How best to manage manual vs automatic fulfillment in Shopify?

[RJoseph]

This is more of a question for Shopify Techies regarding fulfillment options.

I sell both digital and physical items in my shop. Right now everything is set to automatic fulfillment because I want the digital files to be available to the buyers instantly. However, sometimes my physical items get buried in my orders and I don't see them right away.

It would be awesome if there was an option in the product listing window to select automatic OR manual.

Also, in a perfect world it would be nice if Shopify would automatically split orders with both physical and digital items.

I recently had an issue with a return of a physical item that I needed to return prior to purchasing shipping. The issue is that the cart had digital items attached, so I couldn't cancel the sale. I had to refund the physical amount and some how get around canceling the shipping, which was challenging. I offer free shipping regardless and this was still a problem.