Shopify workflow to send tracking updates after label created

As a Shopify store owner, you know the small but mighty moment a shipping label gets printed. It's a sign of progress. But then comes the tricky part: getting that tracking information to your customer quickly and reliably. Get it wrong, and you're staring down a barrel of anxious customers and an inbox full of "Where Is My Order?" (WISMO) tickets.

This guide will walk you through the options, from Shopify's built-in features to some powerful automation tools. We'll help you build a workflow that saves you time, cuts down on support tickets, and actually makes your customers happy.

What is a Shopify fulfillment workflow?

Let's quickly define our terms. A fulfillment workflow is just the A-to-Z process your business follows from the second an order comes in to the moment it lands on a customer's doorstep. It’s everything from grabbing items off the shelf to printing a label and sending that final "it's on the way!" email.

A good workflow makes sure orders fly out the door efficiently. A broken one? That’s how you get delays, mix-ups, and frustrated customers.

The journey usually looks something like this:

1. Order Placed: The customer hits "buy."

2. Order Processed: Your team picks and packs the items.

3. Shipping Label Created: You get that all-important label and tracking number.

4. Order Fulfilled & Tracking Sent: The system marks the order as shipped and, crucially, tells the customer about it.

5. In Transit: The package is in the hands of the carrier.

6. Delivered: The package arrives. Success.

That fourth step is where things often go sideways, but it’s probably one of the most important for keeping customers in the loop.

Understanding Shopify's native tracking notifications

First, let's look at what Shopify gives you right out of the box. It’s the starting point for most merchants, and it’s good to know its strengths and weaknesses.

How Shopify's default notifications work

The standard process is simple enough. When you buy a shipping label through Shopify Shipping or manually fulfill an order and pop in a tracking number, Shopify can send a "Shipping confirmation" email. You do all this from the Orders page in your admin.

The whole thing hinges on a tiny checkbox: "Send shipment details to your customer now." If you're doing orders by hand, you have to remember to tick that box. Every. Single. Time. As you’ll see in countless community forum threads, it's shockingly easy to forget, leaving customers wondering what’s happening with their order.

A screenshot of the Shopify admin panel, where users manage their orders and fulfillment settings. This is the starting point for the native Shopify workflow to send tracking updates after label created.

Common limitations of the native Shopify workflow

While the built-in system works, it starts to creak and groan as your store grows. Here are a few headaches you might run into:

• It's a manual process: Fulfilling orders one by one is fine when you're just starting out, but it doesn't scale. Forgetting that checkbox is a simple mistake that directly creates more work for your support team.

• Customization is tricky: You can edit the email templates, but you’ll need to be comfortable with Shopify's Liquid templating language. Adding a logo is easy, but if you want to add custom logic or really nail your branding, things get complicated fast.

• No extra updates: The native workflow sends one email and calls it a day. It won’t give your customers a heads-up when their package is "Out for Delivery" or "Delivered." They have to go hunt for that info on the carrier’s website themselves.

• Internal blind spots: If you sell products that are made-to-order, the native workflow has no way to track internal stages like "In Production." This lack of visibility can cause bottlenecks and mix-ups behind the scenes.

Automating your workflow with native Shopify tools

Before you rush off to the app store, it’s worth seeing what Shopify itself offers to level up this basic workflow, especially if you’re on one of their higher-tier plans.

Using Shopify Flow for custom notifications

If you're on a Shopify Plus, Advanced, or Commerce plan, you get access to Shopify Flow. It’s a pretty slick tool for building automated workflows. You can set up a "flow" that kicks off when something specific happens, like a fulfillment being created.

This is where you can get creative with your internal processes. For example, you could set it up to:

• Send a message to a specific Slack channel whenever an order with expedited shipping is fulfilled.

• Tag orders from VIP customers with "shipped-high-value" once their label is printed.

• Create a task in your project management tool for your support team to check in on high-risk orders after they ship.

The main catch here is that Flow is only available on Shopify's pricier plans. And while it's great for internal stuff, it’s not really built to make the customer-facing tracking experience any better.

Customizing email templates with Liquid

For those who aren't afraid of a little code, you can do a lot with the notification templates under Settings > Notifications. You can add unique branding, custom messages based on the product they bought, or link out to a fancy tracking page on your site.

The downside? This is definitely not for everyone. One misplaced bracket can break your entire email template, and figuring out what went wrong is a real pain. It's a powerful option, but you need the technical skills to pull it off.

Leveling up your workflow with third-party apps and integrations

This is the route most growing stores eventually take. Third-party apps exist to fill the gaps in Shopify's native features, and they can make a huge difference in how smoothly your business runs.

Shipping and label generation apps

Apps like ShipStation, Shippo, and Pirate Ship are all about making label creation easier. They connect to all the major carriers, often get you better shipping rates, and let you print hundreds of labels in one go.

