How a newly placed order is managed in Magento 2 store
The main goal of any online business for its owners is to bring maximum income, which can be done through a simple and convenient shopping process for customers (the easy way to improve your income will be using popular marketplaces. You can achieve this with Advanced Product Feeds extension).
In Magento2, the process of product selection and purchase is as simple as possible. The customer opens the shop catalog, where he chooses the desired product, sets the quantity, chooses options, if any, and adds it to the cart.
In the process of placing an order, the buyer specifies his address and details for the store to issue an invoice. He also sets the Shipping specifics in the order, chooses the method of payment and delivery.
If a customer sets up an order, a job request is created as a temporary record in the database table corresponding to transactions. In the order grid, customer’s order initially has awaiting status, which is marked by the pending label. Such a pending order can be canceled at any time if the customer has not paid for it. As soon as the money transfer is completed, the store manager can proceed to create an invoice for the order and start shipping it out.
Default order path during its processing
The exact list of procedures a placed order has to go through depends on the store's business processes. Here is a list of typical order processing procedures:
The customer finishes shopping with his order Any newly created order processing starts at the moment when a customer is being transferred to the checkout page, where he clicks on the checkout button.
The system registers the order A new order has been created at this stage. It has a pending status and is waiting for confirmation of payment. Until payment is made, the order can be edited by the store manager or canceled completely.
Money received When the store manager confirms that money has been received, he authorizes the order for further processing, and the order status now changes to "Processing". The customer can use such a payment method provider, which will issue a notification of the transaction status.
The order invoice is created An invoice for a new customer order is usually created when the store receives the financial installment receipt. Some installment services naturally create a receipt when the installment is approved and recorded. The chosen installment method determines which invoice options are available for this request. After the receipt has been made and approved, a duplicate copy of this document will be shipped off to the client.
Shipment of ordered items When all the necessary shipment details are filled in, the store manager reserves the shipment, creates a packing slip and a shipping label. The customer is notified that his package has been sent. When using the tracking service, the shipment can be tracked by the customer himself in his account.
Magento limitations in managing orders
A typical situation for a store is a need to change any of the order details. The reason for that may be the information that the customer did not specify during checkout. Alternatively, the specified information may have changed while processing the order. The customer may also want to change or add products to his order.
Of course, Magento 2 has one major restriction, which drives to drop a generated order when it is processed in the backend. This limitation usually means that the order data is stored in the database at the time of its creation without the possibility of subsequent conversion.
At times when the client and the store are experiencing issues with updating orders, the store can use the Magento Order Management extension.
This tool develops the flexibility of the backend store management system in the case of orders. Store managers can easily and conveniently work on modifications for any existing order without having to cancel it beforehand. They can handle any current request, add items, apply restrictions, etc. This saves time and reduces errors.
Find out more by reading the manual on the Magento Order Management extension.