> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Fulfillment Rate Over Time, BigCommerce > Fulfillment Rate Over Time for BigCommerce stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Supporting Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ecommerce Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > Daily fulfilment rate ((orders with status = `Shipped` or `Completed`) ÷ total orders) plotted as an area chart over 90 days. The trend version of [Fulfillment Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/fulfillment-rate). The shape tells you whether your warehouse is keeping pace, falling behind, or recovering from an incident. | | | | ----------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | `DATE_HISTOGRAM rate(status IN [Shipped, Completed])` per day. The numerator is orders in terminal-positive fulfilment states; the denominator is total orders placed that day. Output is a percentage. | | **VAT / tax treatment** | n/a, count-rate metric. | | **Shipping** | n/a. | | **Discounts** | n/a. | | **Refunds** | Refunded orders sit in `Refunded` status, NOT in `Shipped/Completed`. They reduce the rate as a denominator-side effect. To understand whether refunds are dragging the rate, pair with [Refund Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/refund-rate). | | **Cancelled / voided orders** | In the denominator, not the numerator. Each cancellation reduces the rate by 1/(orders-that-day). | | **Currency** | n/a. | | **Channels / sources** | All BC channels contribute. Channel-specific patterns: web orders settle to `Shipped` typically within 1-3 days; marketplace orders follow marketplace SLA (often faster, 1-2 days); POS orders typically `Completed` same-day. The rate naturally varies day-to-day with channel mix. | | **What "today's rate" means** | The rate for orders placed today, evaluated immediately. **Most orders placed today haven't shipped yet**, so today's rate naturally reads low (\~10-30%) and rises over the next 1-3 days as the warehouse catches up. The trailing-bar shape is the right way to read this card; today's bar always reads lower than terminal. | | **Maturity convention** | We mark a day as "fully matured" 5 days after the order date; before maturity, the rate is preliminary. The chart should be read with the most recent 3-5 days as preliminary. | | **Why this differs from "delivery rate"** | Shipped/Completed is BC's status when goods leave the warehouse, not when they arrive at the customer. Delivery confirmation requires carrier tracking integration; the BC `Completed` state is sometimes auto-set on carrier delivery, sometimes auto-set on label print. **Read this card as "warehouse fulfilment rate", not "delivery rate".** | | **Time window** | `90D` (rolling 90 days, daily granularity) | | **Alert trigger** | None at this card. Use [BC Alert Fulfilment Delay](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/fulfilment-delay-alert) for threshold alerts on rate decline. | | **Roles** | owner, operations | ## Calculation ``` DATE_HISTOGRAM rate(status=Shipped) WHERE date BETWEEN [period_start, period_end] ``` ## Worked example A US homewares brand on BigCommerce Pro shipping from a single 3PL, 90 days from 13 Jan 26 to 12 Apr 26. | Period | Mature fulfilment rate | Notes | | ---------------------- | ---------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | | 13 Jan 26 to 26 Jan 26 | 94.2% | Healthy baseline | | 27 Jan 26 to 9 Feb 26 | 95.1% | Slight bump, 3PL added shifts | | 10 Feb 26 to 23 Feb 26 | 87.4% | **Drop, Valentine's volume spike outpaced capacity** | | 24 Feb 26 to 9 Mar 26 | 91.8% | Recovery after extra shifts | | 10 Mar 26 to 23 Mar 26 | 93.6% | Back to normal | | 24 Mar 26 to 6 Apr 26 | 86.7% | **Drop, Spring launch promo overran 3PL** | | 7 Apr 26 to 12 Apr 26 | 79.3% | **Worse, sustained warehouse backlog** | What's interesting: 1. **Two drops in 90 days, both campaign-driven.** Valentine's and Spring launch both pushed daily order volumes 40-60% above baseline; the 3PL didn't have surge capacity. The pattern is "campaign hits → fulfilment rate drops → backlog clears in 5-10 days → rate recovers". Predictable and avoidable. 2. **The Spring launch drop is worse than Valentine's** because volumes were higher and the 3PL didn't pre-stage extra shifts. **Conclusion: marketing and ops aren't talking before campaigns.** Build a campaign-calendar-to-3PL-capacity check into the launch process. 3. **Below 90% triggers customer complaints.