If a customer places more than one order you may want to send them in one consignment to save shipping costs. ReadyToShip can identify orders that have:
The same address.
The same customer name.
Use the same shipping service,
and merge them into a single consignment.
Change Default Merge Settings
By default, Merge Customer Orders is set to Yes in your Carrier Settings. You can update this behaviour for a carrier in Settings > Carriers > (your carrier) > Settings with the Merge Customer Orders option.
Filter by Merged Orders
To see orders that are merged in a Shipping Tab click 'Filter', then the icon highlighted below
Merging Orders
Orders are merged after they are added to a Shipping Run. Click on the tab for the run, and you will see merged orders with an icon like this:
Selecting one of the orders will select all of the orders in that merged group.
The merged order will be treated as a single consignment where:
The weights are combined.
Dimensions are calculated based on the products in both orders.
"Packages" details will be displayed the same for each order that has been merged, so entering custom package details on one of the orders will update the group of orders.
Merged orders will share a single tracking number to simplify shipment tracking for the combined package(s).
Unmerging Orders
The merging will be cancelled if you:
Remove one of the orders from the run.
Change the address or customer name in any way. For example, you can unmerge orders by adding a full stop to the street address of one of the orders.
System Tips to Prevent Label Confusion
The merge process is fairly simplistic, so you must be aware of unexpected behaviour. To minimise errors and ensure smooth order tracking:
Configure carrier settings to enable or disable order merging based on your shipping policies.
Regularly train your team on identifying and using the correct, updated labels when handling merged orders.
Archive completed orders before adding new orders to a run.
Name and address matching is exact
ReadyToShip decides whether to merge orders based on the name, address, and the chosen shipping carrier/service. They need to match exactly to qualify for a merge, and we are conservative about this to avoid shipping to the wrong address. An extra space on the end of the address of one order, or one address using Street while the other uses St, will stop the orders from merging.
If it looks like an order should merge, but it doesn't, check the orders for slight differences in the name and address. An order with a stray space character or different capitalisation will not merge.
Follow the standard workflow
If you follow the standard workflow where you:
Add orders to a run.
Print labels.
Create a manifest.
Notify the store of the shipped items.
Clear the run by archiving the completed orders.
It should go smoothly, but you must be careful if you add orders to an existing run.
If you add an order to an existing run, and there is already one for that customer, it will merge. This may well be the behaviour you want, but be aware that this will happen.
If you have already printed labels or manifested some orders in the run and you add some more orders, the new orders may match an order already in the run and merge with it.
This is probably not what you want - you may end up shipping an item twice.