Shopify Order Notes and Retail Express: Getting Them Onto the Pick List

A customer types “leave it at the side gate” when they order. The order lands in Shopify, Maropost’s connector copies it into Retail Express, and the warehouse picks and packs from Retail Express. The note never arrives. Either someone reads every Shopify order and re-types the instructions, or the parcel goes to the front door.

This isn’t a setting you’ve missed. Maropost’s own overview of the Retail Express Shopify connector lists it under limitations: “Any order comments made online are not synchronised to Retail Express.” Below is where the note lives on each side, the two ways to close the gap, and the catch in each.

Where the note lives on each side

In Shopify it is the order’s note field. It holds whatever the customer typed into the note box when they ordered, and anything staff write in the Notes section of the order in the admin. Staff can edit it after the order is placed, which matters later.

In Retail Express a sale has public comments and private comments. Retail Express describes public comments as displayed on the customer’s invoice, and private comments as stored against the order and viewable inside POS. Its Fulfilment Report prints the public comments field as customer comments, and the Invoice Pick List template has an Order Comments area that only shows when there is something in it.

So public comments is the target. Before anyone builds anything, type a comment onto a test sale by hand and print your actual pick list and delivery documents. Templates get customised, and it’s a five-minute check.

Option 1: keep the connector, add the note afterwards

The connector keeps creating orders exactly as it does now. A small service sits beside it:

1. Shopify sends an orders/create webhook when an order is placed.
2. The service finds the sale the connector created in Retail Express.
3. It writes the Shopify note into that sale’s public comments.

This is the cheaper route, and it leaves a working connector alone. The catches are all on the Retail Express side.

The modern API can’t write comments. Retail Express’s REST API (version 2.1) can find an order and read its public and private comments, but its order endpoints are read-only. The write has to go through the older SOAP Web Store API, whose OrderUpdateCustomerDetails method takes public comments against a Retail Express order ID. That method also requires the billing name and email and the delivery address on every call, so the service has to send the order’s existing details back exactly as they are, or it will change them.

It needs Maropost’s blessing. The Web Store API needs a Web Services Interface licence and a Retail Express administrator login. We’ve heard Maropost advise against running a custom Web Store API integration alongside their Shopify connector, and their public documentation doesn’t say either way. Get their answer for your account, in writing, before anything is built, and test on a non-production sale first.

Timing. If the warehouse prints pick lists within minutes of an order arriving, the note has to land first. The service can only write once the connector has created the sale, so it needs to retry until the sale appears.

Edits after the order. The connector syncs an order when it is placed and when it is fulfilled. If staff change a note later, nothing carries that across unless the service also listens for orders/updated.

Option 2: replace the connector

A custom integration creates the sale in Retail Express itself, through the Web Store API’s OrderCreateByChannel method. That method accepts public comments at creation, along with the Shopify order number as the external reference, so the note is there from the first moment and there is no timing problem.

The catch is that you now own everything the connector did: products, customers, orders, stock levels and fulfilment back to Shopify. That is a much larger build, and it’s yours to maintain when either platform changes. It makes sense when the connector is already letting you down in other ways, or Maropost won’t allow a custom integration beside it. It is hard to justify for notes alone.

Either way, the Shopify side is a custom app, installed on your store only. Custom apps are now created through Shopify’s Dev Dashboard rather than the admin, and need permission to read orders.

What to settle before anyone quotes

• Maropost’s answer. Can a Web Store API integration run alongside the connector on your account? This decides between option 1 and option 2.
• Timing. How soon after an order arrives do pick lists print?
• Edits. Do staff change notes after an order is placed, or is the note fixed at checkout?
• Access. Retail Express’s licence and API credentials, and a custom app on the Shopify store. Both need the store owner’s sign-off.

What it costs to run

At a few dozen notes a week, the service costs little to host. The real ongoing cost is attention: a note that fails to write should raise an alert, not vanish quietly, because the warehouse will assume there was no note. Build that in from the start, and keep the Web Store API’s retirement notice in mind. Maropost has committed to at least two years’ notice before the legacy SOAP APIs are switched off.

If notes are your only gap, option 1 is usually the right size. If the connector is failing you in other ways too, that’s the conversation to have before choosing. More on how we approach Shopify builds and integrations, and our work as a Maropost partner.