Holding fulfillments

You might need to delay fulfilling an order, or part of an order, if your product stock is low or if the order carries a high risk of fraud. You can hold and release fulfillments manually, or if your store is on the Plus, Advanced, or Shopify plan, then you can use Shopify Flow to automate fullfilment holds.

When the order fulfillment status is On hold, inventory can be reserved, but fulfillment is blocked until the hold is released. Orders that are On hold are excluded from the list of Unfulfilled orders. When the hold is released, the order's fulfillment status returns to Unfulfilled.

You might want to hold an order fulfillment for various reasons, including the following:

  • an order is flagged as high fraud risk
  • inventory isn't available
  • the order dollar value or quantity exceeds a specific value
  • the order is from a specific buyer or for a specific address

For one order, there might be more than one fulfillment, each with its own fulfillment ID. For example, items in the same order might be stored and shipped from different locations. The fulfillment status of an order with multiple fulfillments is determined as follows:

Order status depends on status of fulfillments in an order
Fulfillment IDs in one orderOrder fulfillment status
ID 1: on hold

ID 2: unfulfilled

Unfulfilled
ID 1: on hold

ID 2: fulfilled

Partially fulfilled

Orders can also have the On hold status if you use an app for upsell offers. During checkout, when a customer is presented with an offer, the fulfillment status of the order changes from Unfulfilled to On hold. If a customer doesn't complete a checkout, then the order status remains On hold for one hour to allow the customer time to return to the order and complete their checkout. The status changes back to Unfulfilled after the customer completes the order or after one hour has passed.

Automated fulfillment holds

To reduce the time that you spend reviewing orders before you fulfill them, you can use Shopify Flow to automate fulfillment holds. Shopify Flow is available on various plans and to customers who use the Shopify Fulfillment Network.

You can create workflows starting with blank workflows, or you can start with templates for the fulfillment methods that you use.

Templates are available in the workflow templates Fulfillment category. Which template you should select is based on your shipping strategy. To review the logic, install a template, or edit a template, go in your Shopify admin to Apps > Shopify Flow and open the template.

If your store isn't on a plan that has access to Shopify Flow, then you can manually hold fulfillments.

Shopify Shipping

The following templates are available for stores that use Shopify Shipping:

  • Prepare draft shipping labels for orders fulfilling from Canada
  • Prepare draft shipping labels for orders fulfilling from United States
  • Prepare draft shipping labels for orders fulfilling from Australia
  • Prepare draft shipping labels for orders
  • Prepare draft shipping labels based on products
  • Prepare draft shipping labels based on weight
  • Prepare draft shipping labels based on shipping method

If you install one of the Prepare draft shipping label templates, then the Hold fulfillment action is included. If you already use one of these templates, then edit the template to add the hold action.

Third party fulfillment services

The Hold or request fulfillments based on readiness to ship template is available for stores that use a third-party fulfillment service that's integrated with Shopify. This workflow starts when an order is ready to fulfill. Before you activate the workflow, edit the template to add your service provider to the Check if criteria that are next to the Start when card.

Manual fulfillment holds

When issues arise that prevent you from fulfilling an order immediately, you can hold the fulfillment. After the issue is resolved, manually release the hold or if appropriate, cancel the order.

Hold a fulfillment manually

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders.

  2. Select the order that you want to place on fulfillment hold.

  3. Click the ... button.

  4. Click Hold fulfillment.

  5. Select a reason for the hold.

  6. Click Hold fulfillment.

Release a fulfillment hold manually

When the issues that prevented you from fulfilling an order are resolved, you can release the manual fulfillment hold.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders.

  2. Select the order that you want to release from the fulfillment hold.

  3. Click Release fulfillment.

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