When Shopify Admin Isn’t Enough: Signs You’ve Outgrown Built-In Order Management

Shopify is excellent e-commerce software. For most stores, the built-in order management is perfectly adequate. But there’s a point where it stops being enough.

Here are the signs you’ve hit that point.

Sign 1: You Have Multiple Fulfillment Locations

Shopify supports multiple locations, but the routing logic is basic. It assigns orders to locations based on inventory availability, but you can’t easily:

Route based on shipping zones (West Coast orders to your LA warehouse)
Prioritize locations by shipping cost
Handle complex rules (hazmat items only from certain locations)
Split orders across locations automatically

If you’re manually reassigning orders between locations, you’ve outgrown the built-in tools.

Sign 2: You’re Selling on Multiple Channels

Shopify handles Shopify orders great. But what about:

WooCommerce orders (yes, some businesses run both)
Wholesale/B2B orders
Future marketplace orders (Amazon, eBay, etc.)

You end up with orders in multiple systems, no unified view, and inventory that’s hard to keep in sync. Customer service checks multiple dashboards to answer “where’s my order?”

Sign 3: Order Volume Exceeds Manual Processing

At 50 orders/day, you can review each one. At 500 orders/day, you can’t. You need:

Automatic order validation
Automatic inventory allocation
Automatic routing to fulfillment
Exception handling (flag problems, process the rest)

Shopify’s bulk actions help, but they’re still manual. You’re clicking buttons instead of the system working autonomously.

Sign 4: You Need Detailed Order Lifecycle Tracking

Shopify has: Unfulfilled → Fulfilled. Maybe Partially Fulfilled.

Real operations need: Pending → Confirmed → Allocated → Sent to WMS → Picking → Picked → Packing → Packed → Shipped → In Transit → Delivered.

Plus exception states: On Hold, Backordered, Failed Delivery, Returned.

If you’re tracking order status in spreadsheets or Slack messages because Shopify doesn’t have enough granularity, you need a real OMS.

Sign 5: Split Shipments Are Common

Customer orders 5 items. 3 are in your East Coast warehouse, 2 are in your West Coast warehouse. Shopify can handle this, but:

You’re manually creating the split
Tracking is confusing (which tracking number goes with which items?)
Customer gets multiple “your order shipped” emails that don’t explain what’s in each box

An OMS handles split shipments natively, with clear package-level tracking.

Sign 6: You’re a 3PL or Fulfill for Multiple Brands

Shopify is built for one brand, one store. If you’re fulfilling for multiple clients, you need:

Separate order queues per client
Client-specific inventory pools
Different billing and reporting per client
Data isolation (Client A can’t see Client B’s orders)

This isn’t what Shopify is designed for.

Sign 7: You Need Real API Integration

Shopify has an API, but it’s designed for apps that extend Shopify, not for Shopify to be a component in a larger system. If you need to:

Push orders from external systems
Pull inventory for external systems
Trigger webhooks for custom workflows
Integrate with an ERP or WMS

You’ll find Shopify’s API limiting. An OMS is built to be the integration hub.

What’s the Threshold?

There’s no magic number, but rough guidelines:

Under 100 orders/day, single location, single channel: Shopify admin is fine
100-500 orders/day, or 2+ locations, or 2+ channels: Start evaluating OMS options
500+ orders/day, or complex fulfillment requirements: You definitely need an OMS

The Migration Path

You don’t have to rip out Shopify. An OMS sits alongside it:

Shopify remains your storefront and payment processor
Orders flow from Shopify to the OMS via webhook
OMS handles routing, allocation, and fulfillment tracking
OMS pushes tracking numbers back to Shopify
Customers still see order status in Shopify

Shopify does what it’s good at (selling). The OMS does what it’s good at (fulfillment orchestration).

Vectis integrates with Shopify via OAuth and webhooks. Orders flow in automatically, tracking flows back. See how it works.