Hey Shopify merchants
I work with Shopify stores on different areas of their day-to-day operations, from technical support and store setup to customer communication, order tracking, and automation.
We also build Shopify apps around some of the common challenges merchants face, including:
• WhatsApp order confirmation and notifications
• Order tracking and customer updates
• Customer verification
• Inventory and order management
• Store support and customization
I’m curious to hear from other Shopify merchants:
What’s one task or problem in your store that you still handle manually and wish you could automate?
Would love to hear what you’re struggling with, it might even give us an idea for a future solution.
Here is a list of tasks I currently handle manually:
• Managing product exchanges (processing refunds, asking customers to reorder, or accepting the loss of half the merchandise)
• Sending weekly restock emails to suppliers
• Responding to order status inquiries (scattered across email and Instagram messages)
• Calling to confirm high-value orders before shipment
Handling exchanges is the process I want to automate first.
From my interactions with several Shopify merchants, I’ve noticed shipping is still a pretty big pain point. A lot of merchants manually generate labels and enter all the shipment details on carrier websites, which leads to quite a few errors.
We actually have a solution for this with the PH Multi-Carrier Shipping Label app, but I still think there’s a lot of room for innovation in shipping. The industry is huge, and sometimes even one small addition to an existing solution can make a massive difference. I’d say shipping is definitely an area worth digging into and finding those annoying little problems merchants still deal with every day.
Hi @autumn3501 Thanks for sharing! Those are definitely some repetitive tasks that can take up a lot of time, especially when order-related questions are coming through different channels.
The order status inquiries and high-value order confirmations caught my attention because these are areas we’ve been working on as well. We have Shopify apps that help merchants automate order tracking updates and WhatsApp order confirmations, so customers can get the information without everything having to be handled manually.
For exchanges though, I agree that having the whole process automated would be really useful. What part of the exchange process is the biggest headache for you right now?
Hi @abhishek27377 Absolutely, shipping is still one of those areas where merchants end up doing a lot of repetitive work manually.
I agree that the smaller gaps are often where the biggest opportunities are. Even something like reducing manual data entry or making shipment updates easier for customers can save merchants a lot of time.
From your experience, what’s the one shipping-related task merchants complain about most that you think still needs a better solution?
One workflow I would automate better is customer changes after an order has already started moving.An address correction, a requested cancellation, a quantity change, or a personalization fix often begins in a support inbox.
The real work is then making sure the same change reaches whoever is picking, producing, or shipping the order before it is too late.The useful automation is not simply an email notification. It should create a visible exception, assign an owner, pause the next handoff where appropriate, and record when the change has actually been confirmed.
Otherwise the customer hears “we fixed it” while the original version is already being prepared.That is the kind of manual task that tends to be small on one order but expensive when it happens repeatedly or across multiple people.
@KynaatJohn
Exchanges are definitely one of those areas where automation could save a lot of time. The tricky part is that every exchange can be slightly different depending on inventory, refunds, shipping, and the customers request.
I also agree with the point about order changes after fulfillment has started. Having a proper exception workflow instead of just sending notifications could prevent a lot of mistakes.
This is a really good point. The difficult part isn’t just receiving the customer’s change request, but making sure that change is actually reflected before the order moves to the next step.
Order edits can become especially messy when different teams or systems are involved. Having a clear exception, owner, and confirmation would definitely make the process easier to track.
Order changes are actually an area we’ve been working on as well, so I can definitely relate to this challenge.
Absolutely. I think the challenge with both exchanges and order changes is that they involve multiple steps, so automating just one part doesn’t always solve the actual problem.
A proper workflow that keeps the customer, order, and fulfillment side in sync would make a much bigger difference.
Hello there @KynaatJohn
So, one area where I see a lot of merchants struggle is order and inventory updates being repetitive. Even relatively routine activities such as verifying the status of an order, notifying a customer or reconciling inventory can require a substantial amount of time when done manually.
A good place to start is to look for things that happen often and they do the same thing. With Shopify Flow, many of these workflows can be automated through triggers and conditions, no custom development required. I’d love to know what repetitive task eats up the most time in your store.
H @SealSubs-Roan That’s a great point! Order and inventory updates can definitely become repetitive, especially when you’re dealing with a high volume of orders. Shopify Flow is a great option for automating a lot of those workflows.
I’m curious though for merchants who already use Flow, are there any order or inventory tasks you’ve found difficult to automate with it?
Hello, @KynaatJohn
Hope you are doing great!
Order tracking and customer updates are definitely worth automating. It can save a lot of time, especially when order volume increases.