The problem this solves
In-person sales announce themselves, the customer is standing there. Online orders arrive while you're piping frosting or driving to a client. If the app can't reach you, the order sits, the customer waits, and the review writes itself. This guide is the five-minute insurance against that.
Turn the alerts on
Open Settings → Notifications.
Under Notification Types, make sure Order Updates is on. That's the switch that makes order activity chase you instead of waiting for you.
Under Delivery Methods, keep Push Notifications on, and add SMS if your phone lives in your pocket more than your hand, a text cuts through when an app badge doesn't. Email is the paper trail.
While you're here: Money tells you when payouts move, and Store status tells you when your store opens or closes on its schedule, you'll want that one in a minute.
Know where orders land
Every online order lands in your Order queue, the tile on your home screen. New orders appear there the moment they're placed. When an alert pings, that's where you go.
The two ways orders silently stop
This is the part that catches people. There is no error, no warning, orders just stop, and your page tells customers the store is paused and not taking orders right now.
- Your store hours. Online orders follow your store hours, that's a real rule, not a suggestion. If your hours say closed, your online shop is closed too. Wrong hours = invisible shop. Fix the hours, not the shop.
- The pause switch. Pause online orders exists for slammed days, pause for 30 minutes, an hour, two, or until you resume. It does exactly what it says, including after you forget you pressed it. If the status doesn't read Accepting online orders, that's your answer.
If something's off
- A customer swears they ordered, but nothing arrived. Look in the Order queue first, the alert may have been swallowed by phone settings while the order landed fine.
- Alerts arrive late. Push depends on your phone's battery-saver mood. Add SMS as the backup channel for anything order-shaped.
- Store shows closed when you're open. Your hours are wrong, or the store paused on schedule, Store status alerts are how you catch that in the moment instead of at the end of a quiet day.