Shipping Label: How to Get Data from Shopping Platform For Its Creation
Shipping management software stays at the core of eCommerce logistics operations. Without such software, the retailers would be left with a manual and tedious order fulfillment process.
You cannot even imagine if it is possible to remember or manually note down the information regarding packages’ start and delivery destinations, specifics of the product, and lengthy addresses. That’s where shipping software helps these retailers create a shipping label for packages containing all the necessary information required to ship the products at the right place to the right customer. But how does shipping software can create shipping labels?
This article will answer all your questions related to shipping labels creation. Keep reading!
Shipping Label Meaning
By definition, a shipping label is a piece of information that contains the specifics of a product’s start and delivery destination. It has everything that a carrier needs to deliver a package from the store’s warehouse to the customer’s address. It is a crucial part of the order fulfillment process, which gets assigned to the product during its packaging. The logistics department then uses this label to send the product (parcel) across the different stages of order fulfillment and finally to the destination.
A shipping label contains a barcode used by the carrier to give real-time updates on the status of delivery. It is no doubt used for physical to digital conversion of information, so the retailers do not have to manage it on their own.
Every carrier has a specific shipping label template specially designed for their staff and machines to capture data. If the service providers cannot read that data, the packages will not reach the correct destinations. It leads to a loss of customers’ trust and eventually the brand’s reputation.
Therefore, the shipping software providers need to use those templates only to process orders accurately.
Data Present in Shipping Label
A shipping label contains a variety of information, depending on the weight and dimensions of the package. Some of the specifics include:
- Name, address, origin, and “return to address” of the sender
- Specifics of the package — its contents
- Special instructions for handling the package during transportation.
- Name, address (postal code, country, ship street, state, and city), and contact details of the customer
- Size, weight, and dimensions of the product.
- Tracking ID, barcode, etc.
Shipping labels also contain information about shipping methods such as Express, Standard, etc. It ensures that the carrier can ship products at the right pace as chosen by the customers. The most important feature of a shipping label is its uniqueness.
Other than this, shipping labels also include a Maxicode, which a machine can read in any direction, a routing code that helps route the package in a sorting section, and a billing option that mentions whether the order is prepaid.
Nowadays, shipping labels also have a smart label that allows tracking of products across warehouses, shipping centers, and retail stores.
How Your Shipping Software Can Access Shopping Platforms’ Data Needed For Shipping Label Creation
Retailers use shipping software to create a shipping label for each of their products. The software allows them to generate and print all types of shipping labels used by the carrier services.
However, shipping software needs to connect with such carrier services, online stores, and marketplaces to be able to create custom shipping labels. Such a connection is possible with the help of integration which needs to be established between the shipping software and eCommerce platforms where the retailers have built their online stores.
To help shipping software create a shipping label, API2Cart provides seamless shopping cart integration development services. With a unified API by API2Cart, the shipping software can be integrated with multiple shopping platforms at once. The list of platforms includes Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, Ecwid, and many others. All you need to do is connect with API2Cart, and, in turn, it will integrate your software with all the marketplaces and carts you need.
Using the following API methods, API2Cart allows you to access the data from shopping platforms for creating a shipping label:
- order.info method — This method provides you with all the information related to an order, including order ID, billing and shipping address, orders status, and other similar information.
- customer.info method — This method gives you all the information about a customer, including customer name, phone number, shipping address, and other related details for creating a shipping label.
- order.shipment.list method — This method provides you with information about shipments, including orders status and tracking number/ID.
How Your Shipping Software Can Use API2Cart
Apart from creating shipping labels, shipping software can also perform the following core functions with the help of API2Cart API methods:
- Importing orders from multiple platforms
API2Cart can help shipping software get all the new orders from the eCommerce platforms in two ways:
- Webhook for order.add event — this event gives a notification every time an order is placed on the shopping platform.
- order.list method — With this method, you can get a list of all the orders every once in a while to get an idea of what orders need to be imported into your system.
- Adding shipment status
With API2Cart, you can automatically insert tracking URLs of the shipments into the online stores by using order.shipment.tracking.add method which notifies the end customers about their order status.
You can also use order.shipment.update and order.shipment.add methods to create shipments and add tracking numbers to newly placed orders.
In addition, there’s an option to use order.update method for updating order statuses.
- Uploading product data
Using the product.list method of API2Cart you can retrieve a list of all the products with their images and related information.
With product.variant.info method you can retrieve all the information about the product variants.
To start using API2Cart, just create your free account and choose the platforms that you want to connect with. Once you select your subscription plan and partner with API2Cart, your shipping software will be integrated with all the platforms you choose.
To know more about how API2Cart works, get in touch with one of its managers for a free consultation call.
