I’ve been looking into how Shopify store owners deal with order-status questions — the “where is my order?” / “has it shipped yet?” type of messages.
A few honest questions:
How many of these do you get per week, roughly?
What channel do they come through — email, chat widget, Instagram DMs, all of the above?
How long does it take you (or your team) to answer one?
Have you tried any tool for this, and did it actually help?
Context: I’m a developer building a small tool that auto-drafts replies to these specific questions by pulling the real order status, so the merchant just reviews and sends. It’s early — I’m not selling anything here, I’m trying to figure out if this is a real pain worth solving, or if everyone already has it handled.
Would appreciate any blunt answers, even “this isn’t a problem for me.”
Hi @Alexandru_Avram I’m not running a store myself, but from talking to a few merchants and seeing common patterns, here’s my honest take:
Volume likely depends heavily on order size — smaller stores might get just a handful a week, while higher-volume stores could see 20+.
Email and Instagram/Facebook DMs seem to be the most common channels for this type of question.
Response time is probably the biggest friction point, especially for solo owners without a dedicated support person — could range from a few hours to a day or more.
Most generic chatbot apps just show a tracking link rather than the actual order status, which often doesn’t fully answer the customer’s question.
A tool that pulls real order status and drafts a ready-to-send reply sounds like it could genuinely save time, especially for smaller teams. Might be worth posting a quick poll here to get more concrete numbers from active store owners.
Also if this will work then don’t forget to like and mark as solution on it
Many apps on the Shopify App Store already offer real-time order status tracking. It might be worth checking them out to see how they handle it—it could help you find a unique angle or feature to better differentiate your tool.
Merchants don’t really have to bother about WISMO anymore, as there are so many great apps like AfterShip, Trackr, ParcelWILL, Track123, etc, that take care of it.
Hi, I’m Vineet from Identixweb, a Shopify Development Agency.
I have experienced this pain point for many Shopify stores, especially once order volume grows.
I think your idea makes sense if the tool can pull the real Shopify order status, tracking number, fulfillment status, courier link, and draft a reply that the merchant can review before sending.
I’d personally prefer review-before-send over fully automated replies, because order issues can be sensitive.
One thing I’d add: many “where is my order?” questions can also be reduced before they happen by setting clearer delivery expectations in the store.
For example, apps like Stellar Delivery Date & Pickup can help merchants show delivery dates, pickup options, shipping dates, and time slots earlier in the buying journey, so customers know what to expect before placing the order.
the honest challenge here is what Ananya pointed at. AfterShip and the others already auto-answer the easy version by dropping a tracking page in front of the customer, so if your tool competes on answering the plain “where is it” faster, you’re fighting incumbents on their home turf.
where I’d look for room is the messages those auto-trackers can’t close. the order stuck in transit for eight days, the one marked delivered that the customer never got, the wrong-address one. a canned tracking link makes those worse, and that’s exactly where a human reviewed reply pulling the real fulfillment state earns its keep. narrow, emotional, and mostly untouched by the AfterShip crowd.
one thing worth checking before you build much further, is the volume actually in the plain status question, or in these exception cases? that ratio decides whether your wedge is “faster answers” or “the hard ones AfterShip punts on”. what are you seeing from the merchants you’ve talked to?
Really sharp point, and honestly the question you’re asking is one I don’t have a clean answer to yet — which is exactly why I’m here asking instead of building more. My gut from the few merchants who’ve replied is that the plain “where is it” is high-volume but low-pain (a tracking link mostly closes it), while the exception cases — stuck in transit, marked delivered but not received, wrong address — are lower-volume but where the actual frustration and refund risk lives. But that’s a hypothesis, not data. That stuck-in-transit / delivered-not-received wedge you described is exactly the direction I want to dig into. Are you seeing that ratio yourself, or is it more of a pattern you’ve noticed across stores?
This lines up with what I keep seeing too. The plain “where’s my tracking link” ones are easy, existing apps handle those fine. It’s the exceptions that eat the day, the parcel that hasn’t had a carrier scan in two days, or one that’s quietly sailed past its delivery date. By the time the customer emails, you’re already on the back foot. What’s helped me is flipping it round so I hear about the stalled ones before the customer does, then I can send a quick honest heads-up and it never becomes a ticket. Happy to share how I set that up if it’s useful, no strings.
From what I’ve seen, a lot of these questions can actually be avoided if customers are getting automatic tracking updates. If they’re already seeing shipping updates in their inbox, they usually don’t feel the need to ask where their order is.
To answer your questions:
I’d say around 40% of support queries are WISMO-related. It’s probably the most common question ecommerce stores get.
It usually comes through whatever channel the customer normally uses. For most stores that’s email, but I’ve seen plenty come through live chat, Instagram DMs, Facebook, etc.
One WISMO email isn’t a huge deal. Maybe 5–10 minutes to check the tracking and reply. But when you’ve got 20–30 of them a day, it adds up pretty quickly.
I’ve recommended PluginHive Shipment Tracking & Notify to a few merchants for exactly this reason, and it helped because customers started getting tracking updates automatically instead of having to ask.
That said, I do think what you’re building has value. WISMO is probably the biggest support issue in ecommerce, and I don’t think it’s ever going away completely. Even stores with good tracking still get customers asking for updates or wanting someone to explain what’s happening.
Definitely keep building it. When you launch it, drop me a message I’d be happy to give it a try.