Over the past few weeks, we’ve implemented a ton of new features into ShipStation to make your lives easier and to delegate a bit for when you’ve got a ton of shipments to complete.

Let’s Talk Users

First, we’ve enabled orders to be tasked to certain users. So, if you have multiple users on your account, you’ll see this handy new button on your dashboard. Click on it, and a dropdown list of all your users will display. Clicking on one of those names will assign the order to that user, simple as that!

For Gold-and-above plans, you now have some extra security features, too. For any specific user, you can allow only orders assigned to them to be viewed, in addition to only seeing shipments that were created by that user. Finally, you can do something called “workstation approval.” This means that you can restrict the computers on which a person can use ShipStation, cutting down on shipments being created at any other place than where you deem.

Please Note This Important Change…

For everybody, we’re also implementing changes that restrict the ability for a user to be logged into different machines at the same time. This was a necessary change for many reasons, including maintaining data integrity, account security, and keeping the locked out users occurrences to a minimum.  If you currently have multiple individuals that are using the same login for their account, you will need to create new logins for those individuals.  You can do this in the Settings area under “Manage Users”.

Importing Orders & Tracking Info

In June, we reported on the ability to import your orders into ShipStation from a CSV (comma-separated values) file. Well, now the feature is fully out of beta and released to all subscribers on a Silver or higher plan. So, if you need to bulk import some orders, just get or create a CSV file and get to shipping them!

If you have a dropshipper or have ever manually shipped some packages, you’ve been able to mark orders a shipped, but updating the tracking info has been kind of a pain. No more! Now, as long as you’ve got the order and the tracking numbers, you can copy and paste the information directly into ShipStation. Once you’ve done that, you can choose to update the marketplace and/or the customers about that shipment. Voilà! Tons of orders shipped and recorded as such in only a few seconds.

Yahoo! (The company and the expression.)

We’re proud to announce our integration with Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, and add the ability to user your Yahoo! store with ShipStation. Now you can create your labels, communicate with your customers, and do everything you love to do in ShipStation with your Yahoo! store, too.

As you know, we’ve always got something in the works here @ShipStation, and you can bet you’ll see more coming from us in the near future, especially with the busy holiday season coming up soon!

I’m Erika, the social media & content manager for ShipStation. You’ll find me on Twitter, Facebook, and the other areas of the ShipStation world. In my free time, I’m a lover of video games, my cats, and other generally nerdy things. :)

Our sporting of the fashionable and handy LOCK LACES™

Name: Louisa Eyler

Title: President

Company: Positive Distribution

Website: http://positivedistribution.com/

Louisa is the distributor for LOCK LACES™, a company that offers bungie cord-style laces for athletes’ running shoes. Her company has been tasked with the marketing, logistics and fulfillment for the brand. Unfortunately, she shortly found herself bogged down in hundreds of orders and hours of processing. Luckily, she found ShipStation, and voila, her day cleared up!

“I can have all of my hundreds of orders done, in less than an hour, and that would not be possible without ShipStation.”

We’re so glad you’re on board, Louisa! Congratulations on your successes and we wish you all the best!

For the last several months we’ve been working very hard on adding new features to ShipStation. Today, we’re happy to announce that ShipStation is now a FedEx® Compatible Solution!

With this addition, ShipStation now supports the 3 major US shipping carriers! Here are some highlights of our new FedEx module:

Integration highlights

	Support for FedEx Express, Ground, Home Delivery, and SmartPost
	Retrieve real-time rate information
	Create labels one at a time or in batch, up to 500 at a time!
	Validate addresses for shipping accuracy
	Email tracking information to your buyers
	Communicate tracking information to your eCommerce platforms
	Compatible with your Mac or PC

If you are looking for a user-friendly solution that will efficiently manage your FedEx shipping process, give ShipStation a try today!

See Plans and Pricing

We are pleased to announce that ShipStation now supports 3DCart!  3DCart is a complete eCommerce shopping cart software provider. eCommerce store owners can easily build, edit, and maintain an online store without any programming knowledge.

3DCart Integration Highlights

	Fully support all 3DCart stores Intuitive, easy to use web interface with no software to install
	Real-time information retrieval Imports orders, customers, customer notes, and products
	Automatic shipping service selection ShipStation will automatically select the correct shipping service based on the buyer’s checkout details
	Streamlined shipping system processes Print shipping labels for numerous orders in just a few clicks
	Customer communication Customized packing slips and email notifications give you full control over your customer communication

Our advanced customization features allow ShipStation to fit with 3DCart stores seamlessly.  If you are looking for a powerful shipping solution to integrate with your 3DCart store, get started with your 30 day free trial of ShipStation today.

Here’s another great reason to process your UPS shipments with ShipStation – UPS Paperless Invoices. Once this feature is enabled on your UPS account, ShipStation will communicate your customs information electronically – eliminating the need for paper commercial invoices!
 

The UPS Paperless Invoice has several benefits:

• Electronic transmission allows customs processing to begin earlier, reducing customs holds by up to 56%!
• Streamline your shipping process – you no longer have to send documents to a separate laser printer.
• Reduce costs on ink and paper.
• Help the environment by reducing paper use.

 
To enroll in the Paperless Invoice program, follow this link:
 
http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/resources/ship/paperless.html
 
If you aren’t using ShipStation to process your UPS shipments, get started today!

