Designing order tracking
When you support Order Tracking, Wallet can automatically display information about an order after people successfully complete an Apple Pay purchase through your app or website, updating the information whenever the status of the order changes.
Wallet presents a dashboard that displays a customer’s active and completed orders. People can choose an order to view details about it, like the items they ordered and fulfillment information for shipping and pickup. The system displays the information you provide in the dashboard and detail views.
Best practices
The Wallet Orders schema defines the fields you use to provide order data like product descriptions, order status, contact information, and shipping and pickup details, including estimated arrival dates, addresses, tracking numbers, and pickup instructions. Wallet displays the information you supply within consistent, system-defined interfaces. To help people get the information they need quickly and conveniently, supply as much information as you can, using the fields that match your order processes.
Make data available immediately after people place an order. People often want to confirm that their order was received, even when payment, processing, and fulfillment are still pending. It’s essential to provide existing information quickly so that the system can display it right away.
Provide fulfillment information as soon as it’s available, and keep the status up to date. When you supply fulfillment data or you change the status of an order, the system updates the order information and can automatically send a notification to customers. The system uses the fulfillment status you report to update the order’s current status to a value like Order Placed, Processing, Ready for Pickup, Picked Up, Out for Delivery, Delivered, or — if something goes wrong — Issue or Canceled. For guidance on describing a status, see Orders and fulfillments.
Supply a high-resolution logo image. The system displays your logo image in the dashboard and detail view, so you want to make sure that people can instantly recognize it at various sizes. Use the PNG or JPEG format to create a logo image that measures 300x300 pixels. For developer guidance, see logo.
Supply distinct, high-resolution product images. The system displays a product’s image — along with descriptive information you supply — in the detail views, order dashboard, and notifications for an order or a fulfillment. When creating a product image, prefer using a straightforward depiction and a solid background. Showing a product in a “lifestyle” context or against a busy background can make the item hard to distinguish at small sizes. For each product, use the PNG or JPEG format to create an image that measures 300x300 pixels.
In general, keep text brief. People appreciate being able to read text at a glance, and the system can truncate text that’s too long.
Use clear, approachable language, and localize the text you provide. You want to make sure that all your customers can read the information in an order. Also, make sure the price you show matches the final price the customer confirmed.
Orders and fulfillments
An order gives people ways to contact you and displays details about their Apple Pay purchase, including fulfillment status and per-item information.
Provide a link to an area where people manage their order. When you provide a universal link, people can open your order management area even if they don’t have your app installed. To learn more about universal links, see Allowing apps and websites to link to your content; for developer guidance, see orderManagementURL.
Clearly describe each item so people can verify that their order contains everything they expect. You can use the lineItem field to provide information like a product’s price, name, and image. An order lists the line items for every item the customer ordered; a fulfillment lists only the line items that fulfillment includes.
Supply a prioritized list of your apps that might be installed on the device. The system uses this list when it needs to display a link to your app within the order details view. For example, if you provide multiple apps and more than one of them is installed on the device, the system displays a link to the installed app that’s highest on your list. If none of your apps are installed on the device, the system displays a link to the first app on your list. For developer guidance, see associatedApplications.
Avoid sending duplicate notifications. For example, you can tell the system to avoid sending order-related notifications through Wallet when the customer has one of your associated apps installed.
Make it easy for customers to contact you. Provide multiple contact methods, so people can choose the one that works best for them. At minimum, you need to provide a link to your website or landing page, but you can also provide a Messages for Business link, a phone number, an email address, and a link to your support page (for developer guidance, see Merchant). When people click or tap the Contact button in an order, the system displays a menu of the contact methods you supply.
Help people track their order. A multi-item order can have multiple fulfillments, where each fulfillment is either shipping or pickup. For example, if a customer orders a pair of shoes and a T-shirt, the customer might want to have one item shipped, while picking up the other. Regardless of fulfillment type, you need to supply enough information for people to know where their items are and when to expect them at the destination they specified. In addition to an estimated time of arrival, here’s some information that people particularly appreciate:
- A link that opens the carrier’s website to a page with information about a shipping fulfillment. When possible, provide a direct link — in addition to a tracking number — so people can easily view the most up-to-date shipping information.
- A scannable barcode when one is required to pick up the order in a pickup fulfillment. It’s convenient when people can offer the barcode from within Wallet instead of finding it in an email or webpage.
- Clear, detailed instructions that can help people receive or pick up their order.
Keep customers informed through relevant fulfillment status messages. A great status message is approachable, accurate, and clearly related to the status it describes. In addition to supplying information that helps people understand the status of their order, a status message also gives you an opportunity to use your brand’s communication style. For developer guidance, see ShippingFulfillment and PickupFulfillment.
Be direct and thorough when describing an Issue or Canceled status. People generally need to know why there’s a problem and what they can do about it.
