PayPal tracking allows your customers to track their orders at all times. As a result, customers feel reassured and will not wish to file a dispute or a chargeback.

Without regularly providing PayPal tracking numbers, PayPal may set red flags on your account. This is heavily detrimental to your business as the red flag is visible to all your ‘would-be’ customers.

So how does PayPal tracking work? And, why is it so important?

How PayPal tracking exactly works

PayPal requires all its sellers to send shipment tracking numbers to PayPal for each transaction between you and your customer.

Customers will then be able to track their purchases and read details such as delivery dates, shipment provider, shipping dates, and other important bits of information.

This helps your business in three ways:

• You will be eligible for PayPal Seller protection for each transaction. This allows you to gain PayPal’s trust and avoid having to deal with red flags, PayPal holds, disputes, chargeback, and reserve lockups.
  
• You can access funds more quickly as your funds will not be locked inside a PayPal reserve.
  
• And most importantly, all your customers will remain informed regarding the details of your order.

The main problem with PayPal Tracking

PayPal has thousands if not millions of businesses it has to cater to each day.

Obviously, such a task is almost impossible to accomplish manually.

That’s why PayPal uses an AI that searches for data points (correct tracking information) in order to verify your tracking numbers for example.

If PayPal AI has sufficient data points, you will be eligible for PayPal Seller Protection on each transaction.

So to make sure that you actually shipped the product, you will have to send tracking information for each order, in other words each transaction. 

This will take a lot of time and the process is certainly not easy for everybody.

Solution:  Send tracking orders on autopilot using “Proveway PayPal Sync” the best Shopify Application to automatically provide tracking numbers to PayPal

• Proveway does all the heavy lifting for you by sending tracking information to PayPal all on its own for every transaction. Not only is your precious time saved, but there is also no longer a risk of making mistakes while sending tracking information. Additionally, Proveway automatically syncs tracking info to PayPal & Stripe-like gateways for all your fulfilled orders almost instantly.
  
• It is currently the only Shopify App that supports both payment gateways (Stripe and PayPal). Proveway comes with a “7 days Trial”, while the plan starts at just $6.96 and needs minimal permission for your PayPal and Stripe accounts. Proveway directly caters to PayPal’s algorithms by letting it be aware of the fulfillment process. This increases trust between your business and PayPal and offers PayPal chargeback protection at the same time.

How to Manually Add Tracking Numbers on PayPal?

You can add your PayPal tracking number manually but this is quite complicated and is very time-consuming.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Open PayPal and open the “Activity” page.
2. You will be presented with a list of all your transactions. 
3. Find the transaction that you wish to update and select “add tracking to PayPal” from the dropdown list.
4. Fill in all the details regarding the shipment carrier and all other relevant tracking information.
5. Select “order processed” if you are selling an intangible product.
6. Submit the form. Now your customer will receive an email that includes a tracking number, order status, and the details of the shipping company.
7. Repeat this process for each transaction.

What is PayPal seller protection and what are its main benefits?

Seller protection means that you will be free from being affected by unhappy customers who file disputes, “item not received” claims, chargebacks, and other types of complaints.

You will finally be able to scale your business as much as possible without worrying about the backend.

So what are the two main benefits of PayPal Seller Protection?

• You will be compensated for every fulfilled order even if the customer has filed a dispute that you are unable to win. Usually, the problem comes from the product looking slightly different than what was advertised on the product page. Sometimes the chargeback could be related to a billing issue or an unauthorized transaction. However if you have seller protection turned on for your account, PayPal will still compensate you for the order especially if it was not your mistake.
• In case your orders are fulfilled through a courier, it is important to make sure that the courier actually initiated the shipment of the package. PayPal will do this directly for you by verifying your  “proof of shipment” with the courier. Using this process, PayPal will understand that you have actually shipped the product, and hence PayPal Seller Protection will be turned on for your account transactions.
  
• As you can see, sellers will have to provide proof of shipment/proof of delivery for each transaction if Seller Protection is to be unlocked.
• This is hard, and that’s why it is recommended to use a Shopify app like Proveway that automatically does all of this for you while you sleep.

Conclusion

Taking care of PayPal tracking information is the best way to secure a good future for your business. 

Without it, you will be susceptible to PayPal chargebacks, disputes, holds, and red flags.

And since sending tracking information for each order can become quite troublesome, it is highly recommended to use a Shopify plugin such as Proveway that syncs your tracking information with PayPal on autopilot.

What are your thoughts

Have you found it difficult to provide tracking information on PayPal? If yes, why?

Be sure to let us know by leaving a comment down belo