I agree. And what is frustrating is ShipStation has the data on the backend as evidence by the information that comes up in the window when you hover your cursor over the recipient name. It would be great if ShipStation would make that information accessible in the automation settings. It is a waste of time to look up new customer status in most workflows.
I did set up a work around. 1. Make an existing customer tag ("EC"). 2. In the Customer tab, tag every customer record with the EC tag. 3. Make an New Customer order tag 4. Create an automation where the New Customer order tag gets applied to orders as they are imported if they do not have the EC tag.
A few problems with this work around. 1. It is not automatic. On a daily or weekly interval you need to tag new customer records as EC so when they order again they don't get the New Customer tag. 2. All orders now get a not very useful EC tag that clutters the order pages. It would be nice as an additional idea to be able to hide some tags from view as an admin. 3. If an order is active as a new customer and you mark their record as EC, then they will have the New Customer tag and EC tag at the same time. I have instructed my shippers to always honor the presence of a New Customer tag.