Custom Order Statuses

WooCommerce’s built-in statuses — Processing, Completed, On Hold — are fine for basic stores. But if you’re actually packing and shipping orders, you need more detail. “Processing” doesn’t tell your team whether the order has been picked, packed, or handed to the courier. It’s like a restaurant kitchen that only has two states: “cooking” and “done.” Helpful? Sure. But it doesn’t tell the waitstaff whether the dish is being prepped, on the grill, or plated and ready to carry out.

Tracksies adds nine statuses that match what actually happens in a real warehouse, so everyone — your team and your customers — knows exactly where things stand.

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Why This Matters

Without granular statuses, your team is stuck playing guessing games. Is that “Processing” order waiting to be packed, or did someone already hand it to the courier? Did the customer pick up their click-and-collect order, or is it still sitting on the shelf? And when a customer emails asking “where’s my stuff?” — you want a clear answer, not “uh, it’s processing.”

These statuses give you that clarity. They also power automatic email notifications, so your customers stay informed without you lifting a finger.

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The Nine Statuses

Here’s the full set, grouped by where they sit in the fulfilment journey:

Getting Started

Packing

Shipping

Pickup

Returns

You don’t have to use all nine. If you don’t ship physical products, you might never touch Packed or Shipped. If you don’t offer click-and-collect, Ready for Pickup and Picked Up can sit quietly in the background. If you don’t process returns through order statuses, the return statuses won’t get in your way. They’re there when you need them.

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How They Fit Into Your Workflow

Think of order statuses like a relay race — the baton passes from one stage to the next. But not every race follows the same track. Here are the most common flows:

Shipping Orders (the standard path)

This is the most common flow for stores that ship physical products:

Payment Received → Partially Packed → Packed → Partially Shipped → Shipped → Completed

Not every order needs every step. If your team packs everything at once, you’d skip Partially Packed. If you always ship the full order in one go, you’d skip Partially Shipped. A streamlined version looks like this:

Payment Received → Packed → Shipped → Completed

Pickup Orders (click-and-collect)

For customers picking up in-store or at a collection point:

Payment Received → Packed → Ready for Pickup → Picked Up → Completed

Returns

Returns can happen after any shipped or picked-up status:

Shipped → Partially Returned → Returned

or

Picked Up → Partially Returned → Returned

If the customer returns everything at once, you can go straight to Returned without stopping at Partially Returned.

Digital Orders

Digital products don’t need packing or shipping at all. Tracksies can handle these automatically — see the Digital Auto-Complete section below.

Processing → Completed (automatic)

Controlled Transitions

Here’s something worth knowing: status transitions are controlled. Each status has a set of valid “next” statuses, which means you won’t accidentally jump from Payment Received to Returned. The quick action buttons in the orders list only show you the valid next steps, so your team doesn’t have to memorise the workflow — the interface guides them.

The key thing is flexibility within structure. Your workflow, your rules — but with guardrails that prevent mistakes.

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Changing an Order’s Status

From the Order Edit Screen

1. Go to WooCommerce > Orders in the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard
2. Click on the order you want to update
3. Find the Order status dropdown in the top-right corner of the order screen
4. Select the new status from the dropdown — you’ll only see valid next statuses for the order’s current state
5. Click the Update button to save the change

This records the status change in the order history, so you can always see when an order moved between stages and who made the change.

From the Orders List

For faster updates, you can use the quick-action buttons directly in the order list view — no need to open each order individually. These buttons only show valid next statuses, so your team can process orders quickly without worrying about picking the wrong status. This is especially handy when you’re working through a batch of orders.

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Email Notifications

Each custom status has its own email template. When an order moves to one of these statuses, the customer gets notified automatically (as long as the email for that status is enabled). No one likes ordering something and then hearing nothing until it shows up — these emails keep your customers in the loop.

Here’s what each one does:

• Payment Received email — Confirms that payment has been received and the order is being prepared. This gives the customer peace of mind that everything went through.
• Partially Packed email — Lets the customer know their order is being packed, with some items already boxed up. Useful for large or complex orders where packing takes time.
• Packed email — “Your order has been packed and is almost on its way!” Lets the customer know things are moving.
• Partially Shipped email — Lets the customer know that part of their order is on its way, with details about what’s still to come.
• Shipped email — Includes the tracking number and carrier information, so the customer can follow their parcel’s journey.
• Ready for Pickup email — Tells the customer where and when they can collect their order.
• Picked Up email — Confirms that the order has been collected. Handy as a receipt-style confirmation for click-and-collect customers.
• Partially Returned email — Lets the customer know their partial return has been received and is being processed.
• Returned email — Confirms that all items have been returned and the return is complete.

All of these emails can be customised with your branding, colours, and wording. See Email Templates for the full guide on making them your own.

