How Your VA Can Check Order Status Without Asking You for Screenshots
Stop sending your VA screenshots of orders. Where the shipped, supplier-cancelled and tracking answers live, and how to give your VA their own view.
Your VA answers the customer emails. The orders live in your dashboard. So every "where is my order" email turns into a message to you: has 1042 shipped? Did the supplier cancel 1051? What is the tracking on the Amazon one?
You answer with a screenshot from your phone, usually in the evening. The customer waits a day for a reply that took you ten seconds to find, and you spend part of every evening doing a job you hired someone else to do.
This article is about one thing: how your VA can check order status without asking you for screenshots. Where each answer lives, what each status means, and how to give your VA their own view of it.
The short answer
Give your VA their own login to the place where the order's status lives, and teach them three things to read there: the status on the order, the supplier's status, and the tracking number. In a dropshipping store, those three facts are not all in your sales channel's admin. The supplier ships before your store shows the order as fulfilled, and a supplier cancellation happens at the supplier, not on Shopify or Amazon.
In DS-Mate, you invite your VA as a guest on the store they cover. They sign in with their own account, open Orders, and read all three answers on the order list and the order page.
Why can't your VA just look in the store admin?
Because in dropshipping, the order has two lives. One is on your sales channel: Shopify, Amazon, eBay. The other is at your supplier, who places, packs and ships it. The questions your VA gets are almost all about the second life.
Take "has it shipped?". The supplier can hand the parcel to a carrier days before your store marks the order fulfilled. In between, your Shopify admin says unfulfilled and the supplier says shipped, and both are right. A VA who only sees the store admin tells the customer "not yet", and the customer opens a dispute about a parcel that is already moving.
Giving the VA a staff account on each channel is still worth doing for the work that happens there. If that is what you need, our guide to giving a VA access to your eBay store without your password covers eBay Team Access and Amazon user permissions step by step. This article is about the part those permissions do not answer: the order's status across the channel and the supplier.
"Has 1042 shipped?" Read the status on the order
In DS-Mate, the VA clicks Orders in the sidebar and picks the store in the store picker at the top. The list shows one store at a time, and each order has one status badge. Two of them answer this question:
- In transit means the supplier shipped it. Its tooltip reads "Supplier shipped. Waiting for carrier tracking confirmation." At this point your store can still show the order as unfulfilled. The honest answer to the customer is "it has shipped, tracking is on its way".
- Shipped means the tracking number has reached your store, so the customer can see it there too.
Every other badge has a tooltip as well. The guide to the orders list and its statuses lists them all, and it is a good first read for a new VA.
"Did the supplier cancel 1051?" Read the supplier's status
A supplier cancellation never shows up in your store admin, because it happens at the supplier. For an AliExpress order, DS-Mate shows it on the order's row:
- Cancelled by AE or Expired at AE means AliExpress closed the order before it was paid. Nothing shipped, and the order has to be placed again.
- Supplier refunded means AliExpress closed it after payment and refunded it. This one cannot be placed again as it is.
This is the question where a VA with their own view helps most. An AliExpress cancellation before payment sends no notification and no email. The only signals are a banner on the orders list and the badge on the row. Someone has to look, and your VA is already looking at orders all day.
What to do next depends on the badge. The guide to supplier cancellations walks through each one.
"What is the tracking on the Amazon one?" Open the order
The VA opens the order from the list. On the order page they find:
- Tracking Information on the item: the supplier's tracking number and carrier. Before the supplier ships, it reads "Pending until the supplier ships".
- Shipment progress: each step from "Order placed with supplier" to "Delivered", with the time it happened.
- Order tracking on Amazon (or on Shopify, eBay, and so on): the tracking number the buyer sees on that channel, once it has been sent there.
The last two can differ for a while, and that is normal. DS-Mate sends the tracking to your store once a carrier in the buyer's country has the parcel, so the supplier's number can appear on the order page before the buyer sees anything. The tracking guide explains each step.
How to give your VA their own view in DS-Mate
Your VA needs a DS-Mate account of their own, under the email you will invite. DS-Mate looks the email up when you invite, and an email with no account cannot be invited. Ask them to sign up first.
- Open Settings, then the Stores tab, and click Invite Guest.
- Under Store, pick the store the VA covers. Under Email Address, type their email and click Invite.
- DS-Mate does not email them. The invitation appears in their own Settings, Stores, in the Invitations card, and they have 7 days to accept it.
- Once they accept, the store appears in their store picker, and they read its orders from their own login.
One invitation covers one store and uses one guest seat. A VA who covers your Shopify store and your Amazon store needs two invitations and two seats. Free includes no guest seats, Starter includes one and Growth includes five; on Growth paid by card you can add a seat for $5 a month. You can also invite during a trial, up to the seats of the plan you are trying. The full steps are in how to invite a VA or guest.
One thing to know before you invite: a guest is not read-only. A guest can work on the store's orders and products, run Sync, and pay for an order by card. They cannot rename or disconnect the store, invite other people, or change your billing. See what a guest can and cannot do before you decide.
When the VA stops working with you, click Remove on the Guests tab under Settings, Stores. Their access to that store ends immediately, and you change no passwords.
FAQ
How can my VA check order status without asking me for screenshots?
Give them their own login to the place where the order's status lives, and teach them to read three things there: the status on the order, the supplier's status and the tracking number. In DS-Mate you invite the VA as a guest on the store they cover, and they read all three on the Orders page and the order page from their own account.
Why does Shopify say unfulfilled when my supplier already shipped?
Because the supplier ships before your store gets the tracking. In DS-Mate the order reads In transit at that point, with the tooltip "Supplier shipped. Waiting for carrier tracking confirmation." DS-Mate sends the tracking to your store once a carrier in the buyer's country has the parcel, and the order then reads Shipped.
How does my VA know the supplier cancelled an order?
For an AliExpress order, the row on the Orders page shows Cancelled by AE or Expired at AE when AliExpress closed it before payment, and Supplier refunded when it closed after payment. A cancellation before payment sends no notification or email, so someone has to check the Orders list.
Is a DS-Mate guest read-only?
No. A guest can work on the shared store's orders and products, run Sync and pay for an order by card. A guest cannot rename or disconnect the store, invite other people or change your billing settings. Read what a guest can and cannot do in the Help Center before you invite someone.
How many VAs can I invite, and what happens when one leaves?
Free includes no guest seats, Starter includes one and Growth includes five, and on Growth paid by card you can add a seat for $5 a month. One invitation covers one store and uses one seat. When a VA leaves, click Remove on the Guests tab under Settings, Stores: their access to that store ends immediately.
The one thing to remember
Your VA is not asking for your store. They are asking three questions, and in dropshipping the answers sit between your channel and your supplier. Put your VA where those answers are, teach them the three things to read, and the evening screenshots stop.