** Most stores see CSAT scores drop visibly when this rate falls below 88% for more than 5 days. Below 80% is "the warehouse is on fire", expect refund-rate spike, support-ticket spike, and bad reviews to follow within 7-10 days. 4. **The 79.3% reading on the most recent week is preliminary** but the trend direction is clearly negative. Don't wait for it to mature; act on the early signal. 5. **The recovery pattern is consistent**, \~5-10 days after the drop, rate returns to baseline. That suggests the 3PL has overflow capacity but not always-on capacity. Worth a conversation about staffing model. The intervention playbook when the trend dips: 1. **Pair with [Unfulfilled Orders](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/unfulfilled-orders)**, the absolute count of orders awaiting shipment. Knowing the rate dropped from 94% to 87% is informational; knowing it's 240 orders sitting in `Awaiting Shipment` is actionable. 2. **Check the campaign calendar.** Most rate dips correlate with a campaign or promotion that drove volume above 3PL capacity. **Pre-staging is the fix; reactive scaling rarely catches up in time.** 3. **Contact the warehouse / 3PL operations lead directly.** A direct phone call to the warehouse manager is faster than escalating through customer-success channels. 4. **Monitor the recovery trend.** Most warehouses recover within 5-10 days; if a dip persists longer, the cause is not capacity (it's workflow, technology, or training). 5. **Audit shipping cutoff times.** Many BC stores have a same-day-shipping promise that becomes impossible during volume spikes; lower the bar temporarily ("ships within 3 business days") to set expectations. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with Fulfillment Rate Over Time | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Fulfillment Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/fulfillment-rate) | The single-period summary. This card shows the daily shape; that one summarises. | | [Fulfillment Status](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/fulfillment-status) | The status decomposition. Drops here usually correlate with rising `Awaiting Shipment` share there. | | [Unfulfilled Orders](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/unfulfilled-orders) | The absolute backlog count. Rate is the percentage; this is the dollars-and-cents number. | | [Refund Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/refund-rate) | The downstream effect. Sustained low fulfilment rates lead to refund-rate spikes within 7-14 days as customers cancel waiting orders. | | [Cancellation Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/cancellation-rate) | Same downstream effect, faster. Customers cancel before they wait for refund. | | [Order Count](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/total-orders) | The volume context. Rate dips during volume spikes are different from rate dips during volume troughs. | | [BC Alert Fulfilment Delay](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/fulfilment-delay-alert) | The alert version. Fires when this trend crosses a threshold. | | [`shipstation.ss_avg_ship_time`](/nerve-centre/shipstation/ss_avg_ship_time) | Warehouse-side dwell time. Cross-reference for warehouse-vs-system diagnostics. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel:** [Analytics → Orders](https://login.bigcommerce.com/deep-links/manage/analytics/in-store-conversion) on Plus / Pro / Enterprise has a "Fulfillment rate over time" view. Standard plan stores need to compute manually from the Orders list. For 3PL-side reconciliation, the integration's dashboard (ShipStation's "Order Velocity", ShipBob's "On-Time Shipping") shows the warehouse-side picture. **Why our number may legitimately differ from BC Analytics:** | Reason | Direction | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- | | **Maturity convention.** BC Analytics may report unmatured days as "still in progress"; we report a preliminary rate that grows as orders ship. | Different framing | | **Time zone.** UTC vs store TZ. | Boundary effects | | **3PL sync lag.** Orders shipped at the warehouse but not yet synced to BC look unfulfilled in our index. Lag is typically 30-90 minutes. | Vortex IQ slightly LAGS reality | | **Marketplace-managed shipments.** Amazon FBA orders may report as `Shipped` faster than BC's catalog channel reflects. | Vortex IQ LAGS marketplace | | **Cancelled orders.