At a glance
The percentage of paid BigCommerce orders that reached status = Shipped within the period. The headline operational health metric, customers paid, did the merchant deliver? Industry baseline 92-98%; below 92% means warehouse / fulfilment-process issues.
Calculation
Worked example
A US homewares brand on BigCommerce Enterprise. The 30-day window covers 14 Mar 26 to 12 Apr 26.
What’s interesting:
- 94.0% sits in healthy band (92-98%) but the prior period was 96.2%, a 2.2pp drop worth investigating. Trend matters more than the level. If the slip continues another 2 points the alert fires.
- The 88 + 22 + 590 = 700 in-flight orders are not yet fulfilled. A growing in-flight backlog precedes a fulfilment-rate drop by 7-14 days; watch Unfulfilled Orders for the leading indicator.
Partially Shippedat 1.9% is moderate. Healthy <1%. Above 3% suggests inventory-mismatch problems (some line items in the order can’t be fulfilled together).- Per-channel breakdown often reveals the issue. Pair with BC Channel Fulfillment, if one channel dragged the rate down, fix that channel; if all channels dropped, the warehouse is the issue.
- Walk the warehouse. Are picks/packs running at normal pace? Any backlog?
- Check BC Alert Fulfilment Delay for the speed dimension.
- Audit the
Partially Shippedcohort for line-item inventory issues. - If trend continues, escalate to ops / 3PL relationship review.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel: Orders → All orders, filter by statusShipped, Completed, Partially Shipped for the period; divide by total non-failed orders. The result should match this card to within ±0.5 percentage points.
Analytics → Orders on Plus / Enterprise plans gives a status-distribution view that approximates this card.
Why our number may legitimately differ from BC Control Panel:
Cross-connector reconciliation:
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Why is my fulfilment rate so low? Three usual culprits: (1) Inventory mismatch, orders are taking line items the warehouse can’t actually fulfil, leading toPartially Shipped or stuck orders. (2) Warehouse capacity, picks/packs aren’t keeping up with order volume. (3) 3PL handover issues, BC marks orders as awaiting shipment but the 3PL hasn’t acknowledged. Investigate each in turn.
My rate is 99%, can it go higher?
Probably not meaningfully. 99-99.5% is the practical ceiling; the residual is unavoidable (mid-shipment damage, address-validation failures, post-checkout customer cancellation). Don’t chase 100%; protect the 99%.
Why does the rate drop on weekends?
Most warehouses operate Monday-Friday, so orders placed Friday afternoon through Sunday queue up. The card sees these as “not yet fulfilled” until Monday’s batch runs. Read the 7-day rolling rate, not the daily, to smooth weekend effects.
Should I count Partially Shipped as fully fulfilled?
Not by default. A partially-shipped order means the customer is waiting for at least one line item; that’s not a fully-good experience. We use 50% credit. Some merchants want full credit on first dispatch (matches Amazon’s metric); configure in Vortex Mind if needed.
Why is my Amazon channel always near 100%?
Amazon FBA orders are by definition fulfilled at the moment Amazon ships from FBA inventory; the BC sync just records the fait accompli. Amazon FBM orders behave like web orders. If your Amazon channel includes FBA, expect a structurally higher fulfilment rate.
My rate dropped 5 percentage points overnight, what happened?
Almost always a 3PL or warehouse incident. Check: (1) 3PL service status pages, (2) any recent integration changes (Shopify-to-BC migrations, ERP cutovers), (3) inventory sync logs for unusual error rates. A sudden drop is usually a system, not a process problem.
Multi-warehouse stores: how does this card work?
We aggregate fulfilment across all warehouses into one rate. Per-warehouse breakdown lives in BC’s MLI reports; if you need per-warehouse fulfilment in Vortex IQ, contact Ask Viq to add the dimension.
Why exclude Refunded orders from the denominator?
Because refunded orders typically had a different lifecycle (the customer wanted to return, not the merchant failed to fulfil). Including them in the failure denominator would unfairly penalise fulfilment for situations the warehouse couldn’t control.
Should I count Manual Verification Required orders?
Currently excluded; these orders are still in fraud-review state and haven’t actually been attempted for fulfilment yet. Including them would corrupt the rate. Once they pass review, they enter the normal flow and start counting.
My rate is dropping but I’m not getting customer complaints, is the data wrong?
Possibly the lag effect, fulfilment slowness produces customer complaints 3-7 days after the metric moves. The card is leading the support inbox. Fix the warehouse issue before the complaints arrive.