Made to Order: Telling Shoppers When a Handmade Piece Will Ship
Handmade work often does not exist yet when it is bought. Made to Order lets you say how long a piece takes to make. Your shop turns that into a real date for the shopper, keeps the promise on the order, and gives you one list of everything waiting to be made, soonest first.
Turning on Made to Order
Made to Order is an IndieMade add-on. Go to Dashboard → Settings → IndieMade Add-ons, find Made to Order and click Install. Every product form then has a Made to Order box, and Made to Order appears in your dashboard menu.
Made to Order is part of Plus. Every plan can try it until the new plans launch.
Change your mind? Remove on the same card takes the box and the shopper's line away. The lead times you typed are kept. Install again and they come back.
Setting how long a product takes
Go to Dashboard → Products and open a product. Find the Made to Order box.
- How long to make it: the days you need before the piece can ship, up to 365. Leave it blank for anything that is on the shelf and ready to post.
- What shoppers see: the line shoppers read. Leave it blank for the standard line. To use your own words, write the line and put @date where the date goes.
Save the product.
What shoppers see
A product with a lead time shows one line on its page. The standard line says Made to Order, then Shipping begins October 22, 2026. The date is today plus your days, written out in full. It moves forward by itself each day.
The line says "Shipping begins" on purpose. You control when a piece leaves your bench. You do not control when the carrier delivers it.
Writing the line your own way
- Handmade for you. Ships on or after @date shows the real date where you wrote @date.
- Made to Order, allow three weeks has no @date, so it shows exactly as written.
- The line can be up to 255 characters.
The order confirmation and the receipt show the same line the shopper saw.
Orders keep the date you promised
When a shopper checks out, the date is stamped on the order. If you change a product's lead time later, new shoppers see the new date. Orders already placed keep the date they were promised.
Changing many products at once
- Go to Dashboard → Products and tick the products. The header checkbox ticks the current page. Select all products takes every product that matches your current search or filter.
- Choose Set Made to Order from the bulk actions.
- Under When are these products ready? choose Made to order and type How long to make them in days, or choose Ready to ship to clear the lead time.
- Under What shoppers see choose one: Leave each product's wording as it is, Use these words on all of them, or Go back to the standard line.
- Apply it.
Products you did not select stay as they are. So do the dates on orders already placed. For the other bulk actions see Bulk Editing Products.
Your Made to Order list
Click Made to Order in the dashboard menu. It has two tabs.
Products
Every made-to-order product, with How long, Ships by, if ordered today, and On the bench, which is how many ordered pieces are waiting to be made. A search box finds a product by name.
To make
Every order line waiting to be made, soonest promise first. Each row shows Make by, What to make, the Order and the Customer. A line that is past its date is marked overdue.
When a piece comes off the bench, tick its line and click Mark ticked lines as made. It leaves the list. Click Show finished lines too to see finished lines again.
Tips
- Give yourself room. A date you beat makes a happy customer. A date you miss makes an email.
- Going to a show or taking a break? Select your products, use Set Made to Order and add the extra days. Set them back when you return.
- Mix freely. Ready-to-ship pieces have a blank lead time and show no line.
Questions? Email support@indiemade.com.