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Orders, Shipments and Parcels Explained

Use this quick guide when you need the plain-language difference between an order and a shipment, the difference between a shipment and a parcel, why ParcelPilot created two shipments, or why UPS created two parcels.

What is the difference between an order and a shipment?

An order is the customer demand record. A shipment is one dispatch record created to send some or all of that order out of the warehouse.

What is the difference between a shipment and a parcel?

A shipment is the ParcelPilot dispatch record. A parcel is one physical package inside that shipment when the carrier supports multi-parcel shipping.

  • Order = the customer order
  • Shipment = one dispatch record in ParcelPilot
  • Parcel = one physical package inside a shipment when the carrier supports that structure

Simple picture:

Order
├── Shipment A
│   ├── Parcel 1
│   └── Parcel 2
└── Shipment B
    └── Parcel 1

What this means:

  • one order can have multiple shipments
  • one shipment can sometimes have multiple parcels
  • each shipment can have its own tracking
  • the carrier and service decide whether ParcelPilot uses multiple parcels inside one shipment or multiple shipment records on the order

Example:

Order 1001

Shipment 1
- Tracking number A
- 50 items

Shipment 2
- Tracking number B
- 50 items

That order has two shipments and two tracking numbers.

Another example:

Order 1001

Shipment 1
- Parcel 1
- Parcel 2

That order still has one shipment. It just contains two parcels.

Common cases:

  • UPS can use multiple parcels inside one ParcelPilot shipment in supported cases.
  • Royal Mail or TransGlobal split-required services can lead to multiple shipment records on the same order.
  • if ParcelPilot recommends a split, it is usually because the selected service cannot carry the full contents as one shipment.

If you are asking why one order has multiple tracking numbers, the answer is usually that the order was split into multiple shipments, or that one supported shipment contains multiple parcels.

If you are asking why ParcelPilot created two shipments, the usual answer is that the order needed two separate dispatch records, not just two parcels inside one shipment.

If your question is how to do the split in the live workflow, see How to Split an Order into Multiple Shipments.