by Joe Callon
With orders flooding into your Shopify dashboard, it's easy to lose track of important information and cause unnecessary delays for your customers. We've compiled a list of great apps that you can implement quickly and easily to help improve your order processing workflow.
Order Printer
Printing accurate and well-designed invoices can be difficult. This is where Order Printer comes in. Allowing you to quickly and easily customise your invoices, we think Order Printer is an invaluable tool for all store owners, that's why we featured it in our five essential Shopify apps for new stores.
As well as invoices, you can also easily print packing slips, receipts and labels all directly from your dashboard. Not only are you making sure your printing looks pretty, you’re also keeping a consistent brand look and feel, giving customers an improved unpacking experience when they receive their order. You can also use this experience as an opportunity to generate future orders, by including a unique discount code on each receipt, for example.
We recommend you use Order Printer in conjunction with the following app for the most effective solution...
Order Printer Emailer
Bye bye paper! Order Printer Emailer removes needless printing by giving your customers the option to get their receipts and invoices in a PDF format via email, saving both yourself and the customer heaps of time and ink. It's the perfect extension to Order Printer and they work beautifully together.
Pre-Order Manager
The availability of pre-orders can mean a huge boost in sales for your business, and Pre-Order Manager offers a great all-in-one solution for you to manage products that aren't available for delivery just yet.
Picture the scene, you're getting ready to launch your brand new, game-changing product. Your social media feeds are buzzing, people are ready to buy. Unfortunately, you hit a couple of bumps in the road with your supplier and it delays the launch for a week or two. Finally, you hit that Publish button and it goes out to the world......hello? Anyone? The hype has come and gone. Don't let the sales pass you by, capture orders immediately by giving customers the ability to pre-order.
Tracktor
Customers like to know where they stand. Or more importantly, where their order stands. Has it left your offices yet? Is it on their porch? Tracktor avoids the dreaded 'Where's my stuff?' email by giving your customers the ability to track their orders directly from your site.
It's important to be upfront and keep your customers informed on the status of their orders. A late or incorrect delivery without prior communication is an incredibly easy way to lose repeat business and trust in your brand. You'll find that customers are much more forgiving when confronted with an admission of guilt on your part straight away, rather than the guaranteed delivery date coming and going without a word.
A step-by-step breakdown of the shipping process puts customers’ minds at rest and lets your inbox rest for a while. It's as simple as entering an order number and an email address.
Order Manager
For when Shopify's built-in order management just doesn't quite cut it, Order Manager is the solution for you. Adding great features such as custom order statuses ('Backordered', 'In Assembly' etc.), gives you the ability to combine orders, and for those of you who create custom products, the option to add a due date to an order.
Order Manager also allows you to see details of all your orders from one page, speeding up the shipping process massively.
We hope you find these Shopify app suggestions useful, and if you think we've missed out an essential app that you use in your own store, feel free to tweet us @Statement.
