add-a-comment box. The Notes card shows the order note as display-only text. For structured, queryable data on an order, use Metafields instead.

Prerequisites

• At least one active location is required to fulfil — destination transfers and fulfilments resolve against active locations. See Locations & inventory.
• Fulfilling commits and consumes inventory; cancelling unfulfilled quantities releases it.

Troubleshooting

• An item is stuck on hold. Your auto-fulfillment policy held it (a type set to Hold for manual, a Always manual pin, or an empty license-key pool). Open the order and Release or fulfil it.
• A fulfillment order won’t close. Closing/cancelling is blocked once the order is already closed or canceled — check its current status badge.
• No tracking link is showing. Add a tracking URL (or a carrier code) to the package — a tracking number alone renders as text, not a link.
• A partially-fulfilled order won’t reach fulfilled. Some quantity is still unfulfilled — fulfil the remainder, or Cancel items for what won’t ship. Held items also keep an order partial until released.
• A manual-payment order won’t let you proceed. It’s payment-pending — Mark manual payment paid (or Capture a gateway auth) first.

Next steps

Fulfilling orders

A focused walkthrough of recording fulfilments and packages — see Fulfilling orders.

Refunds & returns

Move money back and handle RMAs in Refunds & returns and Returns.

Auto-fulfillment

Tune the policy in detail in Auto-fulfillment.

Order routing

How orders split across locations — see Order routing.