Tracking numbers are the part of an order that other people keep asking for. A marketplace that needs proof of shipment. A customer service team answering “where is my order?”. A 3PL reconciling what left the building against what was ordered. Getting them into a file is straightforward once you know where they actually live, which is not quite where most people expect.
Where do tracking numbers live in Shopify?
On the fulfillment, not on the order. When an order ships, Shopify records a fulfillment: which items went, from where, and with which carrier and tracking number. The order holds a list of those fulfillments.
That design is what makes split shipping work, and it is also what shapes your export.
Why can one order have several tracking numbers?
Because one order can ship in several parcels. A backordered item follows a week later. Two items come from two different locations. A bulky item goes by a different carrier. Each parcel is its own fulfillment, with its own tracking number, carrier and tracking URL.
So the real question for your file is how to lay that out:
- One row per line item lets each row carry the tracking for that line’s own parcel. Best for reconciliation, and for any system that matches shipments to items.
- One row per order has to choose or combine: the first tracking number, or all of them in one cell. Fine for a customer service lookup, less good for anything that needs to match a parcel to an item.
Which tracking fields can you export?
Three, and most receiving systems want all of them:
- Tracking number, the carrier’s reference for the parcel.
- Tracking company, the carrier: Canada Post, UPS, DHL and so on.
- Tracking URL, a link straight to the carrier’s tracking page, which saves whoever receives the file from building one themselves.
How do you export them with Exportify?
In Exportify the tracking fields are ordinary fields in the template builder, available on every plan. Add tracking number, tracking company and tracking URL to a template alongside whatever else the file needs, choose one row per line item or one row per order, and export it in CSV, Excel, XML or delimited text.
Because it is a saved template, the same layout comes out every time, which is what a system importing the file depends on. Field details are in exporting tracking numbers in the Exportify help centre.
What about orders that have not shipped yet?
They have no fulfillment, so they have no tracking number, and the tracking columns are blank for them. That is usually what you want: a blank means “not shipped”, which is useful information in its own right. If the receiving system only wants shipped orders, filter the export by fulfillment status rather than removing blank rows afterwards.
Can tracking numbers go out automatically?
Yes, and for tracking this is often the point, because a partner usually wants shipments as they happen. A scheduled export can send the day’s shipped orders every evening, and a per-order export can send a file the moment an order is fulfilled. See how to export Shopify orders automatically for the difference between the two.
Getting started
Exportify is on the Shopify App Store with a free trial. Add the three tracking fields to a template, run it against a week of orders that include a split shipment, and check each parcel comes out where you expect.
