In an increasingly connected and social media-savvy world, interacting with customers is critical to business. This is especially true for internet companies, which lack the immediacy and physical interaction that brick-and-mortar stores provide.

As an online shop, you can help your customers feel more involved and informed by keeping them up to speed on the status of their orders.

It is now standard practice to provide customers with order progress updates. A staggering 98.3% of poll respondents said they would like to be notified if their item was held up.

Customers can better plan for deliveries when they have accurate information at their fingertips. However, even with all of the information available to customers, some order status expressions, such as “awaiting fulfilment,” sound like jargon and may confuse them.

Has such a status baffled you as well? Don’t worry, we’ll break it down and help you make sense of it.

Below are the Meaning of Awaiting Fulfillment and Order Statuses Explained:

What Does Awaiting Fulfillment Mean?

When it says “Awaiting Fulfilment,” it means that the things are being picked out and put into the right shipping boxes according to the invoice. After this step, a shipping stamp is made and the package is ready to be sent.

Order Statuses Explained:

Since you’re an online store owner, you need to know how orders are filled and let your customers know about it.

There are many steps an order goes through after the online store confirms it, from placing the order to getting it shipped.

As an online store, you need to make all of these steps as efficient as possible. But order cycle time needs to be looked at in order to make the order processing process as efficient as possible.

It takes time for an order to be shipped after it has been made. This is called “order cycle time.” Because customers want supplies more quickly, you should try to get your order cycle as short as possible so that the experience is smoother.

Check out the list below to learn about some of the most important order states your customers will likely see along the way.

Submitted for Fulfillment:

Once an online store accepts payment and confirms the order, it is sent to be fulfilled. A message like this lets you know that the details of the sale (the invoice) have been sent from the online store to the logistics partner.

But it might not always show up on the tracking state alerts because the goal is to move right on to the fulfillment process.

If this update matches when your buyers click on the link for the tracking number, it means that the payment was received and checked, and the order is now on its way to being fulfilled.

Pending fulfillment:

For this step, the e-commerce company’s transportation partner company agrees to the fulfillment request and starts picking up the items and putting them in the right shipping boxes. Of course, the delivery process isn’t done yet.

Many businesses use the phrase “awaiting fulfillment” instead of “pending fulfillment” when they mean the same thing.

You may also see that the tracking information for the order says “on hold” sometimes. It means that there is some information missing or needed that the order can’t be made without. This could be because of missing customs information, label information that isn’t full, unclear packaging preferences, or something else.

As soon as the missing information or details are sent, the order handling will begin again.

Partially Shipped:

If the update says “partially shipped,” it means that only some of the order has been sent out. Most of the time, this happens when some things are sold out. In this case, the package is split up. While this is going on, the rest of the order is mostly filled later.

Shipped:

This is an important step in the order process because it lets you know that the package has been sent safely by courier. You can usually figure out how long two-day shipping will take from this point on, which is the ship date, or the date the order is sent.

Many times, this kind of update comes to the customer in the form of a confirmation email or text message, along with tracking information for the package. Following this, you can look forward to reports like “in transit”, “at the local hub”, “out for delivery”, and so on.

Every major shipping company, like FedEx, USPS, DHL, UPS, and others, gives estimated arrival dates so the recipient can better plan when to expect the package.

Delivered:

If a customer places an order, “order delivered” is the most satisfying news for them.

This is only shown when the package has been delivered or is waiting to be picked up outside the recipient’s home or yard.

Delivery services may sometimes mark an order as brought when it hasn’t been. In this case, the customer should contact the online store to let them know.

Even though carriers are very careful, shipping problems can still happen. This means that a package is late for a reason that was not planned for, like delays at customs, federal holidays, broken labels, bad weather, etc. It’s best for an e-commerce business to be ready for these and keep the lines of communication open with buyers.

Is there a difference between awaiting fulfillment and pending fulfillment?

From an eCommerce delivery point of view, “pending” and “awaiting” mean the same thing. Most e-commerce businesses use the terms in the same way.

Process times at Red Stag Fulfillment are very short, no matter what you call it. We know that customers want their items to arrive quickly, and we’ll do everything we can to get them to you quickly. Please don’t be shy about getting in touch if you want to know more about our same-day services. We’re here for you.

Conclusion

To sum up, keeping your customers informed about the status of their orders in a clear and timely manner is important for having trust in your online store. Order states like “Pending Fulfillment” or “Awaiting Fulfillment” may sound like jargon, but they are just a way of getting things picked out, packed, and ready to ship. Customers will have a better experience and be able to better plan for deliveries if you keep them updated about their order from the time they confirm payment until it is delivered. Online stores can keep customers happy and loyal in a market that is getting more and more competitive by making the buying process easier and keeping lines of communication open.