Orders — Merge & Retro-merge (same email)

Parcel Pilot supports merging multiple orders from the same customer email into a single fulfilment “group”.

This is designed to:

Avoid double-picking/packing when a customer places multiple orders.
Push tracking back to multiple upstream orders (where supported).

Recommended order of work

Use this workflow whenever possible:

Select the matching orders first.
Run Merge orders (same email, New) before creating any shipment.
Create one shipment from the primary order only.
Do not create a separate shipment for the secondary orders.

This is the cleanest workflow for fulfilment, tracking push-back, and avoiding duplicate operational work.

Terminology

Primary order: the order you create shipments from.
Secondary orders: the other orders in the merged group.
Merge group: the set of orders linked together for fulfilment.

How do I know which order is the primary?

For the normal Merge orders (same email, New) bulk action, ParcelPilot chooses the earliest order in the selected matching group as the primary order.

How to spot it afterwards in the Orders screen:

the primary order shows Merge = Merged (primary)
each secondary order shows Merge = Merged (→ #12345), which points to the primary order id

Practical rule:

create the shipment from the order marked Merged (primary)
do not create shipments from the orders marked Merged (→ #...)

If you are unsure, open the suspected secondary order first. If its merge badge says Merged (→ #12345), then order #12345 is the primary.

Merge orders (same email, New)

Use this when you have multiple new orders for the same customer email.

What it does:

Creates a merge group on the chosen primary order.
Marks each secondary as “merged into” the primary (they remain in the system; they are not deleted).
Moves secondary orders to Picking so they don’t get fulfilled independently.
In each matched group, the earliest order becomes the primary order.

Key implications:

Create shipments from the primary order.
Create the shipment only after the merge has been prepared.
Do not create shipments from the secondary orders.
When tracking is pushed back to the ecommerce platform, it can be fanned out to all orders in the merge group (depending on integration settings).

Typical example:

A customer places 2 new orders within a short time using the same email and delivery address.
Warehouse staff want to ship everything in one parcel.
Merge the orders first, then create one shipment from the primary order.

Retro-merge orders (same email, shipped)

Use this when multiple orders exist for the same email, but one order has already been shipped and you want the other orders to be treated as fulfilled by that same shipment.

Typical use case:

A shipment exists for one order, but there are additional (unshipped) orders for the same customer that were effectively included in the same parcel.

What it does (high level):

Chooses a shipped order as the primary.
Prevents unsafe merges (e.g. if multiple “shipped primaries” exist, or if secondary orders already have their own shipments).
Marks secondaries as fulfilled and links them into the primary’s merge group.
Allows shipment tracking to update order statuses across the whole group.

Use retro-merge only when:

one order already has the shipment you want to keep
the other matching order(s) do not have their own shipments yet

Do not use retro-merge when:

more than one of the matching orders already has a shipment
each order has already been shipped separately

In those cases, fulfilment history already diverged and a normal merge is no longer a clean fix.

Tracking, documents, and charges

Tracking: when enabled, shipment tracking can be pushed to each upstream order in the merge group.
Documents (packing/delivery/invoice): documents are generated per order. Merging is a fulfilment/grouping behavior; it does not rewrite upstream order data.
Charges: billing/charges depend on your billing configuration. Merging is primarily a fulfilment workflow tool, not a guaranteed billing-consolidation tool.

Important cautions

Merge before shipping whenever possible.
If you create separate shipments first and try to merge later, tracking may already have been pushed, stock may already have been deducted, and billing may already reflect separate fulfilment records.
If both orders already have their own shipments, speak to operations/admin before trying to “clean up” the data. In many cases the safest fix is a billing correction rather than deleting shipment history.