A two-hour order hold that was not stopping shipments
A US apparel brand sells online through Shopify, manages operations in NetSuite, and fulfils orders through a 3PL warehouse. To give customers time to cancel an order or correct a shipping address, the business had introduced a two-hour hold on every new Shopify order.
However, the hold was not protecting the business as intended.
A customer cancelled an order and received a refund within 40 minutes of checkout, yet the order still shipped. When the team reviewed other orders, they found the same issue: orders were reaching the warehouse long before the two-hour hold period had ended.
The challenge
The order hold was clearly active in Shopify, but the order journey did not stop there.
The Shopify-to-NetSuite connector was importing new orders immediately after checkout, without checking whether the order was still on hold. Once an order arrived in NetSuite, it automatically moved through the fulfilment process and became available to the 3PL warehouse.
An old connector rule also appeared to filter orders, but was in fact allowing every order through.
This created unnecessary refunds, avoidable shipping costs and time-consuming requests to the warehouse to intercept dispatched parcels.
The solution
We reviewed the entire order flow, from Shopify checkout through to NetSuite and the 3PL.
The order editing app already provided the right signal: once the two-hour hold period ended, it marked the order as released. We updated the integration rule so that an order would only import into NetSuite after this release status was applied.
To ensure the process remained practical, we also:
- Allowed manual and marketplace orders without a hold to import normally
- Recorded the original rule for a quick rollback if required
- Tested orders at every stage, including active hold, released, cancelled and edited orders
- Confirmed that the warehouse only received approved, released orders
The result
Orders now remain outside NetSuite and away from the warehouse until the hold period has passed.
Customers can cancel an order or update their delivery address within the two-hour window without receiving an unwanted parcel. The operations team no longer has to chase the warehouse to stop shipments, and the business avoids the cost of refunded orders that have already been dispatched.
