Endicia, Shipworks or ShipStation

Which of the following would you recommend with ZenCart and why?

Endicia, Shipworks or ShipStation

Im trying to find out which one is best in terms of reliability, service and compatibility with ZenCart. I would greatly appreciate your experiences, thoughts, pros and cons.

Thanks for posting this as I was also looking and had not heard of Shipstation.

I decided on Stamps.com after reading a post here entitled "USPS Shipping 101"

I will come back after the trial and report. The main confusion I had was why Endicia needed an additional service and I think it is down to two things: stealth postage ability AND connectivity to zencart. Stamps.com has both without Endicia.

Beware, however, as I somehow missed in all my research that there are different plans with Stamps.com.

The others have a clearly outlined price structure according to how many shipments and how much you pay in postage a month. I'm finding the stamps.com website a little difficult to navigate. I had an account already at their store but kept being asked to create a new one for the trial download and it was very difficult to find the web developers tools.

As far as shipping couriers go...we have always been big fans, 14 years now, of U.S.P.S.

I would look hard at ShipStation. If I didn't have a couple thousand shipping labels that are only usable w/Stamps.com, I'd very likely be changing from Stamps.com to ShipStation but I don't remember the exact reason(s). We are currently happy with Stamps.com and have been for nearly 3 years.

The last time that I compared the fileset, Endicia and Stamps.com use the exact same zencart plugin files which are written by ShipRush.com. The difference being in the user interface. My eyes liked Stamps.com better than Endicia. Stamps.com insurance is less expensive than USPS insurance and you can insure ANYTHING that you can print a label for. With USPS insurance, that is not possible.

Stamps.com is POOR in notifying of updates. The last update fixed over 500 bugs and they didn't think that was significant enough to put out a notice.

The only thing that the Stamps.com Premium account gave me was the abililty to download/print Fedex labels in addition to USPS. We dropped down to the $15/month plan before the trial was over.

I ended up with ShipWorks and have been using it for about 2 weeks now. The reason I chose this is because we ship by USPS and UPS so I want to be able to print labels for both of these within the same software. Also Shipworks seems to be more recently/frequently updated than ShipStation (not sure if it makes a difference).
So far it is working fine, and easy to install and setup with Zencart 1.3.8a. Printing labels for both USPS and UPS is fast and easy. Unfortunately I haven't tested ShipStation so I can't really compare it.

Hey guys, wanted to let you know of a few things to (hopefully) aid you in your discussion.

1.) We constantly update our software. Like, every week or so. We just added functionality to charge a third-party FedEx/UPS account on a per-order basis. We've also just added functionality to integrate with Yahoo! Merchant Center, and are working on a bunch more things behind the scenes.

2.) We print labels for both USPS & UPS in the app, among many, many others.

3.) Most people end up choosing among Stamps.com, Endicia, and Express1 for their USPS shipping just because of the discounts available through each provider. (Handy tip: SS accounts come with an Endicia acct, which is normally $16/month, so you actually save that cost when signing up with us.)

Whatever you choose, we do wish you the best of luck, and are always available for questions. :)

ShipStation:

Hey guys, wanted to let you know of a few things to (hopefully) aid you in your discussion.

1.) We constantly update our software. Like, every week or so. We just added functionality to charge a third-party FedEx/UPS account on a per-order basis. We've also just added functionality to integrate with Yahoo! Merchant Center, and are working on a bunch more things behind the scenes.

2.) We print labels for both USPS & UPS in the app, among many, many others.

3.) Most people end up choosing among Stamps.com, Endicia, and Express1 for their USPS shipping just because of the discounts available through each provider. (Handy tip: SS accounts come with an Endicia acct, which is normally $16/month, so you actually save that cost when signing up with us.)

Whatever you choose, we do wish you the best of luck, and are always available for questions. :)

Wow..."charge a third-party FedEx/UPS account on a per-order basis"..just what I need...I don't think Shipworks can do that... I might just switch to Shipstation :-)

Hello!

If anyone has any questions about connecting Stamps.com with Zen-Cart, please let us know. Also, check out our blog post with details on the integration here: http://blog.stamps.com/2010/06/10/zen-cart-usps-shipping-integration/

@athena Thanks for using Stamps.com! If you have any questions during the 4 week no-risk trial, let us know. If you continue to use Stamps.com post trial, you will be charged $15.99 every month. There is no long term contract, so you can cancel at any time by calling Customer Support. Hope this clarifies your question about plans for Stamps.com.

