The job that eats time every day
If twenty orders come in a day, the same job is done twenty times: copy the name from the inbox, paste it on the courier's page, copy the phone, paste, copy the address, paste, type the amount.
It is half an hour of work, every day. And every copy and paste is a chance for one mistake, the costliest being one digit off in the phone number.
Couriers keep bulk upload for exactly this: all the orders in one file, submitted at once.
Where to find the file
In the site manager page, the Backup tab has the place to make the courier file. Choose the courier, and the file is made from the orders in your inbox.
This is a benefit of the Commerce plan, because the job is about handling orders, not showing the site.
Two couriers, two sets of rules
This is the most important part, and where people get stuck.
Steadfast
The boxes in the file: invoice number, recipient's name, phone, address, collection amount and note.
The address goes as one long piece of text. You do not have to pick the district or area separately, and this is what makes this courier easy for a Bangla order form. The address goes just as the buyer wrote it.
Pathao
Pathao's bulk file is different, and there are three things to know.
One, the file is read by column order. That means the position matters, not the column name. If you move a column, or add a new column in the middle, the whole file lands in the wrong places.
Two, RecipientCity and RecipientZone are required, and they must match Pathao's own list exactly. If one letter does not match, the whole upload stops.
If the district can be told from the address the buyer wrote, the City box is filled in, in Pathao's own spelling. If it cannot be told, that is left blank too, and how many are blank is shown before you download the file.
The Zone box is always blank, and this is not hidden. In a Bangla order form the buyer does not pick a zone, and if a guess were put in, the file would fail on your side at upload, without telling you why.
Three, the spelling of districts. Pathao uses its own spelling, for example Chattogram, not Chittagong; Barishal, not Barisal. However the buyer wrote it, in Bangla or any spelling, the file tries to put it in their spelling, but it is still good to run your eye over it before uploading.
Check the header once
An honest point: the courier's bulk template is inside their merchant panel, and cannot be seen without logging in. The column names are taken from their published plugin, not guessed.
Even so, before the first upload, download the sample file from your panel and check the header row. Couriers change their format now and then, and checking the first time catches it.
What to check before uploading
| What to check | Why |
| Phone number is 11 digits | Delivery to a wrong number fails and the return costs money |
| Collection amount is right | If it is too high the buyer is annoyed, if it is too low you lose |
| Address has the area | An address that says only "Dhaka" gets stuck in delivery |
| Same order not there twice | If a buyer fills the form twice, there are two entries |
| For Pathao, the Zone box is filled | If it is blank the upload will stop |
What happens most: an incomplete address. The easiest way to stop it is not in the file but in the form. Make the address box required in the order form and write an example, such as "House/road, area, thana, district".
About the collection amount
In cash on delivery, this box is where the costliest mistake happens.
First decide who pays the delivery charge. If the buyer pays, the collection amount has both the product price and the delivery charge. If you pay, it is only the product price.
Write this clearly in the site's form too, because if the buyer, standing in front of the delivery man, hears a different amount, the order itself comes back.
After sending the orders
Once the file is uploaded, change the status of those orders in the inbox to "done". Then the same orders will not go into the file again the next day.
And the tracking numbers stay in the courier's panel. If you want to send them to the buyer, the SMS setup is useful.
How orders are collected and how to run the inbox is in the inbox post.
Questions and answers
Is the courier file available on every plan? No, it is a benefit of the Commerce plan. In a small shop with a few orders a day, putting them in by hand is easier, and the file becomes useful when the numbers grow.
Why is Pathao's Zone box blank? Because Pathao checks it against its own list exactly, and if it does not match, the whole upload stops. In a Bangla order form the buyer does not pick a zone, so if a guess were put in, the file would fail on your side. The city box is filled in, though, if the district can be told from the address.
Is it a problem if I change the column order? For Pathao, yes, because their file is read by position. Do not move columns and do not add new ones. For Steadfast too, it is safer to upload the file just as it is.
Is there a problem if I open it in Excel and save? There can be. Excel sometimes treats a phone number as a number and deletes the leading zero, and it also touches the structure of the file. If you do not need to, upload the file without opening it; if you must open it, check the phone number column after opening.
I use another courier. Can I get their file? For now files can be made for two couriers, because those two take the address as plain text. Couriers that want a separate code for the area cannot reliably have their file made from a Bangla order form. In that case you can download the inbox's ordinary CSV and arrange it your own way.
What if the same order is uploaded twice? You have to cancel the extra order from the courier's panel. To avoid this, keep the habit of changing the status in the inbox after uploading.
How many orders come in the file? Of those still waiting to be handled in the inbox, up to the oldest one thousand in one go, and you are told how many are left. Entries with no phone or address, and orders whose figures look suspicious, do not go into the file.
What should I do if an address is incomplete? Call the buyer and find out before uploading, because if delivery fails on an incomplete address, the return cost is yours. The long-term fix is to make the address box required in the form and write a sample.
In short
- You can make the courier's bulk file straight from the inbox, on the Commerce plan
- Steadfast takes the address as plain text
- Pathao's file is read by column order, and city and zone must match exactly
- Zone you fill yourself; City is filled if the district can be told from the address
- Up to 1,000 orders in one go, and entries without phone and address are left out
- The first time, match the header with the sample in your own merchant panel
- Before uploading, check three things: phone, amount and address
- After uploading, change the status in the inbox, or the order will go twice