To check which status emails are currently enabled, head to Tracksies > Settings > Emails in your WordPress dashboard.

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Digital Auto-Complete

Here’s a smart shortcut: if an order contains only digital or downloadable products — no physical items to pack or ship — Tracksies can automatically mark it as Completed. There’s no packing step, no courier, no tracking number needed. The customer gets their download link and everyone’s happy.

To turn this on:

1. Go to Tracksies > Settings > Features in the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard
2. Find Digital Auto-Complete in the WooCommerce section
3. Toggle it on by clicking the toggle switch to the right of the feature name

Orders with a mix of physical and digital products won’t be auto-completed — only orders where every single item is digital. This means you won’t accidentally mark a mixed order as done before the physical items have shipped.

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How Statuses Appear

Your custom statuses show up in three places:

• WooCommerce Orders list — Colour-coded status badges make it easy to scan and see which orders are at which stage. The colours are designed to be intuitive: blues for the early stages, purples for packing, greens for shipping and pickup, oranges for returns in progress, and grey for fully returned. Think of it like a traffic light system for your fulfilment queue.
• Order details screen — The full status history is recorded, so you can see when an order moved from Payment Received to Packed to Shipped and who changed it. This creates a complete audit trail.
• Customer My Account page — Your customers see the friendly status name along with any tracking information. No confusing internal codes — they see “Shipped” with their tracking link, not wc-shipped.

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Common Questions

Can I add my own custom statuses beyond these nine?
Not currently. Tracksies provides the nine most commonly needed fulfilment statuses. They cover the vast majority of physical product workflows — shipping, pickup, and returns — without cluttering your status list.

Do these replace WooCommerce’s built-in statuses?
No — they add to them. Processing, Completed, On Hold, Cancelled, Refunded, and all the rest still work exactly as they always have. The Tracksies statuses sit alongside them.

What if I don’t need all of them?
That’s completely fine. You don’t have to use any status you don’t need. If you only ship whole orders (never split shipments), you’ll probably never use Partially Shipped or Partially Packed. If you don’t offer local pickup, Ready for Pickup and Picked Up won’t get in your way. If you handle returns through a separate system, the return statuses are there if you ever want them.

Can I skip statuses?
Yes, within the allowed transitions. You can go from Payment Received straight to Packed if your workflow doesn’t need a Partially Packed step. Or from Packed straight to Shipped if you always ship in one go. The system shows you the valid next steps, so you’ll always know what transitions are available.

What are the valid transitions?
Each status has a defined set of “next” statuses. For example, Payment Received can move to Partially Packed or Packed, but not directly to Shipped. This prevents accidental status jumps. The quick action buttons in the orders list automatically show only the valid next steps, so your team doesn’t need to memorise the rules.

Do these work with other plugins?
Yes. Because Tracksies registers these as proper WooCommerce order statuses, they work with any plugin that respects the WooCommerce status system — shipping plugins, accounting integrations, email marketing tools, and so on.

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Troubleshooting

Custom statuses aren’t showing in the dropdown:
Check that the Tracksies HQ plugin is activated. Go to Plugins in the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard and confirm Tracksies HQ shows as “Active.” If it’s active but statuses still aren’t showing, try deactivating and reactivating the plugin — click Deactivate and then Activate again.

Customer didn’t receive the status email:
Two things to check. First, make sure the email for that status is actually enabled — go to Tracksies > Settings > Emails in your WordPress dashboard and verify the toggle is on for the relevant status email. Second, check that your site’s email delivery is working properly. If you’re not using an SMTP plugin (like WP Mail SMTP, FluentSMTP, or similar), emails from WordPress can end up in spam or not send at all. It’s a bit like the difference between dropping a letter in a random postbox and handing it directly to the mail carrier — SMTP is much more reliable. See our Email Delivery (SMTP) guide for help setting this up.

Status changed but the order didn’t update:
Try refreshing the page first. If the status still shows the old value, open your browser’s developer tools (usually F12) and check the Console tab for JavaScript errors. A JavaScript conflict with another plugin can sometimes prevent the status dropdown from saving properly. If you see errors, try disabling other plugins one at a time to find the conflict.

Order shows the custom status but the colour badge is missing:
This can happen if another plugin is overriding the WooCommerce order status styles. Check whether you have another order status plugin active — running two plugins that both register custom statuses can cause display conflicts. Tracksies handles everything you need, so you can safely deactivate the other one.

Quick action buttons aren’t showing the status I expect:
This is likely because of controlled transitions. Each status has a set of valid next statuses, and the quick action buttons only show those. For example, you can’t jump from Payment Received directly to Shipped — you’d need to go through Packed first. If you need to force a specific status, you can still set it from the Order status dropdown on the order edit screen.

Need more help? Check our FAQ & Troubleshooting guide or contact support.