@RixTix We appreciate your business and thanks for your feedback on our update notification process. Our team typically makes efforts on a consistent basis to post updates on our Facebook page, Twitter feeds etc., but we can always try and do a better job of keeping our customer base informed. :smile:

Thanks!
Divya
Stamps.com

I've used stamps.com for several years. In general it's worked well but there are a couple things that annoyed me. I signed up today for shipstation and have some initial impressions.

It only prints USPS labels. That forced me to print labels for other carriers outside of the app. Not a big enough deal to get me to switch but it was a feature that is available in shipstation. Shipstation will allow you to create labels for UPS, Fedex, and USPS and give you an Express1 account to get higher discounts on Priority and Express mail.

Stamps can't deal with zencart's tare weights. This has been a problem for me since the container changes for me depending on the number of products ordered. Stamps passes the weigh of the products and ignores the calculated weights. This means that you need to add the average weight of packaging to the product weight and hope for the best. Shipstation seems to do the same thing but it allows you to set up shipping automation rules. This will allow me to set accurate product weights and tare weights and add weight based on rules to accommodate packaging.

Stamps is constantly updating the software that run on your machine (at least the release numbers change). If you do a compare of the files there doesn't seem to be a difference. Usually you can just plod along until one day you go to import your orders and it says you have none. At that point you know they've made a change you actually need and install the update. Shipstation is web based so I'm assuming that the php file on your server won't need much updating. I have no history to back that up though.

Stamps technical support for Zencart is terrible. The answer you get is always that's open source code and we're not allowed to help with that. I have no experience with shipstation support so I can't offer an opinion yet.

The downside so far of shipstation.
No choices of labels. There are 4 label choices, 2 4x6 labels for thermal printers and 2 8.5x5.5 labels that print on 8.5x11. It sure would have been nice to be able to use all the 4x6 4 per page labels I've got laying around from stamps. Stamps has a boatload of different labels supported. If I don't want to burn through ink at a much faster rate I'll need to invest in a thermal printer.

You can only integrate shipstation with one store(channel). Each additional store will cost you an additional $20. With stamps you just install their code on as many carts as you want and add them to the data sources to be managed. No extra charge. That makes shipstation a much more expensive option.

Shipstation doesn't give you any way to print a test label. The only way to test is to actually ship a package and then get a refund for the postage. Stamps has a preview which will fill in all the info and just put a sample watermark over the top if it.

I bought some labels to use with shipstation so I'll see how I like it in actual use.

@DML73 We'd be glad to have you! Let us know if you have any questions. :)

@badarac About the stores/channels thing, here's the best way I can describe it. If you have an eBay store & a ZenCart store, it'll count as two channels. If you have an eBay store and 80 ZenCart stores, it still only counts as two channels. We don't mind how many "stores" you have, just in how many different platforms you use.

We've still got a few things in the works in development and on our roadmap, so I'd watch our pages for updates on features. ;)

ShipStation:

@DML73 We'd be glad to have you! Let us know if you have any questions. :)

@badarac About the stores/channels thing, here's the best way I can describe it. If you have an eBay store & a ZenCart store, it'll count as two channels. If you have an eBay store and 80 ZenCart stores, it still only counts as two channels. We don't mind how many "stores" you have, just in how many different platforms you use.

We've still got a few things in the works in development and on our roadmap, so I'd watch our pages for updates on features. ;)

Thanks for that info. When I went into the settings and it asked me to go through the same menus as the channel setup, I thought it would be considered a new channel. I tested it by adding a store and selecting a different cart and it did in fact give a message about upgrading the subscription. You might want to make that more clear. I'm sure I'm not the only one that thought that.

I used the product this morning and I really like it. I hear the clock ticking on stamps.com.

I have used shipworks and shiprush. Shiprush works really well, and our shipping clerk has used it for a couple of years with zencart. ShipRush is also really low cost (I think we just pay for our stamps.com account).

The latest Stamps.com batch really chinkered up the international postage forms. One service rep told me that he fields 3-4 calls a day about how fouled up the "autocomplete" customs forms have become. It's working exactly as designed but the logic is fouled up. The repairs are on the list to consider implementing. Past experience has been 6-8 months when they say that.

