How to undo a Big Cartel shipment

Before you start

• The correct tracking number, written down before you start
• A note of what the current shipment says, because undoing deletes it
• Access to your Big Cartel admin at app.bigcartel.com

Steps

1. Write down what is on the order now

   On the order page, copy the tracking number, carrier and item list into a note.

   You should see a record of the shipment, which the next step removes.

2. Open the shipped order

   Sign in at app.bigcartel.com, go to Orders, open the Shipped tab and select the order.

   You should see the order detail with its shipment and tracking details.

3. Mark it unshipped

   On the order, select the marker again to mark the order unshipped. Big Cartel warns: "you can mark a shipped order as unshipped, but be careful, doing this will delete any shipping or tracking info you previously added."

   You should see the order back in Unshipped, with no tracking saved against it.

4. Add the shipment again, correctly

   On the order, select Mark as shipped and enter the correct tracking number, then check the carrier it detected.

   You should see the right number with a tracking link that opens the right carrier page.

5. Tell the buyer which number is live

   Send the buyer a message naming the correct tracking number, because Big Cartel says marking an order unshipped "does not unsend any email notifications that have already gone out."

   You should see one buyer who is not following a dead link.

If it goes wrong

The old tracking number is gone before you noted it

Undoing deletes the shipping and tracking info that was on the order. If the wrong number belonged to a real parcel going to a different buyer, you have just lost the only record of it. Copy first, undo second.

The buyer still has the first email

Notifications already sent stay sent, and re-marking the order shipped sends a new one rather than replacing the old. Expect the buyer to hold two numbers and to believe the first one.

A label bought in the admin was auto marked

Where the label was bought through the embedded label printing, the order was marked shipped by that purchase. Undoing the status does not undo the label, so deal with the label itself separately.

A split order loses both shipments

Marking unshipped clears the shipping information on the order rather than one parcel's worth of it. On a partly shipped order, note every shipment before you undo anything.

What happens next

Reversibility is the unusual part here: most marketplaces let you correct tracking for a window of 24 hours to 7 days, or not at all, while Big Cartel lets you clear a shipment whenever you like. What it cannot do is unsend an email, so the cost of a typo is 1 message to the buyer rather than a lost parcel. Verify the number against the label before you save, not after.