** We include them in the denominator; BC Analytics may exclude. | Vortex IQ LOWER rate (cancellations drag denominator) | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`shipstation.ss_on_time_pct`](/nerve-centre/shipstation/ss_on_time_pct) | ShipStation on-time shipping rate should track this card | ShipStation measures against carrier SLA, not order placement; the two are correlated but not identical. | | [`google_analytics.ga_order_completion_funnel`](/nerve-centre/google_analytics/ga_order_completion_funnel) | GA4 doesn't track post-purchase fulfilment; only the order-creation funnel is reflected | Different layer of the funnel. | **Same-metric documentation cross-reference:** * [`shopify.fulfillment_over_time`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/fulfillment-rate-over-time) (planned) * [`adobe_commerce.fulfillment_over_time`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/fulfillment-rate-over-time) (planned) ## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **Today's bar reads 12%, is the warehouse on fire?** Probably not. Today's orders mostly haven't shipped yet, the warehouse is processing them. Today's bar will rise to the typical baseline (90%+) over the next 1-3 days. Trust the trend up to 5 days back; everything more recent is preliminary. **My fulfilment rate dropped 8 pp in 5 days, what's the right action?** First, validate it's real (check the most recent days have matured at least 24-48 hours). If real, run the intervention playbook in the Worked Example section: validate the campaign-vs-capacity story, contact the 3PL operations lead, monitor the recovery. Most 8-pp drops recover within 7-10 days; longer dips signal a systemic issue, not a capacity issue. **Should refunded orders count against my fulfilment rate?** They don't count in the numerator (which is `Shipped + Completed` only). Whether they should drag the denominator depends on what story you want to tell. The default behaviour (drag the denominator) tells you "what fraction of orders successfully shipped"; an alternative formulation excludes refunds from both sides and tells you "what fraction of shippable orders shipped on time". We use the default. **Why does my B2B store show a lower fulfilment rate than retail?** B2B orders sit longer in `Awaiting Payment` (waiting for invoice clearance) before they ship. The denominator includes those waiting-payment orders, which haven't shipped yet, so the apparent rate is lower. Filter to retail-only (or exclude `Awaiting Payment` from the denominator) for the apples-to-apples ops view. **Black Friday week, what should I expect?** Most BC stores see fulfilment rate drop 10-25 percentage points during peak holiday weeks. Pre-stage extra warehouse staff and accept the dip if you can't fully match capacity. **Communication is the lever**: a clear "ships within 5 business days" promise during peak avoids the customer-experience damage of unmet expectations. **Does the chart account for weekends?** Day-of-week effects are visible: Saturday and Sunday orders show low same-day rates because most warehouses don't ship on weekends. By Tuesday-Wednesday those orders mature to the normal rate. The chart shows this naturally; don't read a Sunday low as a problem. **My theme auto-marks orders Completed at label print, will this card overstate my rate?** Yes, slightly. If your theme/app marks `Completed` at label print rather than at delivery confirmation, the rate reads \~5-15 pp higher than "actually delivered" rate. That's a definitional consideration; the warehouse-side rate is still measured correctly. **Why is my rate higher than BC's own report?** Most likely because BC's report uses a different maturity convention (waits for full delivery confirmation), or excludes non-shipped channels (POS) which we include. Differences of 2-5 pp are normal; differences of 10+ pp suggest a definition or filter mismatch. **My most recent day shows 0%, did the integration break?** Probably not. If the integration is healthy, today's bar starts at 0% (no orders shipped yet) and rises through the day. Check whether the bar moves over the next 6-12 hours; if it stays at 0%, check Settings → Sources → BigCommerce status. **Can I configure an alert when this rate drops?** Yes, see [BC Alert Fulfilment Delay](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/fulfilment-delay-alert) for the threshold-alert version. Most stores configure it to fire when the rate drops below 85% for two consecutive days; that filters single-day noise. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Fulfillment Rate Over Time* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across BigCommerce and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.