In short: you can connect your Shopify store to a Google Sheet so that every new order writes itself into the spreadsheet: order number, customer, items, total, date. The tool that does the connecting is Make.com, its free tier is enough for a small shop, and the whole setup takes about 30 minutes with no code. This walkthrough goes step by step. I run this exact pattern, orders flowing out of Shopify through Make, for a Melbourne jewellery label, and it has quietly logged every order since.
Why bother, when Shopify has an orders page? Because the spreadsheet is where your real life happens: the packing list you tick off, the numbers your accountant wants, the column where you note "resin batch 14". Shopify can export a CSV, but you have to remember to do it. This sheet updates itself.
What you need before starting
- A Shopify store with admin access
- A Google account
- 30 minutes, once
No code, no developer, no paid plan. At the time of writing Make's free tier includes about a thousand operations a month; one order uses one or two, so a shop doing up to a few hundred orders a month fits comfortably. Check their pricing page for the current numbers.
Step 1: prepare the spreadsheet
Create a new Google Sheet. In the first row, type one column heading per thing you want to capture. A good starter set:
- Order number
- Date
- Customer name
- Items
- Total
Keep the headings in row one exactly: the automation will aim at them.
Step 2: create a free Make account
Go to make.com and sign up for the free plan. Make is a visual automation tool: you build a small flow of blocks, called a scenario, and it runs on a schedule without you. If you have seen Zapier, it is the same idea; Make's free tier is simply more generous.
Step 3: add Shopify as the trigger
In Make, create a new scenario. The first block is the trigger, the thing the scenario watches.
- Click the big plus and search for Shopify
- Pick the Watch Orders module: it fires every time a new order exists
- Make will ask to connect your store: follow the prompts, which install Make's connection on your Shopify admin and ask you to approve the permissions
- When asked which orders to watch, start with all new orders
That is the only fiddly step, and it is mostly clicking Approve.
Step 4: add Google Sheets as the action
- Click the plus after the Shopify block and search for Google Sheets
- Pick the Add a Row module
- Connect your Google account when prompted
- Choose your spreadsheet and the sheet tab
- Make now shows one box per column heading from Step 1. Click into each box and pick the matching piece of order data from the list Shopify provides: order name into Order number, created at into Date, customer name into Customer name, and so on
This mapping is the heart of the setup: you are telling Make "this piece of the order goes in this column".
Step 5: test it with one real order
Click Run once. Then place a test order on your store (you can cancel it after). Within a moment the scenario should light up and a new row should appear in your sheet. If a column comes through empty, go back to the mapping and pick a different field; nothing breaks, you just remap and run once again.
Step 6: switch it on and forget it
Set the schedule (every 15 minutes is plenty for a small shop) and flip the scenario switch to On. From now on, every order writes its own row. Add your own columns to the right, notes, packed, posted, and they will never be touched by the automation.
When this is worth paying someone for
This walkthrough covers the clean, simple case. The moment you want more, the confirmation email that matches your brand, the packing list grouped by market day, stock counts that update themselves, invoices that file themselves, the same tool does it, but the setup deserves real care. That is the kind of back-office work I do as a one-time, scope-based job: built once, documented, and it runs without me. If you would rather skip the 30 minutes too, tell me about your shop and I will give you a fixed quote in writing.