Set Up Pre-Shipment Tracking on Branded Tracking Page
Plans: All plans Platforms: All platforms, Commerce API
AfterShip Tracking offers customizable pre-shipment status updates to keep customers informed about their orders before they ship. By delivering regular updates early in the post-purchase process, you can reduce customer inquiries about order status and lower support call volume. Coupled with a fully branded tracking page, this proactive approach helps manage customer expectations, particularly for items with longer fulfillment times, and minimizes "Where Is My Order?" (WISMO) inquiries by providing more detailed and timely information.
In this tutorial, we will follow all the steps and checklists required to customize pre-shipment status updates on your tracking page successfully.
In this article, we will show you:
Prerequisites
Supported pre-shipment fulfillment statuses
Pre-shipment fulfillment status tracking page experience set up
Pre-shipment fulfillment status customization
Availability of pre-shipment statuses based on eCommerce platform
AfterShip employs predefined fulfillment status codes to track and update the progress of orders before they are shipped, starting from order creation to processing. These status codes are employed to show the progress of the pre-shipped orders on branded tracking pages.
The pre-shipment status experiences are only available to retailers that are passing the order and fulfillment data to AfterShip Tracking via eCommerce platforms and Commerce API.
AfterShip updates the fulfillment status based on order updates received from the eCommerce platform you are using. The availability of fulfillment status depends on the specific eCommerce platforms you are using.
Similar to shipped orders where customers can input the tracking number or order number along with their email/phone number/postal code to track the status of their orders, pre-shipment order tracking will be auto-enabled on your branded tracking page to allow customers to track the progress of their orders that are yet to be shipped by entering the order number along with their email/phone number/postal code as one of the verification methods.
The custom pre-shipment fulfillment statuses will be automatically created in the branded tracking page editor for you to modify as per your requirements.
What do you need to do to set up the pre-shipment order tracking experience on your branded tracking page?
You do not have to enable pre-shipment order status tracking on your branded tracking page. Similar to the status configuration modal under Tracking updates for orders that are already shipped and can be easily tracked via your branded tracking page till they are delivered, another section of pre-shipment statuses is auto-supported on the tracking page editor under the same section for you to edit the customer-facing multilingual status names and descriptions, and configure visibility settings of various design and visual elements based on those statuses.
Refer to this comprehensive step-by-step guide to create, set up, and customize your branded tracking page which will not only be a source to foster engagement with your customers and enhance their post-purchase experience but also a great revenue stream to pool in additional sales.
For each pre-shipment and shipment status, you can modify the Title, Status Name, and Description displayed in the Tracking updates section to accurately reflect the progress of the order.
By default, a standard text is provided, but you can tailor it to better suit your needs. The text for both pre-shipment and shipment statuses can be adjusted on each language page.
Log in to the AfterShip Tracking admin panel.
Go to Tracking pages > Variations > Your tracking pages.
Click Actions and then select Edit to access the editor of the tracking page variation you want to edit.
Select the require Results page—Shipments or Gift tracking from the dropdown.
Move to the Sections tab and select Tracking updates > Compact tracking info.
The placement of the Compact tracking info tab may vary depending on the Tracking updates section type and the tracking page theme selected. For new templates, you will find the option to edit the statuses under the Route section.
Scroll down to the Statuses section. There will be a Pre-shipment tab created along with the default and custom statutes (if any).
Click Edit and start configuring the titles and names based on your requirements.
Save the changes once done.
Pre-shipment status updates are available only to retailers who are passing order and fulfillment data to AfterShi[ Tracking through eCommerce platforms and the Commerce API.
If you use eCommerce platforms, the availability of pre-shipment status depends on the specific platform you are using.
Overview
AfterShip Tracking offers customizable pre-shipment status updates to keep customers informed about their orders before they ship. By delivering regular updates early in the post-purchase process, you can reduce customer inquiries about order status and lower support call volume. Coupled with a fully branded tracking page, this proactive approach helps manage customer expectations, particularly for items with longer fulfillment times, and minimizes "Where Is My Order?" (WISMO) inquiries by providing more detailed and timely information.
In this tutorial, we will follow all the steps and checklists required to customize pre-shipment status updates on your tracking page successfully.
What you’ll learn
In this article, we will show you:
Prerequisites
Supported pre-shipment fulfillment statuses
Pre-shipment fulfillment status tracking page experience set up
Pre-shipment fulfillment status customization
Availability of pre-shipment statuses based on eCommerce platform
Before you start
| Checklist |
|---|
| 1. Set up order import rules to sync your orders to AfterShip Tracking. |
| 2. Set up custom pre-shipment fulfillment statuses (optional) for your orders to better service your customer tracking needs. (Available only for Enterprise users using Commerce API) |
Supported pre-shipment fulfillment statuses
AfterShip employs predefined fulfillment status codes to track and update the progress of orders before they are shipped, starting from order creation to processing. These status codes are employed to show the progress of the pre-shipped orders on branded tracking pages.
