A unique tracking number and document issued by a courier company to track a parcel throughout the shipping journey.
An AWB (Airway Bill) is a unique, standardized 9 to 12 digit tracking number and document generated by courier companies and shipping aggregators for every individual parcel dispatched. The AWB serves as a legal contract of carriage between the shipper (the fulfillment center) and the transport carrier (like Delhivery, Bluedart, or Shiprocket). It contains critical machine-readable barcodes and details: the origin fulfillment center address, the destination delivery address, the package's volumetric and physical weight, the recipient's phone number, payment terms (prepaid vs COD collection amount), and handling instructions. In modern automated print-on-demand workflows, the AWB is generated via REST APIs the moment an order is marked as ready for dispatch. This AWB is instantly pushed to the merchant's e-commerce platform (Shopify or WooCommerce), which automatically triggers transactional SMS and email notifications to the buyer with live tracking links.