Shipping

Shipping connects order fulfillment with the physical shipment that leaves your business.

The shipping workflow keeps parcels, carrier information, labels, waybills, tracking and shipment history connected to the originating Order instead of treating delivery as a separate record with no commerce context.

flowchart TD
    O[Order ready to dispatch] --> P[Prepare shipment]
    P --> C{Carrier flow}
    C -->|Integrated| L[Label / waybill]
    C -->|Created outside Comers| M[Register shipment manually]
    L --> T[Tracking]
    M --> T
    T --> H[Shipment history]
    T --> U[Update sales channel when supported]

From Order to shipment

A shipment starts from an Order that is ready to be dispatched.

Depending on the available carrier integration and your workflow, Comers can support actions such as:

• preparing the shipment,
• selecting a configured carrier and service,
• creating one or more parcels,
• generating a shipping label,
• recording the waybill or tracking number,
• keeping shipment progress connected to the Order.

The exact operations available depend on the selected carrier integration.

Labels created in Comers

When the carrier integration supports label creation, the shipment can be created through the connected carrier flow.

The resulting shipment keeps its label and tracking context connected to the Order. If a stored label has to be opened again, Comers uses the canonical shipment/label context rather than requiring the user to recreate the shipment.

Carrier capabilities differ, so do not assume every configured carrier supports the same services or label operations.

Shipments created outside Comers

Not every shipment starts by generating a label in Comers.

For example:

• a label may have been bought directly in a carrier system,
• freight may be arranged manually with a haulier,
• a shipment may use a carrier that is not connected to Comers.

In those situations, the shipment can still be registered so the Order has an accurate dispatch record.

If the carrier is integrated and the shipment has a valid waybill, Comers can use the connected tracking workflow where that carrier supports it.

If the carrier is not integrated, the shipment is treated as manually tracked. Its progress is then recorded by the operator rather than retrieved automatically from a carrier.

Tracked and manually tracked shipments

A tracked shipment receives shipment progress from its carrier integration.

A manually tracked shipment has no carrier integration that can provide those updates. In that case, an operator can record meaningful shipment progress such as collection or delivery.

Comers keeps the time the shipment event actually happened separately from the time it was recorded in the system. This is useful when an operator learns about a delivery event later.

A shipment that is already tracked by a carrier should not also be manually progressed in the normal workflow. This avoids having two competing sources for the same shipment state.

Tracking history

Shipment history preserves the important tracking events associated with the Order.

This gives the user a chronological view of parcel progress rather than only the latest tracking text.

Where available, the Order can link directly to the shipment’s tracking history and current tracking information.

Shipping and sales channels

Where the connected sales-channel integration supports it, shipment or tracking information can be sent back to the originating channel.

The exact update depends on the channel integration. Shipping does not assume that every marketplace uses the same fulfillment or tracking model.

Shipping and Warehouse

Shipping and Warehouse describe different parts of fulfillment.

Warehouse represents the stock being held and adjusted. Shipping represents the physical dispatch and tracking of the parcel.

The current Warehouse workflow documented here does not automatically reserve or decrease stock merely because a shipment exists. Treat stock movements and shipment progress as separate operational facts unless your configured workflow explicitly connects them.

Good practice

Before dispatching, verify that you are working on the correct Order and configured carrier.

After dispatch, keep the waybill and shipment state in Comers even when the label was created elsewhere. That preserves a complete operational history for the Order and makes later customer service or after-sales work easier.