Multi-Piece Shipment Support Available in the Shippo API | Hacker News Reader

Multi-Piece Shipment Support Available in the Shippo API

goshippo.com

39 pointsmikhaill6 comments

I confess I don't totally understand shippo; in the event that you are a business of the size where multiple-carrier headaches are coming into play, aren't you also of the size where you need a proper order management, inventory management, and warehouse management system? And those systems tend to have address validation, shipping integration, label creation, etc. as built-in features. I don't know why I'd roll my own versions of that stuff on top of their API layer.

It's definitely a valuable API, but I'd be more likely to take advantage of it if I were a new SaaS company building logistics software -- Shippo would be a great shortcut to get to market with the aforementioned features. At that point I'd be capturing more value in the form of my LoB software than Shippo could ever capture in their (essentially) cost+ pricing model.

I don't get it -- but I feel like that's my fault and I'm missing the market, so maybe someone can enlighten me.

Edit: Also this was an interesting read and clever solution to a tricky migration problem!

Glad that you're addressing the whole shipping industry in your question here!

Shippo customers vary pretty widely. Many inventory and warehouse management systems actually use our API to get the address validation, shipping integration, label creation functionalities you mentioned [0]. We're just white-labeled. These customers want to focus on what they're good at instead of having to maintain the shipping side of things.

Our other sweet spot are marketplaces [1] who'll never need an OMS or WMS because products never go through their hands. They want to also tap into multi-carrier capabilities because of better pricing and convenience for their end-customers. Again, they use our API as an easy way to plug into the shipping world without having to deal with all the things.

[0]: https://goshippo.com/blog/sellbrite-partners-shippo/ [1]: https://goshippo.com/case-studies/mercari/

Note: I work at Shippo

This is really great for Shippo, and an issue that I've commented on before[0]. It's a pretty obvious feature to have missed in the first place, but taking on the insane complexities of UPS, FedEx, and USPS is a never-ending up-hill battle (I've done it.)

I'm still longing for the day that Shippo is fully fleshed out so I can offload that massive infrastructure headache off to someone else.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11871297

What's the value proposition here, besides multiple carrier availability? I was able to create multi-piece shipment labels with the FedEx API in 1999. The API was stupid-simple and easily implemented in Perl back then. Are you offering volume discounts even when that volume is split amongst a host of carriers? I never saw the point in using multiple vendors as a small-/medium-sized shipper. It was easier to stick with one and have only one set of shipper-provided supplies to worry about.

Unfortunately things have gotten much more complex since then. Unless things have changed recently, Shippo offers Commercial Base pricing for USPS and you bring your own UPS and FedEx numbers.

The developer documentation for UPS is thousands of pages long. The document explaining how to quote a domestic shipment is over 600. I don't have them in front of me right now, but FedEx is the same. You can't even integrate directly with USPS anymore. You have to go through someone like Stamps.com, Endicia (which are now one and the same), etc.

We only ship 200-300 packages daily, but there are benefits in using multiple carriers. For one, small lightweight and low-value packages always go USPS. Flat rate boxes are free and easy to use. Between the two big private guys, using multiple carriers gives you a negotiating advantage. Our reps probably visit us twice a month to try and keep on our good side.

Our ERP can calculate the best value and delivery time for a given order. For example, taking advantage of the FedEx Express OneRate program for a given package might a) reduce our net cost because the boxes are provided to us for free and b) get there 2-3 days faster for a buck more versus UPS Ground. And we can pack 50 pounds into that Express box under the OneRate program.

Stocking supplies isn't too terribly hard. We probably have 20 box sizes we use, plus FedEx and UPS small/medium/large vendor-supplied boxes and a few USPS sizes. Takes up a surprisingly small amount of space.

It seems to me that it would've been both easier and more logical to turn it into many-to-many, but I guess easier would've made the article less interesting.

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