How to send 'shipped' notifications to customers for made-to-order items

[thatsmeallover]

Hi all, I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

My store sells made to order items, so I print the packing slips, then mark as fulfilled so I know I have printed the sheet to make the item (so I don't print again and get duplicates).

How then do I tell a customer once I've finished making it and it's been shipped?

Is there an app anyone can recommend that will help process these types of orders? If it was just a case of picking and packing it would be fine, as essentially my items would ship the same day, but it can take 3-7day to make an item depending on what it is.

I struggle for time, so I'd really rather something that might take a barcode scan of the order number to mark as dispatch/send dispatch notification, than have to manually input the order numbers (I can sometimes have 100+ orders going out).

I sell on etsy too, so something that might integrate with that would be ideal, although not essential at this point.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

[JoesIdeas]

For the manual way you could update the tracking number when it actually ships, or instead of marking fulfilled you could tag the order (or untag it if you tag the order when it comes in). When you tag orders you can filter them and save the url shortcut to go back to the filtered orders quickly.

For automating the tracking, if your supplier can send the tracking information via API or by email, then you can have a custom app built to automate that process and save the time of data entry. If you need help with this part send me a message, we have an app called Order Automator that does similar things, and we also build custom apps for clients for situations like this where you need a solution to a problem.

[CourtneyMiller]

Hi @thatsmeallover,

Have you tried any of the existing print on demand apps on shopify yet? There are quite a few apps that do print on demand and a quick search in the shopify app store will reveal several.