Help articles

Packing gift orders

Find gift orders waiting to be packed, print the pack sheet, mark orders packed, and read the flags. The pack sheet is for your team. Shopify's packing slip is still the document for the box.

The Gift orders page

Open Gift orders from the app's navigation. The home page shows how many orders are waiting under To pack, the oldest of them, the first few, Print all, a link when orders need review, and when the app last synced.

Tabs

• To pack: gift orders with units still to ship, not yet marked packed.
• Needs review: orders that changed after you marked them packed. See below.
• Packed: orders you marked packed.
• All: every gift order the app knows about, including fulfilled ones.

To pack and Needs review show only orders with something left to ship. Packed and All show everything.

Each row

• The order number, the ship-to name, and when it was placed. Today's orders say how long ago.
• A summary line, for example "1 of 3 Cedar House Soy Candle wrapped in Kraft, with a message, order marked as a gift, no prices in the box".
• Flags as badges. See "What the flags mean" below.
• When packed: how long ago it was marked packed.

Summaries leave out message text. Needs review shows changed messages. The full message is on the pack sheet.

Search

Type an order number or part of a ship-to name and press Enter. The search stays within the current tab; clear it to see every order.

Mark packed

Choose Mark packed on a row when the order is wrapped and ready. The order moves to the Packed tab and its row shows when it was packed. Choose Back to pack to undo.

You mark new orders packed. Printing does not change the status. If changes to a packed order are undone, it returns to Packed on its own.

If two people work the same list, the second person's click is refused when the first has already changed the order. The row shows a notice with the current status. Reload if you want to see the whole list fresh.

Needs review

An order you marked packed can still change in Shopify: an item is cancelled, a message is edited, a wrap style is changed, a quantity is refunded. When a change like that arrives, the app moves the order to Needs review and keeps a record of what changed.

The row shows what changed. Check the printed sheet against it, fix the package, then choose Mark packed again. Choose Back to pack to send it back to the To pack list instead.

Changes that do not affect packing, such as tags, payment status or fulfillment, do not move an order to Needs review.

Sync now

Orders normally appear within a minute of checkout. If one is missing, or the Synced time under the list looks old, choose Sync now. The app scans recent orders in Shopify and creates or repairs its records. A banner tells you how many orders it looked at and how many were new or updated.

Sync now checks up to 25 orders at a time. If an order is still missing, choose Sync now again.

If a scan fails, the banner says so. Progress is kept; choose Sync now again to continue. If it keeps failing, check the app's order permissions in your Shopify admin.

The app also runs a scan on its own once a day, at 03:00 UTC.

Printing the pack sheet

There is one pack sheet per order. It is for the packer, not for the box.

From the order page

Open the order in your Shopify admin. Choose Print, then Pack sheet. Shopify shows the sheet in its print dialog.

From Gift orders

Choose Print all. The number on the button is how many orders are in the current tab and search. To print one order, search for its number first, then choose Print all 1. A new tab opens with one sheet per order, each starting on a new page. Print from the browser.

If the tab does not open, your browser may have blocked the pop-up. Allow pop-ups for your Shopify admin and try again.

What is on the sheet

• Header: order number, date, ship-to name, and the packing location when Shopify assigns one. A barcode of the order number.
• The rule line: Wrap each listed unit separately. Every unit listed under Wrap these is its own package, even when two units go to the same person.
• Wrap these: one row per unit to wrap, with a tick box, product and variant, the count of wrapped and plain units on that line, the wrap style with its swatch, the message word for word, and who it is for. Copy messages exactly.
• Wrap on hold: the fee is missing or short, or the wrap style is unknown. Check the order before you wrap or tick any unit in that group. See "Fee differs" below.
• Do not pack, or check first: units cancelled or refunded after purchase.
• Do not wrap: plain units, packed as normal. A message-only unit shows its message here.
• The order card, titled Gift order · instruction for the whole order, no package: the whole-order message, and the line No prices in box · leave out the invoice and price tags when the shopper asked for that.
• Warnings at the top when something is off: fee discrepancy, cancelled or refunded units, units already shipped, units shipping from another location, and expired messages.

Long orders continue on numbered pages. Every page repeats the order number. A very long message is split across rows marked "message continued (part k of n)"; those rows are not extra packages.

The sheet prints on A4 or Letter in black and white. Emoji and non-Latin text print as written.

Older orders

The app prints orders older than 60 days from its own record. If it has no record of such an order, the single-order print shows a not-found page, and a bulk print lists the order under Not printed.

Export CSV

Choose Export CSV on the Gift orders page. The file gift-orders.csv covers every order that matches the current tab and search, not just the page you are looking at.

Columns: order, placed at, ship to, wrapped units, packable units, item messages, order instruction, pack status, packed at, packed by, flags.

Message text is not in the export. Values that start with =, +, - or @ are prefixed with a quote so a spreadsheet does not run them as formulas.

What the flags mean

• Fee differs: the paid wrap on the order does not match the fee lines Shopify charged. A fee can be missing, short, extra or unmatched. An unknown wrap style is flagged too. This can happen when cart data was edited, an update was interrupted, or another app changed the cart. The app does not charge the shopper again, cancel anything, or remove instructions. Look at the order, decide, and tell the packer. On the sheet, a group with a missing or short fee, or an unknown style, sits under Wrap on hold. A fee that was discounted to zero is not a discrepancy; the check looks at presence and quantity, not amount.
• Check gift details: packing details changed, or the app does not recognise the wrap style. Check the order before packing.
• Changed in Shopify: Shopify has a newer version of this order than the app does. Choose Sync now or wait for the next scan before packing from the sheet.
• Some cancelled: some units were cancelled after purchase. They are listed under Do not pack, or check first on the sheet.
• Partly shipped: some units on the order have already shipped. The sheet says which and how many are left to pack.
• Several locations: units on this order ship from more than one location. The sheet is for the location in its header; units from other locations are listed as not on this sheet. The app does not offer a sheet for each location. Check the Shopify order for the other units.
• Messages expired: the order is more than 12 months old and the app has removed the gift messages, recipient names and ship-to name from its copy. The sheet shows the wrap style only, with the warning "Gift messages removed after 12 months." The messages still exist on the order in Shopify. If messages or names were the order's only gift choices, it no longer appears in the list.
• Details removed: the customer's data was removed at Shopify's request. The app has deleted the messages, recipient names and ship-to name from its record. The wrapping details stay. The app hides these orders from To pack and Needs review. Use the Shopify order to check what still needs shipping. If messages or names were the only gift choices, the order no longer appears in the list.
• Tags being added: the app has not yet written its gift tags to the order in Shopify. It retries on the next scan. Nothing to do.

• Location unknown: Shopify did not say which location packs this order. The sheet says so in its header.

A banner "Shopify could not be reached, so this list may be out of date" means the app could not confirm the list is current. Choose Sync now.

Tags on orders

The app adds tags to gift orders in Shopify: gift, gift-message when any message was written, and gift-wrap-<style> for each style used. Use them in Shopify's order filters. They are a convenience; the app does not depend on them to find orders.

Still stuck? Write to hello@fairstride.app with your store address.