We are continuing to enhance the features of the “Products” area of ShipStation and this week we released a feature that can be extremely handy in the process of automating your shipping selections. We now allow products to automatically “Tag” orders that contain them. This can have several advantages from simply informational to surprisingly functional. Here’s a quick example of how you can use product tags to save money using cubic rates.

Intelligently Qualifying Orders for Cubic Pricing

Cubic pricing can provide some fantastic cost savings on certain packages, but not all.  In this example, we’ll tag some specific products that we know fit the cubic pricing “sweet spot”.  We’ll then create a filter and automation rule that will automatically assign a cubic package and service for the orders.

Step 1)  In the products area, we can open a product to modify the settings.  We’d typically use a Regional Rate box to ship this product, which is a decent rate, but if it’s shipping to Zone 5 or higher, we can do even better with cubic rates!  We start by creating a new order tag called “Cubic Option” and apply the tag to this product.

Since product tags are automatically assigned to orders that contain them, any new order that is imported will also have the “Cubic Option” tag assigned to it.

Step 2) In settings, we create a new filter that will isolate orders that  contain the “Cubic Option” tag.  We also want to make sure it’s a domestic shipment.  Finally, we want only orders that are going to Zone 5 or higher.

Now we can isolate any order that is appropriate for cubic rates.

Step 3) Lastly, let’s create an automation rule that will setup cubic shipping settings for any order that matches the filter we created in step 2.

After we save the rule, we should start seeing orders for this product automatically configured to ship with cubic rates!

Other uses for Product Tags

• Identify orders that are back-ordered, made-to-order or otherwise take longer to fulfill.  You can even create an automation rule for those products to automatically place them On-Hold for a period of time.
• Identify orders that might need special care or handling.  You can add an internal note for your packing team with an automation rule.
• Identify orders that should be insured and automatically request  insurance.
• Identify orders that contain sensitive materials.  You can create an automation rule to require adult signature confirmation if needed.

We are excited to offer USPS Priority Mail Cubic Pricing to our customers! USPS Cubic service is a good substitute for UPS and FedEx ground services. We are now able to offer this service to our users through our relationship with Express 1. Please contact Express 1 at (800) 399-3971 to learn more about this service and to see if you qualify.

Cubic rates are ideal for small, heavy packages

Cubic rates are ideal for small, heavy packages since the pricing is based on the volume of the package instead of the weight. Any package that measures 0.50 cubic feet or less and is 20 pounds or less is eligible.

Here is how the cubic measurement is calculated:

Cubic Feet = Length X Width X Height / 1728

Also note that the length, width, and height measurements should be rounded down to the nearest 0.25 inch. Here’s an example for a package that measures 6-1/8″ x 5-7/8″ x 6-3/8″:

6 x 5.75 x 6.25 / 1728 = .125 cubic feet

There are 5 tiers for cubic pricing:

Tier 1 – mailpieces measuring up to .10 cubic foot
Tier 2 – mailpieces measuring more than .10 up to .20 cubic foot
Tier 3 – mailpieces measuring more than .20 up to .30 cubic foot
Tier 4 – mailpieces measuring more than .30 up to .40 cubic foot
Tier 5 – mailpieces measuring more than .40 up to .50 cubic foot

So our example above would fall into Tier 2. Let’s say this package weighs 4 pounds and is a zone 7 shipment. This would typically cost $13.12 via Priority Mail. However, the cubic price for this package is only $6.46.  That’s more than a 50% savings!

Sound complicated?  It’s Not!

ShipStation’s Rate Calculator makes it easy to determine the cubic rate.  Simply choose the “Cubic” package type, enter the package dimensions, and ShipStation will display the rate.

Please let us know if you have any questions about this new service.

We’ve been receiving some great feedback and input from our sellers and just released some new features that deliver some added efficiency to the shipping process.

Order Quick-Ship

The first feature covers single order shipping.  Many sellers have told us that the label batch process is overkill for when they need to simply process a single order.  We agreed.

The new “Quick-Ship” window is shown when only a single order is selected and the “Ship Order(s)” button is clicked.  Shipping settings can be changed directly in the window and the label can be printed without ever leaving the orders screen.

The “Loading Dock”

The other new feature covers the other end of the spectrum.  For sellers that are preparing and shipping large batches of orders at one time, this can often be difficult to organize.  For that reason, we created the “Loading Dock”.  The loading dock is simply a temporary bin to place orders that are ready to ship.

One or more selected orders can be added to the Loading Dock by using the new button at the bottom of the order list:

Depending on your fulfillment process, you can quickly print a pick list, packing slips or an order report directly from the Loading Dock window.  When you’re ready to create the label batch, just click on “Ship These Orders”.

Product Image Pop-ups

With the new Loading Dock in place, the size and positioning of the product preview was redesigned to make better use of space.  Included with that redesign was the ability to hover over a product thumbnail image and see a larger version of the image.  Unfortunately, this is only applicable to the sales channels that currently provide product images for ShipStation, but were lobbying hard to make sure all of them do eventually.

We recently released new features to allow our sellers to have improved visibility to shipping rates for individual orders. Unofficially dubbed “Quick Rates”, this feature will allow you to very quickly price one or more shipments based on the currently selected carrier, service and package. This feature consists of a few new user interface elements that reside in the order management screen of ShipStation.