When you create a label in one of these apps, they automatically send the tracking info back to Shopify. That marks the order as fulfilled and triggers the normal notification email. It’s a far more efficient Shopify workflow to send tracking updates after a label is created, since it cuts out the tedious order-by-order manual work.

The Shopify App Store provides numerous third-party apps to enhance the Shopify workflow to send tracking updates after a label is created.

Advanced tracking and notification apps

Then there's another group of apps, like AfterShip, Tracktor, and ParcelPanel. These guys focus completely on what happens after the purchase. Their job is to keep customers happy and informed from the moment they get their tracking number until the box is in their hands.

Here’s what they typically offer:

• Branded tracking pages: Instead of shipping customers off to a generic UPS or FedEx site, you can host a tracking page on your own domain. It can feature your logo, branding, and even ads for other products.

• Proactive email & SMS updates: These apps automatically ping customers at every key shipping stage: In Transit, Out for Delivery, Delivered, or if there's an issue.

• Fewer WISMO tickets: By keeping customers in the loop, these apps can dramatically reduce the number of "Where is my order?" emails you get.

Workflow automation platforms

Finally, you have tools like Zapier and Make. Think of them as the digital glue that connects Shopify to thousands of other apps. You could create super custom workflows, like adding a customer to a specific email list in Klaviyo once their order is fulfilled, or creating a new row in a Google Sheet to log all your shipments.

The main challenge with these platforms is that they can get complicated and pricey to run. They give you a ton of flexibility, but at the end of the day, you're still just pushing data from one place to another. They don't help you answer the follow-up questions customers inevitably have.

The missing piece: Closing the communication loop with AI

Even with a perfectly automated notification system, your customers will still have questions. This is where an AI support agent becomes a key part of scaling your operations without hiring a huge team.

Why tracking updates aren't enough

Sending a tracking link is a great start, but it won't stop questions like:

• "My package has said 'pre-shipment' for three days. Is something wrong?"

• "Can I change my shipping address now that you've made the label?"

• "The tracking says it was delivered, but it's not here."

These are the kinds of questions that still land in your support inbox. They force your team to stop what they're doing, look up order details in Shopify, copy and paste tracking info, and write out a reply. It’s repetitive work that eats up a ton of time.

How an AI agent streamlines the post-purchase experience

Instead of just sending a one-way message, an AI agent can have a real conversation with the customer about their order. By connecting directly to your store's data, it can give personalized answers 24/7, even when your team is asleep.

This approach handles the majority of repetitive fulfillment questions, freeing up your human agents to focus on the complex stuff that actually needs their expertise, like tracking down a lost package or handling a damage claim.

An AI chatbot integrated with Shopify answering a customer's question about their delivery status, streamlining the Shopify workflow to send tracking updates after label created.

Using eesel AI to automate fulfillment-related support

This is where a tool like eesel AI can completely change your support workflow. While other tools are focused on sending the update, eesel is focused on handling the customer's reaction to it.

• It talks directly to Shopify: eesel connects to your Shopify store to look up order status, tracking numbers, and delivery ETAs in real-time. When a customer asks, "Where's my stuff?" the AI can find the answer instantly.

• It gives instant, accurate answers: It can power an AI Chatbot on your site or work as a frontline AI Agent in your helpdesk (like Zendesk or Gorgias) to resolve WISMO questions without a human lifting a finger.

• It's incredibly simple to set up: You don't need weeks of complex configuration. You can connect your Shopify store and helpdesk in a few clicks and have a working AI agent in minutes.

• It learns from your data: eesel can train on your past support tickets to understand the specific ways your customers ask about shipping. This helps it provide answers that are accurate, on-brand, and in your company's voice.

A workflow comparing traditional support with an AI-powered Shopify workflow to send tracking updates after a label is created, showing how AI streamlines the process.

Building a scalable tracking update workflow

So, which path is right for you? It really depends on your store's size, order volume, and what you're trying to achieve. Here’s a quick breakdown to help you decide.

Approach	Setup Complexity	Best For	Key Limitation
Native Shopify	Low	New stores with low order volume.	Highly manual, doesn't scale well.
Shopify Flow	Medium	Stores on higher plans needing internal alerts.	Doesn't improve the customer-facing experience.
Third-Party Apps	Medium	Growing stores needing efficiency and better CX.	Can get costly; doesn't stop support questions.
Full Automation (Apps + AI)	Low to Medium	Stores focused on scalable, cost-effective support.	Requires integrating a support automation platform.

Final thoughts

Automating your Shopify workflow to send tracking updates after a label is created is a big move toward running a more efficient business. While native tools and third-party apps are great for handling the mechanics, true scale comes from automating the customer conversations that happen next. By combining a solid shipping process with an intelligent AI agent, you can finally solve the WISMO problem for good.

Ready to put the "Where is my order?" question to rest? Discover how eesel AI can automate your fulfillment-related support tickets today.