Enable split shipments

This step is optional but solves a real annoyance: when a customer buys both regular stock and a made-to-order item in the same order, Shopify normally holds the whole order until everything is ready. That means the t-shirt waits two weeks for the made-to-order chair before either of them ships.

Split shipments fixes that. Regular items go out immediately. Made-to-order items ship when production is complete.

How it works under the hood

Orderkraft adds a Shopify fulfillment constraint called Split Shipments. It tells Shopify to fulfill made-to-order line items separately from regular ones. The constraint is implemented as a Shopify Function, so it runs inside Shopify rather than calling out to Orderkraft. No extra latency at checkout.

The customer ends up with two shipments instead of one. They get tracking for each as it’s dispatched.

Why you might not want it

A few reasons to leave it off:

• You ship everything from a single location and don’t mind holding the order
• Your shipping rates make double-shipping too expensive
• You’d rather batch made-to-order items with regular orders for packing efficiency

There’s no right answer. Try it, see how it feels for a few orders, turn it off if it doesn’t fit how you actually pack and ship.

How to enable it

1. Open Orderkraft and go to Settings.
2. Find the Fulfillment constraints section.
3. Toggle on the Made-to-order constraint.
4. Approve the constraint when Shopify asks.

That’s it. The constraint applies to all future orders. Existing orders aren’t retroactively split.

How to disable it

Same place. Toggle it off and the constraint is removed from your store. Orders go back to Shopify’s default behavior, where everything in an order ships together.

What’s next

The last optional step is showing customers your production lead times before they buy: add the lead time block to your theme.