The eCommerce industry witnessing sustained growth over the last couple of years since nowadays, people prefer to order the necessary products online. Before the emergence of shipping APIs, the shipping management workflow was manual. Once an order was placed, shipping details were manually entered into the system. It was highly error-prone and required multiple levels of tracking. The manual approach is costly for any eCommerce platform and reduces its profit margin. Shipping APIs allow integration of the logistic partner’s functionality directly into the eCommerce company’s system, thereby automating the process. Online businesses can now utilize advanced shipping APIs from multiple shippers to bring all information about shipping and delivery in a single comprehensive dashboard. This approach reduces the shipping management cost. Though you’ll find UPS, FedEx, and DHL offering shipping APIs, these aren’t flexible enough to integrate into your own systems. An eCommerce company has multiple logistic partners, and including each of their APIs individually into their system can be cumbersome. In this article, you’ll find the best platforms offering shipping API, which supports multiple logistic partners for eCommerce businesses.
ShipEngine
ShipEngine is a popular online shipping services provider and offers a robust shipping API. The API is capable of helping you manage small to large shipping management workflows and the entire order fulfillment process. ShipEngine API offers various services like estimate shipping cost, print labels, validate addresses, track packages, rate comparison, and many more. The API helps you streamline the entire shipping management system of your eCommerce business. You can easily find the lowest rate offering shipper to your customer’s address from the API and save a lot of money. Also, offer the best tracking experience to your customers since the API provides real-time package status, precise location, and personalized branding. The ShipEngine pricing system is quite simple since it offers usage-based billing. You can just estimate monthly shipping needs from 0 to 5000+ and sign up.
EasyPost
EasyPost is another trending online shipping app solutions provider that has developed a RESTful API for flexible shipping needs. Its shipping API is ideal for small household brands, local online delivery businesses, online marketplaces, fulfillment centers, and enterprises since the API is truly scalable. A developer can easily integrate the API into your shipping management system. Also, you only need to integrate it once and save a lot of money that you would invest in an in-house developer, especially if you own a small online business. EasyPost API supports more than 100 domestic and international carriers. It helps with shipping label printing, package tracking, estimate shipping cost, address verification, and other shipping management tasks. Some of its premium shipping carrier integrations are for UPS, DHL Express, FedEx, LaserShip, OnTrac, and Canpar. The API has built-in features for rate comparison across a list of carriers and cost-effective shipping insurance discovery. EasyPost offers two pricing levels, and these are Developer and Enterprise. The Developer package, suitable for small eCommerce businesses, comes with 120,000 shipments for free each year, along with address verification and tracking.
Shippo API
Another trustworthy and reliable example of a shipping API for eCommerce is the Shippo API. It helps you get started with shipping and delivery fast by simply connecting your systems with its API and starting products delivery. You can easily remove multiple steps between your customer placing an order and package delivery like looking for a suitable carrier, negotiating pricing, integrating carriers, printing labels, and many more. Shippo API is suitable for various businesses like logistics providers, eCommerce websites, online marketplaces, and retailers who require online shipping services. If you’re a small online retailer, you can choose the basic API with essential features like shipping labels, address confirmation, tracking, and refund labels. For businesses with more feature requirements, you can get the advanced API that offers orders, returns, multi-piece shipment, shipping insurance, along with other basic features. Shippo offers three different subscriptions: Starter, Professional, and Premier. Professional and Premier plans are suitable for frequent orders and large eCommerce websites. However, if you’re starting your online retailing business, you can start with the Starter package and enjoy several free services.
Pitney Bowes
If you’re struggling to meet your customer’s expectations of timely order delivery, you may try out the Pitney Bowes parcel services API. Your shipping software developer can easily integrate this API into the shipping app so that your shipping team can get one-click access to carrier services from Pitney Bowes, USPS, FedEx, and UPS. On signing up, you’ll get your API key from Pitney Bowes so that you can get started with worry-free and automated shipping management. The API helps you with faster carrier processing, shipping cancellations, and refund management via a daily shipping manifest. Pitney Bowes API comes with REST architecture and uses HTTP protocol for communication. Its rate comparison feature shows available shipping carriers and actual rates for any package so that you can save more when delivering online orders frequently. The API can also search the USPS database of mailing addresses.
ShippyPro API
If you run an online marketplace, logistic support company, or online sales brand, you can also look into the ShippyPro shipping API. It saves you from unusual hidden costs that come with manual shipping management. ShippyPro has tested its API for millions of shipments so that you can get maximum uptime and error-free shipping processing. Its API comes in two technologies: REST and SOAP. Also, the API is available in 14 different programming languages, and therefore most of the shipping management systems will support this API. ShippyPro API integrates your system with 100+ carriers and 50+ sales channels. You can automate tasks like label creation, estimate shipping cost, package tracking, pickup scheduling, and so on. You can start with the Fast-Growing subscription package that’ll cost €29/month.
Conclusion 📦
Now that you know about the best and trending service providers of shipping API for eCommerce, you can easily choose one depending on your needs for shipping and delivery of online business products. You can also try a few of the shipping APIs mentioned above for the trial period and then decide which one is the most suited according to your business CRM, IT infrastructure, and budget. If you’re genuinely looking for cost-effective shipping management for your eCommerce website, shipping APIs are the must-have tool for your online business. Various shipping tools help eCommerce businesses to grow. You may learn more about shipping software for growing eCommerce businesses.
