Understanding order status pages

Customers can visit the order status page to check the progress of their order as it's fulfilled. The order confirmations that you send by email, SMS, or through the Shop app can include a link to the order status page.

The type of notification the customer receives depends on the contact information they enter at checkout. If the customer enters a phone number at checkout, then they receive an order confirmation by SMS. If a customer enters an email at checkout, then they receive an order confirmation by email, followed by order and shipping updates. Order and shipping updates aren't sent by SMS. You can give customers who enter a phone number at checkout the choice to opt-in to receive order and shipping updates by email.

To track their order on the order status page, customers can log into their customer account. Alternatively, to confirm their identity after a certain amount of time has passed, customers without an account might be required to verify their email address or phone number along with the order number to view the order details. Customers can locate the order number in the order confirmation sent to them by email or phone.

If you want to send your customers order status updates by email, then you need set up your email templates to automatically include a link to the order status page.

You might also consider customizing your order status page to display special notes and messages.

Real-time shipping updates

If you ship through a supported carrier, then the order status updates in real time and the shipment location is displayed on a map.

The order status page updates in real time as the status of the shipment changes. Possible statuses are:

Confirmed - A customer created an order, but you haven't shipped or fulfilled the order yet. This is a good time to capture payment.
On its way - You marked the order as fulfilled or partially fulfilled in your Shopify admin, and the shipment is in transit. If you fulfilled the order without a tracking number, then the status remains On its way until you mark the order as delivered.
Out for delivery - The shipment arrived in your customer's area and will be delivered to your customer soon.
Delivered - The customer received their shipment.
Attempted delivery - The carrier attempted to deliver the shipment to the destination address, but was unsuccessful.

If you use an unsupported shipping carrier, then the order status page has a tracking number that links to the shipping carrier's website. From the carrier's website, your customers can get more information about the status of their order. The order status isn't displayed, and the pin on the map doesn't update in real time.

Orders with multiple shipments or carriers

The order status page works with partial fulfillments, even if they're made through different shipping carriers. Shopify creates new sections on the order status page for multiple fulfillments.

Protecting order status page information

Although the information provided in the order confirmation, including the link to the order status page, might seem to be publicly accessible, your customers' information remains secure and isn't visible to anyone else.

To ensure the security of customer information when accessing the order status page from an email or SMS order notification, certain access requirements are enforced, depending on how and when the customer accesses the order status page:

Customers can access their order status page from their order confirmation email for 3 weeks without logging in, when using the same browser.
When using different browsers, customers can access their order status page for 2 weeks without logging in, across a maximum of 5 different browsers.
When the Log in to view all order details prompt displays, then the customer needs to click Log in, and then do either of the following to view their order status page:
- Log in to their customer account
- Provide both of the following credentials:
  - Their order number (which can be retrieved from their order confirmation email or SMS receipt)
  - The email address or phone number used during checkout

If the customer doesn't login or provide their credentials after the expiry period for their browser, then only limited details about the order display on the order status page, such as the items purchased, order total, discounts applied, and the order's status. Customer information such as their name, shipping and billing addresses, payment methods, shipping method, and tracking number aren't displayed.

Customers can choose to share the link to their order status page with friends to inform them about their purchases. However, when customers share their order status page link, only the limited order details display.

The Log in to view all order details prompt doesn't require the customer to have a customer account with your store, nor does it require you to make customer accounts mandatory during checkout. However, displaying login links can make it easier for customers to view all order details on their order status page.

If you want to display log in links to customers on the order status page, then you need to set up customer accounts, and ensure that Show login links is toggled on.

View a customer's order status page

You can visit a customer's order status page from your Shopify admin. However, you can only access limited order status page details due to the customer login requirement.

Steps:

From the Orders page, open the order that you want to track.
Click More actions > View order status page.