Combine Shipments

ShipStation Content Team

Updated December 13, 2022 21:09

If you have items from multiple orders you wish to combine into a single shipment, use the Combine Shipments option.

Combine Shipments allows you to combine items from separate orders into a single shipment while maintaining the integrity of each order for accurate record keeping. This is so ShipStation can accurately communicate shipment statuses and tracking numbers back to your selling channels for each order.

Combine Order Requirements

Orders MUST BE COMBINED IN THE AWAITING SHIPMENT STATUS before you create any labels.

If you need to combine orders and you have already created a label for one of the shipments, you must VOID the label for that shipment first. This order will then move back into the Awaiting Shipment status.

Use Case: Perhaps you created a label and then realized afterwards that the shipment needed to be combined with another shipment.
Once the first label is voided, you can then combine items from the orders into a single shipment and create a new label.

Before You Combine Orders!

Not all selling channels support the shipment update we send after an order has been combined.

At this time, orders combined in ShipStation for Amazon, OpenSky, SellerActive, or TradeGecko will not update correctly on the selling channel, and so we do not recommend combining orders from these selling channels in ShipStation. If you have done so, you will need to manually update the selling channel with your shipment information. See our Integrations Guide for more information.

Combine All Items

To ship all items from separate orders together:

Select the orders you wish to ship together in the Orders grid.
Click Other Action and choose Combine Shipments.

If the orders have different Ship To addresses, choose which address to ship to.

ShipStation will create a combined shipment in the Awaiting Shipment status that includes the items from both orders.
Configure the shipping options and create a label just like you would for any other shipment.

Any packing slips or pick lists you print for the combined shipment will include the item information from both orders.

Combine Some Items

If you want to ship only some of the items in each order together, first use the Split into Shipments process to split the items you will not include in the combined shipment into their own shipment. You can then use the above steps to combine the remaining items into a single shipment.

Combine Order Alerts

ShipStation also provides Combine Order Alerts to let you know when orders import and can potentially be combined. These alerts appear in a red bubble on your profile icon in the top right of your ShipStation screen.

For a combine order alert to appear, two or more orders must have both a matching customer ID and Ship To address.

View Combined Shipments in Orders Grid

Orders that contain multiple items can be expanded in the Orders grid so you can see exactly what items are included in each order without the additional step of opening the Order Details screen.

To view the order's items, click the disclosure triangle to the left of the order you wish to view.

Orders grid. Red boxes outline a multi item order and an order that has been combined.

Revert a Combined Shipment

Detailed steps on how to revert or uncombine shipments in ShipStation.

Revert or "uncombine" shipments you have previously combined within ShipStation.

If you need to make this change:

Split the items into a new shipment
Remove the new shipment

Split the Items Into a New Shipment

The first step moves the combined items to a separate shipment that can then be removed from the order.

Click either of the combined order numbers to open the Order Details screen.
Make note of which item(s) were combined.

Combined items have a call-out indicating the original order from which they were combined, such as Combined from Order # 100004 .
Click the Split Ship button.
Click the Shipment drop-down menu for the combined item(s) and select a new shipment to move them to. New shipments are indicated by (creates new), such as Shipment 2 (creates new).

Be sure to select the new shipment from the drop-down menu for all of the combined line items that you are uncombining.
Click the Save button.

The order details screen will update with the items in a new shipment.

Remove the New Shipment

You can now remove the shipment containing the combined items from the order.

Click either of the combined order numbers to open the Order Details screen.
Click the Remove shipment button for the shipment you wish to uncombine.

Combined shipments have a call-out indicating the original order from which they were combined, such as Combined from Order # 100004 .
Verify that you wish to remove the shipment from the current order by clicking the Remove shipment button.

This action uncombines the items from the order you have open and reverts the items to their original order. Notice that when you close the Order Details window, the orders are back to their separate state.

Notes about Combining Shipments

Orders containing combined shipments will no longer be updated by the marketplace.
ShipStation will notify the marketplace for each individual order separately, but the customer notification emails will be combined into a single email that lists all the products in the combined shipment.
ShipStation will use the default email template assigned to the store, even if all of the individual orders were set to use a different template.
If using the [Order Number] field replacement for Label Messages, Packing Slips, or Email Templates, ShipStation will use the Order Number for the first order that was created.