International... the new update also stopped downloading the telephone number which is a requirement to print a label. That requires manually looking up the order within Zencart and entering it.

What was a 2 click process is now a 3-4 minute ordeal per label.

Really appreciated this thread. After reading it, we installed the trial of Shipstation and probably will not be able to live without it now. It really saves us a lot of time preparing and printing postage and updating the ZenCart orders with tracking numbers.

RixStix:

International... the new update also stopped downloading the telephone number which is a requirement to print a label. That requires manually looking up the order within Zencart and entering it.

What was a 2 click process is now a 3-4 minute ordeal per label.
We are still on our trial period and the phone numbers and email are printing just fine on the international.

A couple of other unrelated issues:

1. Really want a different font for batch processing. They responded quickly to say..."sorry...not happening"

2. I did discover that it doesn't matter what you call your order status in Zencart Admin >Localization> Order Status. The default of "Delivered" we changed to "shipped" and that is what stamps.com updates to.

3. I'm wondering if that can be changed in the stamps.com code to another step instead since we don't send email from stamps...just from going back into the admin and manually updating so that the email sends from zencart. We have to work on a better plan; maybe redesigning the stamps.com email if possible...haven't played with that and don't want any stamps.com ads going to our customers.

DOES SHIPSTATION TRIGGER THE EMAIL OPTION WHEN IT UPDATES ZENCART? STAMPS.COM DOES NOT but has an option to send from stamps.com interface.

athena:

DOES SHIPSTATION TRIGGER THE EMAIL OPTION WHEN IT UPDATES ZENCART? STAMPS.COM DOES NOT but has an option to send from stamps.com interface.

Hey Athena, while we can't send an e-mail through ZenCart when you update an order, you can fully customize the e-mail that's sent from ShipStation. You can even have more than one version depending upon all sorts of options (like if you had multiple stores, or if the order is over a certain weight, etc.).

Hi, i'm registred account, and can't logon to it, then call to support, ask what problem, they tell - need my scan passport, i'm done it.
then they write me next letter:

The US Postal Service has denied your application for an account.
Service will not be granted for account XXXXX.
Thank you for using DYMOEndicia.
But, why ? Whats wrong? Any have ideas?

p.s. hope i choice correct forum.

MrCron:

Hi, i'm registred account, and can't logon to it, then call to support, ask what problem, they tell - need my scan passport, i'm done it.
then they write me next letter:

But, why ? Whats wrong? Any have ideas?

p.s. hope i choice correct forum.

p.s. To ShipStation:
i was registred in your system, try registred from Endicia account(received information that i can used account IMMEDIATELY), but in real, account in endicia LOCKED - why ?
then try to registred in company 1-express, again windows with text "used account immedaitely" , in fact - again locked.

crazy.

I've been using Shipworks for several years now, and cannot say enough good things about it. We ship with UPS, USPS, and formerly Fedex. Use Endicia for postage currently, but might switch that soon, to one that's less expensive through shipworks... not sure yet.

Support is great, good response, good attitudes, IMO.

Flexible forms, modifiable, images on invoices and packing slips, etc.

Was on Zen Cart 1.3.9, now on 1.5.1, which I've run into a small glitch upon switching over to new site this past weekend, but Shipworks support is on it already, and I'm sure they'll fix it for me.

Ditto for Shipworks/Shipstation. Service so far has been top-notch. Even higher if you compare against Stamps.com support.

Switched when Stamps.com had their 4 day outage caused by programmers fiddling with software updates back in November.

You will need to keep Endicia to run parallel with Express1 because there are some classes that are not available with Express1... if that's what you are talking about.

One downside to Shipstation (not a bug) was with International firstclass and small flat rate. A glitch with Stamps.com allowed $400+ packages to be shipped via 1st class and small flatrate. The USPS tariffs actually prohibit those classes from being used with $400 packages. Not a glitch with ShipStation.... just proves that they are up-to-date with all the rules.

Thanks for that info Rick. I will hang onto Endicia. It's been great, no problems, so maybe it's not even worth adding Express1...

BTW, Shipworks issued me an update to the Shipworks3.php this afternoon, and I uploaded it.
Unfortunately, they forgot to include my fix for not downloading the image URL for the forms, which I use, so I had to re-modify the fixed version, and change the code myself.

Luckily, it was easy, but I wish they had changed it when I told them it was in there, and exactly what and where it was in the code...

But it's working great again!