Resources
Ecommerce support glossary
The vocabulary that shows up in ecommerce support tooling, defined in plain terms. Useful when onboarding someone new, or when a helpdesk sales page assumes you already know.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| WISMO | "Where is my order?" The shorthand for order-status questions, usually the largest single ticket category in an ecommerce inbox. |
| DNR | Delivered but not received. The carrier has marked a parcel delivered and the customer says it never arrived. Needs an investigation workflow, not an argument about the scan. |
| RTS | Return to sender. A parcel that could not be delivered and is on its way back to you, usually from a bad address or a failed delivery attempt. |
| Fulfillment status | Shopify's record of whether an order has been packed and handed to a carrier. Distinct from delivery status, which is the carrier's record of where it is. |
| Delivery exception | A carrier flag that something has gone wrong in transit: address problem, failed attempt, damage or a customs hold. |
| Out for delivery | The parcel is on a vehicle for delivery today. The narrowest and most reassuring window you can give a customer honestly. |
| In transit | The carrier has the parcel and it is moving through their network. No delivery date is implied unless the carrier has given one. |
| Macro | A reusable reply template, usually with variables for the order number, customer name and tracking link. |
| First response time | How long a customer waits for a first human reply. Usually the metric with the strongest link to satisfaction on order questions. |
| Context switching | The cost of leaving one task to do another, then returning. In support it is the hidden cost of opening Shopify for every email. |
| Order reference | The identifier a customer might quote for their order, such as #10582. Often missing from the email entirely. |
| Deterministic reply | A reply selected by fixed rules from known facts rather than generated by a model. Predictable, auditable, and safe to send on factual questions. |
See these states in your own store
CaseKit shows the real fulfillment state for the order behind each customer email.