As a Shopify merchant, you know how important it is to keep your online store organized and efficient. One aspect of this is managing your order numbers. While Shopify provides a default order numbering system, some merchants may need to change their order numbers to better align with their business needs.

There are a number of reasons why you might want to change your order number:

Avoid confusion and simplify your order management process. This is particularly important for businesses with a high volume of orders or those that use multiple sales channels.
Aligning with Third-Party Systems, such as inventory or accounting software, for easy integration.
Personalization to include specific information, such as customer name, to personalize the customer experience and improve branding.
Security to protect sensitive customer information and reduce the risk of fraud.

What can you do in Shopify to change your order number?

Shopify offers a quick, but limited solution: adding either a prefix or suffix to all order numbers in your store. You can find the section to adjust standards and formats under Shopify’s general settings. This fix is great for clearing up invoice mix-ups if you’ve got orders from a separate eCommerce platform that use the same numbers as your Shopify orders.

However, this method doesn’t cover issues for individual orders. Adding a prefix or suffix to your entire Shopify order list doesn’t make it any easier to check off these tasks:

Recognizing a custom or wholesale order
Finding a subscription box to mark as fulfilled
Helping your customer service team locate specific orders
Changing the value of the default Shopify order number start (#1001)

Shopify doesn’t provide any solutions of its own to keep track of order numbers for individual or larger groups of orders. Outside of Shopify, you can always keep meticulous manual notes elsewhere on the relevant order numbers. But that’s a lot of extra work, and opens the door to errors or loss of data during the transfer process.

What if I need more than just prefix or suffix?

If you've ever looked up, "Can I change the order number of an order Shopify?," you might have seen the naysayers. But don't lose hope! The no's only mean that you can't change your order number in Shopify. However, you can use Cleverific Order Editor to adjust your order number directly on the order.

In Cleverific Order Editor, there’s an edit option right beside your automatically generated order number. You can edit this number in any way, including adding letters, reducing or increasing the number of digits, or not using numbers at all. You can use this option to easily create unique markers for custom orders, wholesale orders, and more in the same Shopify store.

Quick steps to change your Shopify order number in Cleverific Order Editor

1. Open your order in Order Editor’s Advanced Mode and click the Edit button

2. Adjust your order number in the field

3. Save the order! You'll see the new order number appear in your order list.

How Cleverific Order Editor makes editing your order number possible

You’ll notice that when you edit your order number, your edits appear on a new order and the original order (which still has its auto-generated order number) is canceled.

This is because Shopify has some platform limitations that don’t allow some changes to be made on edited orders. In order to bypass this API, Cleverific Order Editor uses a workaround that enacts your edits on a “saved-as” order, overriding limitations on an edited order. See how this will affect your sales reports on our help docs.

What makes Cleverific Order Editor the best solution for your order number woes

While Shopify has a solution for order number problems that affect your entire store, it doesn’t allow you to customize individual orders or even small groups of orders to the needs of your business. Cleverific Order Editor gives you the ability to edit your order number right on the relevant order(s). Using this quick and intuitive method, you can accurately keep track of special orders—from custom orders to subscription boxes—without keeping notes elsewhere.

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Need more edits for your Shopify orders?

Check out these 4 quick edits you can make in Cleverific Order Editor
See extra edit options for line items, like adding taxes and product weight
Add some helpful order processing tips to your toolkit

How to change your order number in Shopify