How to mark a Big Cartel order shipped

Before you start

• A label already bought, with the tracking number to hand
• Access to your Big Cartel admin at app.bigcartel.com
• A paid plan, because Big Cartel says "The shipment tracking feature is available in our paid plans."

Steps

1. Sign in to the admin

   Sign in at app.bigcartel.com.

   You should see your store dashboard.

2. Open the order

   In the admin, go to Orders and select the order you have packed.

   You should see the order detail, with its items and the buyer's address.

3. Start the shipment

   On the order, select Mark as shipped.

   You should see fields for the tracking number, tracking link and the carrier.

4. Paste the tracking number

   In the tracking fields, paste the tracking number from your label.

   You should see Big Cartel detecting the carrier and building the tracking link for you.

5. Fix anything it guessed wrong

   In the same fields, override the carrier or the link if the detection missed. Big Cartel says: "If you're using a carrier we don't automatically recognize, no worries - you can choose one manually and add in your own tracking URL."

   You should see the carrier you actually used, and a link that opens the right tracking page.

6. Confirm the shipment

   On the order, select Mark as shipped to save the shipment and email the tracking information to your customer.

   You should see the order showing as shipped, with the details saved on the order page.

If it goes wrong

The tracking fields are not there

Shipment tracking is a plan feature, not a setting: "The shipment tracking feature is available in our paid plans." On a plan without it you can still mark the order shipped, which changes the status and notifies the buyer without a number to follow.

The carrier detection picked the wrong one

Detection works from the shape of the number, and some carriers share formats. Read the carrier back before confirming, because the buyer's email carries whatever link was generated. Every field can be corrected before you confirm.

You pasted a tracking link and the number is blank

That is the same feature running in reverse: paste a link and Big Cartel tries to determine the carrier and pull the number out. Where it cannot, fill the number in yourself so your own records hold it.

A label bought inside the admin already did this

Stores using the embedded label printing in the Big Cartel admin have their orders marked shipped when the label is bought. Marking such an order shipped a second time is not the job; check the order page first.

What happens next

The order moves out of Unshipped, 1 notification goes to the buyer as the shipment saves, and the tracking details stay on the order page for your own records. That email lists which items shipped alongside the tracking link. If you got a digit wrong, the fix is to mark the order unshipped, which deletes the shipping and tracking info you added, and start again.