Order Number 14 and What It Tells the Customer

A customer who noticed

A new online shop sends out its first confirmation emails, and one customer replies with a friendly note congratulating the owner on order number 14. She has worked out that the shop is brand new.

Most shopping carts number orders straight from the database, one after another, starting at 1 or a little above. Every customer sees the number, so every customer can count.

For some shops that is harmless. For others it says something they would rather keep to themselves, both to customers and to anyone watching from a competitor's desk.

What a sequential number gives away

A low number tells a shopper the shop is new. Some will wonder about delivery, returns and whether anyone will answer the phone, questions an established shop never prompts.

Two orders placed a month apart tell a competitor how many came in between. Two cheap purchases and a calendar are all it takes to estimate a shop's monthly volume.

Numbers can also reveal a quiet season or a slow launch. It is a small leak, but a steady one, in every confirmation email the shop sends.

What the number also has to do

The order number is not only for customers. Before changing it, list everything it is used for:

• The customer's reference, quoted in emails and on the phone.
• The packing slip, matched to the box at dispatch.
• Returns and exchanges, found by number months later.
• Payment records, matched to orders each day.
• The books, where orders are linked to invoices.

Any change has to keep all five working. A clever number that staff cannot read aloud, or that the accounting software cannot sort, causes more trouble than it prevents.

The last two are the ones a business notices only when they fail, usually at the end of the month.

Starting the sequence higher

The simplest fix is to start counting from a higher number before launch, such as 10001 instead of 1. Many carts have a setting for this; on others a developer changes the starting value in the database once.

A higher start hides how new the shop is. It does not hide volume, since two orders a month apart still show the difference, but it removes the most obvious signal.

Do it before the first real order if you can. Changing it later leaves a jump in the sequence that the accountant will want explained.

Prefixes and formats

A short prefix can carry meaning for staff: W for web orders and P for phone orders, for instance, so anyone looking at a packing slip knows where the order came from.

Some shops number orders with random gaps or codes to hide volume entirely. That works, but it makes the sequence harder to check for missing orders, so talk to your accountant first.

Whatever the format, keep it short and unambiguous. Leave out letters that look like numbers, such as O and I, and keep it to a length people can read over the phone without losing their place.

A worked example

A promotional products supplier has sold branded pens, mugs, caps and bags to local businesses for years through two sales reps. This fall it opened an online shop for small orders of stock items.

Its first confirmation emails showed order numbers 1, 2 and 3, taken straight from the cart's database. A longtime customer joked on the phone about being the shop's third customer ever.

The developer moved the sequence to five digits with a W prefix from the next order on, and orders the reps enter for phone customers now carry a P.

The date of the change went into the accountant's notes, so the jump in the sequence is explained.

The packing slip, the invoice and the payment record all show the same number. The order lookup page asks for the number and the customer's email address together.

The reps were shown the new format on a Monday morning, with two example slips, before the first new order came in.

The number now says only what staff need it to say: where the order came from, and which one it is.

Order numbers in web addresses

Some shops let customers check an order by opening a page whose address includes the order number. If that page shows any order to anyone who types its number, sequential numbers let a stranger read other customers' orders.

The fix is not the number but the check behind it: the page should require a login, or the order number together with the email address used to order. Test it with two orders placed from different accounts.

Confirmation emails often carry a link to that page. Check where the link leads, and what it shows to someone who is not logged in.

Telling staff before it changes

Staff who are used to the old numbers will notice a new format at once. Tell them before the change, and show them how to search for both old and new numbers.

Old orders keep their old numbers. A return from before the change still has to be found quickly, so the search has to handle both formats without anyone needing to remember which is which.

Update the help pages and email templates at the same time, so no customer is told to quote a number in a format that no longer exists.

The counter-case

A shop that is proud of being new may not mind low numbers, and some customers enjoy being among the first. A small local shop whose customers know the owner has little to hide.

An established shop with years of orders also gains little from a change. Its numbers already say it has been around, and a new format brings confusion for staff and the books.

Every shop, though, needs numbers that staff can read, customers can quote and the accountant can match. Whether to hide what they reveal is a choice; making them work is not.

Setting the numbers before launch

1. Place a test order and read the confirmation email.
2. Find the cart's setting for the starting number.
3. Choose a short prefix if staff need one.
4. Agree the format with your accountant.
5. Show the same number on every email and slip.
6. Check order lookups need more than the number.
7. Tell staff before the new format starts.

Step four prevents the most trouble later. An accountant who knows the format, and the date it started, can match orders, payments and invoices without asking about every gap.

A daily check of payments against orders, made easier by one number everywhere, is one of the fixes in payments that arrive without an order in the shop.

Frequently asked questions

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