Merging orders for a specific customer

[studio-umbrella]

Hi all!

I'm looking for a solution to merge a particular customers' orders in order to consolidate shipping. Heres' the scenario:

A customer has a subscription for a group of products ("box") that they get monthly. If this customer orders something additional (either same day or let's say within a week), it would be great to combine these orders so that they can both be shipped in the same box, saving costs for the customer and for the merchant.

I can't realyl find an app to do this, and the Shopify Scripts and/or Flow doesn't seem to give a solution for this (the merchant is a Shopify Plus member).

Thank you for any help!! 

[Dallas]

Hey, there. 

This is Dallas from the Social Care Team here at Shopify. 

That is actually a great question. When it comes to orders there isn't a way for you to combine more than one together. All orders have specific order numbers that relate to each of them so it would mess up some internal data and other bits of reference on the back end of your site. 

With that being said, however, I may have come up with a workaround for you that would work. Once the multiple orders have been Placed by your customer you can go under Orders > Draft Orders in your Store Admin and click Create Order to make a combined order of what you are wanting.

Once you have created the duplicate orders into one you will be able to make a shipping label so that you can send all of the products out as one package rather than making multiple shipments to the same location. 

Worried about inventory levels? After you have created this draft order, made shipping labels and received a tracking number you can put the tracking number into your original orders, cancel the fulfillment and delete the draft order. That way your customer will still have a reference for where their items are on their postal journey and you won't have any inventory discrepancies. 

I hope that helps to answer your question. If you would like more assistance or need more help with this let me know by replying to this forum. I am more than happy to help. 

All the best, 
Dallas

[studio-umbrella]

Hi Dallas,

Thanks for the help! I'll look into this but this is too manual to do. It means that I have to manually create orders and then delete the originals all the while initially identifying that this is a mulptiple order by the same customer (sometimes days/weeks apart).

So there isn't a way to automate it? Are there any apps that could do this? I saw that BOLD once had something like this, but no longer does.. 

Thanks again.

[Dallas]

Hey, there. 

I completely understand what you mean! Unfortunatley there isn't anything in place for this at the moment. 

Keep an eye open, however, because new apps are being added to the store all the time. 

Happy Holidays, 

Dallas

[jcm1]

I sort of used this technique.  I created a draft order, combining two orders to the same customer (she had incorrectly marked one of the orders as "in store pickup").  I had to further mark the order as paid, and when I created the shipping label, it automatically fulfilled the order.  So now I have the combined order (with the tracking #), plus the two unfulfilled orders.  I'll probably just leave the orders as unfulfilled (I can manually correct inventory if needed).  I don't know if mine works a little differently because of the version of Shopify I use (the 'Lite' version).  So I think I accomplished what I needed to and don't think it will mess anything up too much, but it didn't work exactly as shown here.

[Sweetheartsclub]

You say that once I have created the duplicate order I can create the shipping label? Should I mark it as paid, pending, or pay with card? I don't have the option the print the label right away. 

[ClearChoiceAqua]

I create a shipping label for one of them, then just manually fill the other with the tracking number from the first and send 2 packing lists.  the other way just seems a bit to manual for me and leave the chance of screwing up inventory.  

[brocknsp]

This is completely inefficient and unscalable. I'm shocked there isn't a solution for this. Especially for merchants that work at high volumes. I'm using Clickfunnels to create orders and send them over to Shopify. If someone opts for an order bump then it comes as a separate order. There is no way at the scale we want to work to manually combine orders and then delete orders all day so our fulfillment partner can ship out with the correct labels. 

[Anthohn]

Is that still the easiest way or has their been an update to this? It seems pretty basic and necessary...just one button on ebay.

Will it affect revenue or other stats by constantly creating more orders and deleting?

Any help would be appreciated as I sale doubles constantly but have been using another platform for shipping.

Would like to use shopify for all shipments though...

Thank you,

Anthony

[6feetsafe]

Is it possible to do this when dropshipping? we have an upsell that triggers after checkout.  if the customer engages with the upsell, it creates 2 separate orders and 2 separate shipping costs.  is there any way to combine this order to be sent for fulfillment to save on the extra shipping charge?

thank you

[DianaL]

Brock,

If you are having this order merging issue as a result from selling on Clickfunnels, I recommend you use the Shopfunnel app

It allows you to merge orders from Clickfunnel purchases and send to Shopify as one.

Its on the shopify app store here:
https://apps.shopify.com/clickfunnels-integration-app 

Or -- if you sell from a different platform, go to there website shopfunnel.io and contact them asking about other integrations. They may have other ones for you. 

Good luck @brocknsp 

[WebMonkey]

I find it really frustrating that Shopify relies on 3rd party apps rather than just improving the core product. It's been two years since this conversation, and the solution is still ship one and paste the tracking number into the others, or you can pay for an app...

[CottonGOs]

Trying to keep this discussion alive because we are now in 2021 and Shopify still doesn't have a native option for us to merge orders for shipping.

Has anyone in this discussion found a better solution or workaround that isn't so manually demanding?

[w-works]

Agreed. This should be something that does not require a third-party app. Add me to the list of those looking to see this option as standard.

[armv1024]

Same here! Super disappointed that Shopify doesn't offer a native function to merge orders after three years of this post/question being active. Totally inefficient and labor intensive. C'mon Shopify!

[norbertsf]

Any update on internally combining orders, or an App that allows one to combine--easily (physical product) orders from the same customer?

Norbert

[scottnemiro]

there is an app called order merger that does all this automatically. It can also send emails to the customer automatically as well. Good luck. 

If anyone knows how to create a flow to just notify us of two open orders for the same customer we would be greatful.

[RachelFox]

Shopify definitely needs to improve and create an automatic way to either merge orders or the option to transfer shipping data into other orders. I realize that there are apps out there that do this, but none of them are free and this seems like something that should be integral.

[TrashNuts]

100000000% this. Imagine if Shopify had built a covered wagon for weary travelers, but stopped short of mounting the wheels. The solution? Spend the next 20 years suggesting "that's why wagons are so convenient — plenty of room to store the wheels...right inside the wagon!"

It's endlessly ludicrous. 

[BestApper]

Hello there

We have developed an app called Mergify. It helps you to merge orders. You can define all fields of the new merged order and check the app functionality by creating draft orders. When you are sure about your settings, you can make orders directly. Mergify notifies customers, cancels or archives orders, refunds extra shipping costs if you want. 

You can define some rules to help it find mergeable orders for you. For example, you may not want to merge orders with a special tag, or only consider the last 48 hours orders. Mergify then shows you merging suggestions that you can take action with just a few clicks. Even this process can be automated, so if a customer creates orders with the same shipping address that passes your defined rules, Mergify merges it automatically.

Of course, this app can not work as clean as a Shopify native solution, but we are really working on it, and we really appreciate your comments and suggestions.