Your 3PL Is Fulfilling Orders Without Knowing the Delivery Date.
Flare writes delivery date, ship date, shipping zone and method to every Shopify order automatically — in the format your 3PL or ShipStation needs, on every order, without manual exports or cross-referencing.
Why 3PLs and ShipStation operate blind — and what it costs
Your 3PL needs to know which orders to prioritise for tomorrow’s delivery. Without Flare, that information is in an order note — “please deliver 14 Apr” — invisible to their routing system, unreadable by ShipStation filters, and dependent on someone manually reading every order. With Flare, the delivery date and calculated ship date are written as structured order tags the moment the order is placed. Your 3PL routes correctly. ShipStation filters by ship date. No one reads order notes.
Three things happen every day without a proper integration. Someone manually exports order data or copies delivery information between Shopify and the 3PL — a process that takes time, introduces errors, and breaks entirely at peak volume. Someone calculates ship dates by counting backwards from delivery dates — accounting for transit time, the customer’s zone, the shipping method, and the days the courier operates in that region. That calculation exists in someone’s head, not in the system. And someone has Shopify open on one screen and ShipStation or the 3PL portal on another, cross-referencing order numbers to figure out which orders need to ship today.
Each of these manual steps is a failure point. The export gets done late. The ship date calculation is wrong for a Highland order. The cross-referencing misses an order. At low volume these are annoying. At high volume — during peak trading, during a promotion, during the run-up to Christmas — they’re the reason deliveries get missed and customers don’t come back.
The fix isn’t more process. It’s structured data on the order from the moment it’s placed — delivery date, ship date, shipping zone, method — written automatically in a format every connected system can read.
Delivery date data in your 3PL — from the moment the order is placed.
Every order tagged with delivery date, ship date and zone at placement
The moment an order is placed, Flare calculates and writes to it: the customer’s selected delivery date, the calculated ship date (based on transit time, zone, shipping method and your shipping day rules), shipping zone, shipping method name and transit days. This goes to order tags, order attributes and metafields simultaneously. The tag format is fully customisable to match exactly what your 3PL or ShipStation expects — whether they read by tag name, attribute key or metafield path.
Ship date is calculated — not guessed
Ship date isn’t a field you fill in manually. Flare calculates it from the delivery date the customer selected, working backwards through your zone’s transit time, your carrier’s shipping days for that region, and any cut-off rules that apply. A Highland delivery via DPD with 2-day transit and Mon–Wed shipping days produces a different ship date than a London delivery with 1-day transit and Mon–Fri shipping. The calculation accounts for all of it — your warehouse team sees the ship date, not the working required to find it.
No 3PL? The Flare shipping calendar handles it inside Shopify
If you manage fulfilment in-house, the Flare shipping calendar replaces the dual-screen cross-referencing entirely. Filter all orders by ship date or delivery date, view them natively inside Shopify’s order board, select the day’s orders and create fulfilment workflows directly — printing, packing, labelling — without leaving Shopify or opening a separate system.
Three manual processes that disappear.
Delivery date and ship date in your 3PL — in the format it needs
Whether your 3PL reads order tags, order attributes or metafields, Flare writes to all three. The tag format, attribute key names and metafield paths are all configurable to match exactly what ShipStation, ShipBob, Extensiv or your warehouse system expects — no custom integration work required on either side. Ship date or delivery date — or both — depending on what your workflow needs.
Ship date calculation happens automatically — for every order
No one counts backwards from delivery dates. No one cross-references transit times and zone rules manually. Flare calculates the correct ship date from the delivery date, the customer’s zone, the shipping method and your carrier’s schedule — and writes it to the order. Your warehouse team sees what needs to ship today, calculated correctly, every time.
Scale fulfilment volume without scaling manual processes
At 100 orders a week, manual coordination is manageable. At 1,000, it breaks. Flare’s order tagging scales with your volume — the same automated data flow handles ten orders or ten thousand. The manual cross-referencing, the spreadsheet, the two-screen workflow — those don’t scale. Structured order data does.
“Flare is by far the best Shopify app partner we’ve worked with. They customised aspects of the app for our needs — our first holiday season on Shopify was a huge success.”
3PL and ShipStation integration — answered.
Flare writes delivery date, ship date, zone and method to Shopify order tags and order attributes the moment an order is placed. ShipStation reads Shopify order tags natively as part of its standard sync — no additional setup required. The tag format is fully customisable to match ShipStation’s naming conventions or your internal workflow. Ship date or delivery date — or both — depending on what your ShipStation workflow needs.
Both are written to the order — you choose which your 3PL acts on. Some operations prioritise ship date for warehouse workflow (what needs to leave today). Others prioritise delivery date for routing and SLA tracking. Flare writes both, in whatever tag or attribute format your system reads.
The Flare shipping calendar handles in-house fulfilment directly inside Shopify. Filter all orders by ship date or delivery date, view them in Shopify’s native order board, select the day’s batch and create fulfilment workflows — printing, packing, labelling — without switching between systems. It replaces the dual-screen cross-referencing with one organised view.
Yes. When a delivery date changes, Flare recalculates the ship date and updates all order tags, attributes and metafields instantly. ShipStation and connected 3PL platforms pick up the change on their next sync. Capacity on the original date is released, capacity on the new date is booked, and the shipping calendar reflects the updated schedule in real time.
Get Delivery and Ship Dates Into Your 3PL — On Every Order, Automatically.
Set up once. Flare writes delivery date, ship date, zone and method to every order — in the format ShipStation, ShipBob or your 3PL needs — without manual exports or cross-referencing.
7-day free trial · Assisted setup included
Most brands are live within a day. No developer required.