Shipping and Fulfillment

Once a fan pays for a physical product, the next step is getting it to them. TribeNest handles the heavy lifting — comparing carrier rates, buying labels, generating tracking, and updating the customer with each step — so you can focus on packing the box.

This page covers shipping settings on your products, buying and printing labels for orders, and the tracking timeline that shows what's happening with each shipment.

Shipping settings on a product

Every physical product has its own shipping settings. You set these when you create the product and can edit them anytime from Edit Product. See creating a product for the full creation flow.

The shipping section on a product includes:

Shipping type

Choose how shipping is calculated at checkout:

• Flat Rate — you set one fixed shipping cost that applies to every order. Simple and predictable. Best when most of your shipments cost roughly the same to send.
• Dynamic (Real-time rates) — TribeNest fetches live rates from carriers based on the customer's address and your product's weight and dimensions. Fans see options at checkout (different carriers, different speeds) and pick what they want.

If you pick Flat Rate, you'll also fill in the shipping cost — the amount fans pay for shipping on every order.

Weight and dimensions

Real-time rates need accurate weight and box size to calculate cost.

• Weight with a unit of oz, lb, g, or kg.
• Length, width, height with a unit of inches or cm.

Even if you use flat rate, fill these in — they're used for label purchasing later.

Shipping label size

Pick the paper format your label printer uses:

• 4" x 6" (Standard) — most thermal label printers
• 4" x 8"
• A4 — full-page office printers
• A5, A6, 2.3" x 7.5" — for specialty printers

Delivery zones

Decide where you're willing to ship:

• Ships worldwide — leave this checked to accept orders from anywhere.
• Specific countries — uncheck "Ships worldwide" and use the search box to add countries one by one. Fans outside your selected countries won't be able to add the product to their cart.

Selected countries appear as chips. Click the X on a chip to remove a country.

Testing shipping rates

If you've set a product to Dynamic (Real-time rates), you can preview what fans will be quoted before going live.

1. Go to Store then Products.
2. Find the product, open the menu, and click Test Shipping Rate.
3. Fill in a sample shipping address — at minimum the street address, city, and country.
4. Click Get Shipping Rates.

You'll see a list of available carriers, services, prices, and estimated delivery days. This is exactly what fans will see at checkout, so it's the best way to sanity-check that your weights and dimensions are reasonable.

Buying a shipping label

When a physical order comes in and is paid, you can buy a shipping label directly from the order.

1. Go to Store then Orders.
2. Click into the order.
3. On the relevant delivery row, click the menu and choose Buy Shipping Label.
4. The dialog fetches available rates and shows them as a list — each with the carrier, service, estimated delivery days, and cost.
5. Pick the rate you want. The dialog tells you exactly what your card on file will be charged.
6. If the customer paid for shipping at checkout, you'll see how much they paid for comparison. If your selected rate is more expensive, you'll get a warning showing the difference.
7. Click Purchase Label.

The label is generated immediately and the delivery moves to the Label Purchased status. The cost shows up on the delivery row as Label cost.

Printing the label

After purchase, the actions menu on the delivery row gains a Print Label option. Click it to open the label PDF in a new tab and trigger your browser's print dialog.

Marking as shipped

Once the package is in the carrier's hands:

1. Open the order.
2. On the delivery row (now showing Label Purchased), click the menu and choose Mark as Shipped.

The status moves to Shipped and the customer receives a shipped notification with their tracking number.

For most carriers, tracking events come in automatically after this — you don't need to update the order again.

Copying the tracking number

Need the tracking number to share with a fan? Open the delivery menu and click Copy Tracking Number. It's copied straight to your clipboard.

The tracking timeline

Every physical delivery has a full event timeline showing what's happened so far.

1. Open the order.
2. On the delivery row, click the menu and choose View Timeline.

The timeline dialog shows two sections:

• Tracking — a summary card with the tracking number, the carrier, the current status badge, the estimated delivery date if available, and a link to track on the carrier's site directly.
• Timeline — a step-by-step log of every event so far: order paid, processing started, label purchased, shipped, in transit, out for delivery, delivered. Each event shows the time, location (when known), and any notes. You'll also see address edits logged here if you updated a fan's address after the order.
• Carrier Updates — the raw status updates from the carrier as they happen, with dates, locations, and source.

This is your single source of truth for "what's actually happening with this shipment?" Use it when fans email asking where their package is.

Customer paid vs your label cost

You'll see two shipping numbers on each physical delivery:

• Shipping paid — what the customer was charged at checkout (based on your flat rate or the dynamic rate they picked).
• Label cost — what you actually paid TribeNest when you bought the label.

If you use Dynamic (Real-time rates), these usually line up because the customer paid the live rate you're now buying.

If you use Flat Rate, the difference depends on how good your guess was. The label dialog warns you when the label costs more than the customer paid so you can either pick a cheaper service or accept the loss for that order.

Editing the delivery address

If a fan writes in with an address correction before you've shipped:

1. Open the order.
2. On the physical delivery row, click the menu and choose Edit Address.
3. Update the address, city, state, ZIP, country, or phone.
4. Click Save.

The change is logged on the timeline. If you've already purchased a label, you may need to refund and rebuy — TribeNest support can help if you get stuck.

Where to go next

• Set up a product's shipping → creating a product
• Sizes, colors, and stock per variant → product variants
• See and manage every order → orders
• Set your business address and currency → settings
• Track payouts and shipping cost differences → income