The pre-shipment status experiences are only available to retailers that are passing the order and fulfillment data to AfterShip Tracking via eCommerce platforms and Commerce API.
AfterShip updates the fulfillment status based on order updates received from the eCommerce platform you are using. The availability of fulfillment status depends on the specific eCommerce platforms you are using.
| STATUS | DESCRIPTION | |
|---|---|---|
| Pending | The order has been created but is still awaiting shipping fulfillment, or the shipping fulfillment has been created with a status of "Pending." | |
| Processing | The shipping fulfillment status is updated to "Processing." | |
| Custom status | The shipping fulfillment status is updated to a custom status that you have configured in AfterShip Tracking settings. | Available only for Enterprise users using Commerce API |
| Canceled | The order has been canceled and the shipping fulfillment has not been created, or the shipping fulfillment has been canceled. |
Modify pre-shipment fulfillment statuses on your branded tracking page
Similar to shipped orders where customers can input the tracking number or order number along with their email/phone number/postal code to track the status of their orders, pre-shipment order tracking will be auto-enabled on your branded tracking page to allow customers to track the progress of their orders that are yet to be shipped by entering the order number along with their email/phone number/postal code as one of the verification methods.
The custom pre-shipment fulfillment statuses will be automatically created in the branded tracking page editor for you to modify as per your requirements.
What do you need to do to set up the pre-shipment order tracking experience on your branded tracking page?
You do not have to enable pre-shipment order status tracking on your branded tracking page. Similar to the status configuration modal under Tracking updates for orders that are already shipped and can be easily tracked via your branded tracking page till they are delivered, another section of pre-shipment statuses is auto-supported on the tracking page editor under the same section for you to edit the customer-facing multilingual status names and descriptions, and configure visibility settings of various design and visual elements based on those statuses.
Refer to this comprehensive step-by-step guide to create, set up, and customize your branded tracking page which will not only be a source to foster engagement with your customers and enhance their post-purchase experience but also a great revenue stream to pool in additional sales.
Edit pre-shipment fulfillment statuses
For each pre-shipment and shipment status, you can modify the Title, Status Name, and Description displayed in the Tracking updates section to accurately reflect the progress of the order.
By default, a standard text is provided, but you can tailor it to better suit your needs. The text for both pre-shipment and shipment statuses can be adjusted on each language page.
Log in to the AfterShip Tracking admin panel.
Go to Tracking pages > Variations > Your tracking pages.
Click Actions and then select Edit to access the editor of the tracking page variation you want to edit.
Select the require Results page—Shipments or Gift tracking from the dropdown.
Move to the Sections tab and select Tracking updates > Compact tracking info.
The placement of the Compact tracking info tab may vary depending on the Tracking updates section type and the tracking page theme selected. For new templates, you will find the option to edit the statuses under the Route section.
Scroll down to the Statuses section. There will be a Pre-shipment tab created along with the default and custom statutes (if any).
Click Edit and start configuring the titles and names based on your requirements.
| Status type | Status | Order look up page | Shipments result page | Gift tracking page | In-store pickup page |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-shipment | |||||
| Pending | No | Yes | Yes | No | |
| Processing | No | Yes | Yes | No | |
| Canceled | No | Yes | Yes | No | |
| Custom status | No | Yes | Yes | No |
Save the changes once done.
Availability of pre-shipment statuses based on eCommerce platform
Pre-shipment status updates are available only to retailers who are passing order and fulfillment data to AfterShi[ Tracking through eCommerce platforms and the Commerce API.
If you use eCommerce platforms, the availability of pre-shipment status depends on the specific platform you are using.
| Platforms | Pending | Processing | {Custom status} | Canceled | Shipped |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AfterShip Commerce API | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| shopify | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| magento1 | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| magento2 | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| woocommerce | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| amazon | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| bigcommerce | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| sfcc | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| netsuite-wsc | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| cafe24 | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| prestashop-official | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| walmart-us | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| shopline | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| squarespace | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| wix | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| americommerce | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| cscart | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| cdiscount | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| ebay | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| shipstation | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| prestashop | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| prestashop-decathlon | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| ecwid | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| netsuite | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| shoplazza | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| 3dcart | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Updated on: 29/08/2024
Thank you!