How the list is built

Every two hours we ask Etsy for your orders that are paid, not shipped, and not cancelled. Etsy applies all three filters on its side, so that is one request and the answer is the complete outstanding picture — not a list of what changed, which would be a list with holes in it.

Orders become jobs

An order says who gets what. A job says what comes off the shelf. Those are different documents, and only one of them is useful while you are holding a box.

Every line of every outstanding order is grouped by listing, variation, and SKU, and the quantities are added up. Nine orders for the same oatmeal mug become one line reading ×9. Nine orders for nine different mugs stay nine lines, because that really is nine trips.

A variation counts as a different job. Oatmeal and slate are the same listing and different shelves, and a list that pretended otherwise would send you back.

The order of the list

• Late first — past the ship date Etsy gave the buyer.
• Then due today, then due within three days, then the rest.
• Within the same urgency, the biggest pile first — if you are behind, the line that clears four orders at once is worth more than the line that clears one.

A job takes the worst state of any order in it. One late order makes the whole line urgent, because you are picking them all in the same handful.

The ship dates are Etsy's, not ours

Each order line arrives with expected_ship_date already computed by Etsy from your own processing times. We do not estimate it, adjust it, or apply a margin. When this site says something is late, it is late against the promise Etsy made your buyer.

When we write to you

• Something is past its ship date.
• Something comes due today.
• The shelf list changed while work is outstanding — a new order added to a pile, or a new pile.

Never when an order simply arrives. Etsy sends that instantly and it is the one message no seller misses; a second copy from us would just be noise. And the same list is never sent twice: we keep a signature of what we last told you and stay quiet until it changes.

Orders that are not due for a while do not count towards that signature, so a quiet week of advance orders will not ping you every two hours.

Digital orders are left out

Nothing comes off a shelf for a downloadable file, so digital items are dropped before the list is built. If your shop is entirely digital, this app has nothing useful to tell you.