Sequential fulfillment

Sequential fulfillment is the standard workflow for packing and shipping orders one at a time. You can start from the order queue or from a Shopify admin order details page.

The workflow

Fulfilling an order has two steps:

  1. Pick — Scan each item to confirm it is being packed
  2. Ship — Review and create the Shopify fulfillment (or tag the order as packed)

Step 1: Pick items

Start an order from the order queue or by opening an order directly. You’ll see a list of items that need to be packed.

Scan each item’s barcode with your scanner. Each scan increments the quantity by one. When an item shows the correct quantity, move on to the next item.

Once all items are scanned, Scanpacker automatically moves to the shipping step.

Buttons and options:

  • Reset — Clears all scanned quantities so you can start over
  • Ship partial pick — Available in the dropdown menu if you need to ship only some of the items (see partial shipping)
  • Unstart — Releases the order so another team member can work on it

Step 2: Ship the order

The shipping page shows what you picked and lets you add tracking information before creating the fulfillment.

Add a tracking number if you have one, then click Create fulfillment. Scanpacker creates the fulfillment in Shopify and marks the items as shipped.

Dropdown options:

Click the arrow next to the Create fulfillment button to access these options:

  • Start next automatically — When checked, Scanpacker automatically opens the next order from the queue after this fulfillment is created
  • Notify customer — When checked, Shopify sends a shipment notification email to the customer

If you need to go back and re-scan items, click Return to Picking.

Auto-starting the next order

For high-volume shipping, enable Start next automatically to move through orders without returning to the queue between each one. After creating a fulfillment, the next shippable order opens immediately.

If you have filters active on the order queue, the next order will match those filters.

You can also skip to the next order without fulfilling the current one by clicking Start Next (available in the top menu on the shipping page).

Orders with multiple fulfillment groups

Some Shopify orders contain more than one fulfillment group. This happens when items in a single order are assigned to different locations, or when Shopify splits the order for other reasons.

When you open an order with multiple fulfillment groups, Scanpacker shows each group as a separate panel with its own list of items. You pick and ship each group independently.

Picking a fulfillment group

  1. Open the order. You’ll see a panel for each fulfillment group showing the items it contains.
  2. Click Start Scanning on the group you want to pick.
  3. Pick and ship that group as normal.

While picking, a banner at the top of the page shows which group you’re working on (e.g., “Picking fulfillment group 1 of 3”). Click Switch Group to go back and select a different group.

How fulfillment groups work with teams

Each fulfillment group gets its own picking session. Different team members can pick different groups from the same order at the same time. Each group appears as a separate row in the Picking Sessions tab of the order queue.