It seems that since about a week, now, the delivery status on orders sent with Royal Mail is stuck at ‘Tracking added’ and no longer updates like it used to.
We always add tracking data to fulfilled orders, with the RM tracking ID and a URL in the format ‘https://www.royalmail.com/track-your-item#/tracking-results/[ID]’.
Shopify has been very good about polling these and keeping them up to date, until very recently. It just happened automatically and was seamless and useful.
DHL orders don’t have this problem, they update automatically as expected.
Is there a current issue with Shopify and Royal Mail tracking?
We don’t have any direct integration via Click & Drop (it’s rated 1.6 out of 5 with a litany if complaints against it, so I’m not touching it).
I’m not interested in installing any third-party apps to deal with this, please do not comment just to promote your app. If this needs fixing via an app, I will write my own. This is an integral Shopify function, I just want to know if there’s a bug with it.
Thank you.
From what I’ve been able to find, this doesn’t appear to be an isolated store issue.
There have been previous Shopify Community reports of Royal Mail orders remaining at “Tracking added” while carriers such as DHL continue updating normally. In those discussions, merchants were told that Royal Mail tracking sync has historically been inconsistent within Shopify. ( Royal Mail not updating delivery status on Shopify - #9 by TonyMcS )
Additionally, there are multiple reports from the last week of Royal Mail tracking itself not updating correctly or being delayed, including parcels showing little or no movement despite being in transit or delivered. (Reddit - Please wait for verification)
Based on that, it may be either a temporary Royal Mail tracking-data issue or a Shopify ↔ Royal Mail sync problem rather than anything specific to your store setup. If others are seeing the same thing, it would be useful to compare when the issue started and whether Shopify statuses begin catching up once Royal Mail tracking resumes updating normally.
You’re not doing anything wrong, this is a known sync gap between Royal Mail and Shopify and it usually clears on its own in a few days. The annoying bit is you’ve got no way of knowing which parcels are genuinely stuck versus just not scanning yet. Couple of things that help meanwhile: check the raw status on Royal Mail’s own site with the tracking number, it’s often further along than Shopify shows, and if it’s past the expected delivery date with no movement, that’s your cue to open a case with them. The whole “which of my orders have actually stalled” problem is what I’ve been building a little tool for, so happy to share what I’ve learned if it helps, no strings.