Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋
Welcome to Issue #180 of Loop WP!
Last week was about a new WooCommerce alternative, FluentCart.
This week, we take a look at what’s coming in WooCommerce 10.2’s Order Fulfillments Beta: Advanced Shipping Management & Tracking.
Let’s go! 👇
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Order Fulfillments Beta is Here!
😎 WooCommerce 10.3 should be dropping today with some very cool new features coming to core (COGs) and some experimental features.
But I want to take us back to WooCommerce 10.2 (only a month ago).
Advanced Shipping Management & Tracking dropped in beta form (and needs to be activated via a command) in WooCommerce 10.2.
A feature many of us have been requesting for years is finally here in core…almost. 🎉
This beta is your chance to test it early, offer feedback, and help Woo shape one of its most impactful updates yet.
TLDR
✨ WooCommerce 10.2’s new Order Fulfilment System (beta) completely rethinks how stores handle shipping and tracking.
I’ll look at this in more detail later, but in summary:
You can now manage partial shipments, send automated customer notifications, and connect with 70+ carriers — all from your WooCommerce admin.
Fulfillments update automatically as items ship, with options for auto-detected tracking, draft states, and clean order-status logic.🔥
For developers, there’s a new REST API, plus hooks and filters for deep integration. ✅
Brian Coords (Developer Advocate at Woo) covers the features in the video below. 👇
My Personal Highlights
😎 The new “side panel” really excites me, and that’s just one of the cool features coming into core.
📦 Partial Shipments will really help one of my clients who dropships some products and ships others themselves.
This means orders with mixed shipping dates can now update in real time as items go out the door — no need to wait until everything ships.
You can see exactly which products have been fulfilled (and how many), making it ideal for split or back-ordered shipments.
Let’s Take A Closer Look
OK, {{first_name|friend}}, if you didn’t watch Brian’s video above and my TLDR wasn’t enough, let’s take a closer look at the Order Fulfilment beta. 👇
Core Capabilities
Partial Shipments – Covered above.
Automatic Status Calculation – WooCommerce now rolls up fulfilment progress automatically:
No Fulfillments
Partially Fulfilled
or Fulfilled ✅
Customer Notifications – Customers receive detailed tracking updates only when shipments are marked complete, ensuring no premature emails. 🎉
Flexible Tracking – Choose automatic carrier lookup, manual entry, or “no tracking” for simple deliveries. 🚚
70+ Carrier Database – From UPS and FedEx to regional postal services, WooCommerce can identify carriers and generate live tracking URLs on its own. 🤯
Admin Interface Updates
A Fulfilment Status column in your Orders List.
A Fulfillments Panel inside each order, complete with tracking, notes, and drafts.
Settings for virtual/downloadable products, defining how they’re handled.
The ability to save drafts while prepping packages (only final fulfillments trigger customer notifications).
Developer & API Notes
New REST API endpoint under “/orders“ for fulfilment management.
Full suite of hooks, filters, and functions for extending workflows.
Built with integration-readiness in mind (In theory, this is ideal for warehouse or ERP connections, and specific comments have been raised).
Why It’s A Big Deal 🎉
It’s more than a shipping tweak.
It’s WooCommerce, finally bridging the gap between order creation and delivery.
Fewer support tickets.
Fewer plugins.
A smoother customer journey.
Testing & Feedback
To test, add the feature flag via CLI in a development environment, then share your feedback on the Developer Blog or GitHub, where there have already been some valid comments and points for Woo to consider.
Brian emphasises this is the time to experiment and shape what ships in the final release.
Before You Go
I read two interesting stats about WooCommerce this week in The Repository’s article covering some of Matt Mullenweg’s comments at the WordCamp Canada Town Hall:
He [Mullenweg] also briefly talked about WooCommerce, highlighting its technical aspects and how much it has contributed to the growth of WordPress. WooCommerce is currently powering around 8% of websites worldwide, and runs on nearly a quarter of all WordPress sites, he said.
The final quarter of 2025 will be very important for WooCommerce, especially with the buzz around FluentCart, but 2026 will be a massive year for eCommerce, and I can’t wait to see what Woo has planned.
That’s it for this week. 👋
(And in case you were wondering, {{first_name|friend}}, “fulfillment” is American English, so I’ve not spelt “fulfilment” wrong. 🤭)
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Weekly WordPress News & Tips
This week's excellent and insightful WordPress News & Tips:
AI Browser Security - Brave Reveals Systemic Security Issues In AI Browsers (including Atlas). (Search Engine Journal)
A Discovery Story - Finding WordPress’ Hidden Gems. (Nick Hamze)
Why Speed Matters - Weston Ruter on Unlocking WordPress Performance. (WP Tavern)
Add to Cart+ - Seven holiday shipping strategies to boost sales. (WooCommerce)
Core-AI - Contributor Check-in [Oct 16th, 2025]. (WordPress)
We Don’t Think So - Is ChatGPT’s Buy It With Shopify a Threat to WooCommerce? (Rocket[dot]net)
Dismissals & Time - Automattic Again Pushes to Dismiss WP Engine’s Antitrust Claims Amid Dispute Over Redacted Excerpts. (The Repository)
Beta Testing - WordPress 6.9 Beta 1. (WordPress)
Security Is Not A Feature - How To Do WordPress & Security (Remkus de Vries)
Future of WooCommerce - What is AI’s Role? (The WP Minute)
A More Accessible Web - WordPress Accessibility Day 2025 Recap. (WP Accessibility Day)
DevRel - Interview with Jonathan Bossenger and Nathan Wrigley. (WP Builds)
Core-AI - Contributor Check-in – Oct 1st, 2025. (WordPress)
WP Rocket 3.20 - Introducing Rocket Insights for Hands-on Performance Tracking. (WP Rocket)
MCP Server - WS Form includes an MCP server that can interact with WS Form from external applications, scripts, or services, including AI tools. (WS Form)
Coming to Firefox - DNS Prefetch just levelled up! (Erwin Hofman)
Model Agnostic - The PHP AI Client SDK version 0.2.0 is out now, with several key enhancements and fixes for more developer convenience. (Felix Arntz)
Check Your 301s - As they add on to your TTFB and therefore negatively affect your Core Web Vitals metrics (LCP)! (Joshua Clare-Flagg)
Hosting Decoded - How to Choose the Best Host for WordPress (The WP Minute)
WooCommerce Alternative - WPManageNinja Launches FluentCart, Aiming to Bring Speed and Simplicity to E-commerce for WordPress. (The Repository)
If you have a question about this email or WordPress, please reply, and I will respond as soon as possible.
👋 Until next time,
This image is an original illustration created for editorial use. The WooCommerce name and logo are trademarks of Automattic Inc., and the UPS, FedEx, and DHL logos are trademarks of their respective owners. All trademarks, logos, and brand names are used here for illustrative and commentary purposes only. No affiliation or endorsement is implied.