What are order and shipping flows?

Order and shipping flows are 7 ready-made flows that email a shopper when something happens to their Shopify order, such as when it ships, is out for delivery, or is refunded. Each email shows the shopper’s own order details, and you can find the flows in the Orders & Shipping section of your Flows page.

Why you need them

  • Without them, you need Shopify or another email platform to tell shoppers that their order has shipped, arrived, been cancelled or been refunded.
  • Without them, your order and shipping emails do not use your Instant Brand Kit or the blocks you use in your other Instant emails.
  • Without them, your order and shipping emails stay in a second platform after you move your other flows to Instant.

How to set it up

Before you start

  • Your Shopify integration must show Connected.
  • The 3 shipment flows (Shipment Confirmed, Shipment Out for Delivery and Shipment Delivered) also need the read_fulfillments permission in Shopify. See Adding the read_fulfillments permission below. The other 4 flows do not need it.
  • Check which order and shipping emails Shopify or your other email platform sends now. You turn these off when you turn on the matching Instant flow.

Setting up a flow

  1. Go to Flows in your Instant AI dashboard
  2. Scroll to the Orders & Shipping section
  3. Click Set up next to the flow you want
  4. The flow opens on the Template tab with a starter email already written. Edit the copy and design to suit your brand
  5. Click Enable Flow when you are ready to send

Note: If Shopify, Klaviyo or another app already sends an email for the same event, turn that email off there. If you do not, shoppers get two emails for the same order update.

Adding the read_fulfillments permission

The shipment flows start from tracking updates that Shopify records for each shipment. Instant can only receive these updates when the Instant app in your Shopify store has the read_fulfillments permission. You are updating the Instant app you already have installed, so you do not need to reinstall Instant or create a new app.

  1. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Apps and sales channels > Develop apps
  2. Click Build apps in Dev Dashboard. This opens the Shopify Dev Dashboard in a new tab
  3. Find the Instant app in the list and select it
  4. Click Versions > Create Version
  5. Under Scopes, leave the existing list exactly as it is and add read_fulfillments to the end (for example, append ,read_fulfillments)
  6. Click Release, then confirm Release again in the pop-up
  7. If Shopify prompts you to approve the updated permissions on your store, accept it to finalise

Instant picks up the new permission at its next check of your Shopify connection. After that, the shipment flows start for new tracking updates.

Note: Only add read_fulfillments. Leave every other scope in the list as it is, so you do not remove access Instant already relies on.

How it works

The 7 flows

Each flow starts when Shopify tells Instant about a change to an order.

Orders

  • Order Fulfilled: starts when every item in an order is fulfilled.
  • Order Partially Fulfilled: starts when some items in an order are fulfilled. It starts again for each new shipment from the same order.
  • Order Cancelled: starts when an order is cancelled.
  • Order Refunded: starts when an order is fully refunded. A partial refund does not start this flow.

Shipments (these need the read_fulfillments permission)

  • Shipment Confirmed: starts when the carrier confirms a shipment.
  • Shipment Out for Delivery: starts when a shipment is marked out for delivery.
  • Shipment Delivered: starts when a shipment is delivered.

Shopify records the shipment updates when it gets tracking updates for the shipment, for example from your carrier or a shipping app. If Shopify has no tracking updates for a shipment, the shipment flows do not start for it.

When the emails send

  • Each flow sends 1 email, straight after the event.
  • A shopper gets the email for each order, so a shopper who places 3 orders can get 3 emails from the same flow.
  • These flows run on their own. They do not stop or replace a shopper’s abandonment, welcome or other flows, and those flows do not stop them.
  • These emails follow the same consent rules as your other Instant flows. A shopper who has unsubscribed from your emails does not get them.

Tip: Order Fulfilled and Shipment Confirmed can both start for the same order. Turn on the one that matches when you want shoppers to hear from you, so they do not get two “your order has shipped” emails.

What is in the starter email

Each starter email has your header, a heading, a short message, a button, a shipping block and your footer. All flows except Order Cancelled and Order Refunded also have an order tracker.

  • In the shipped and out for delivery emails, the Track Your Order button goes to the carrier’s tracking page. If the shipment has no tracking link, it goes to the shopper’s Shopify order status page.
  • In the Shipment Delivered and Order Refunded emails, the View Your Order button goes to the shopper’s Shopify order status page.
  • The order tracker shows the step that the email is about, such as Shipped or Delivered.
  • The shipping block shows the shopper’s order: the items, the costs and the delivery details.

Every email shows the shopper’s own order when it sends. The editor and test emails show a sample order, because they have no real order to use.

Tracker and Shipping blocks

The Block Library has two block categories for these flows: Tracker and Shipping. Each has 7 designs. They only show when you edit an order and shipping flow email, because they need an order to show.

  1. Open the flow email you want to edit
  2. In the left panel, find Add blocks
  3. Click View library
  4. Select Tracker or Shipping under Instant library
  5. Click the design you want, then click Insert

In a Tracker block, you can rename each step (Placed, Shipped, Out for delivery and Delivered) and choose which steps show. The step that is highlighted comes from the shopper’s real order when the email sends.

In a Shipping block, you can choose to show or hide the Order summary, Items, Cost summary and Delivery details. Both blocks use your Brand Kit colours and fonts, and you can change these on the block.

Order fields in your emails

These fields are available in the email editor for order and shipping flows:

  • Order ID
  • Order total
  • Order currency
  • Order status page URL
  • Tracking URL (or order status page)
  • Tracking number
  • Carrier

To add one, type {{ in a Rich Text block and search for the field. The order fields are in the Event group. If a shipment has no tracking number or carrier, those fields are empty.

FAQ

Is there an order confirmation flow? No. There is no flow for when an order is placed. Keep your order confirmation email in Shopify.

Do I need the read_fulfillments permission for every flow? No. Only Shipment Confirmed, Shipment Out for Delivery and Shipment Delivered need it. Order Fulfilled, Order Partially Fulfilled, Order Cancelled and Order Refunded work with your current Shopify connection.

I use a delivery tracking app. Do the shipment flows work with it? If the app sends its tracking updates to Shopify, the shipment flows can start from them. You still need to add the read_fulfillments permission, because Instant reads these updates from Shopify.

Do these emails go to shoppers who have unsubscribed? No. These flows follow the same consent rules as your other Instant flows. If every buyer must get an email, such as a cancellation notice, keep that email in Shopify.

Why does my test email show a sample order? A test email has no real order to use, so it shows a sample order. A real email always shows the shopper’s own order.

Can I add a product block with images of the items the shopper bought? Not as a product block. Use a Shipping block, which shows the items in the order.

For more on adding fields to your emails, see How to add personalisation fields to your emails. For more on blocks, see How to use the Block Library in Instant AI.