integration with Shippo service?

Due to USPS discontinuing online discounts for small sellers who use Click N Ship website I have to find a third party service.

Have been testing out Shippo and I like what I see so far. USPS discounts on First Class Mail Parcel, Regional Rate boxes, Fed Ex discounts if you have account, UPS, etc. As far as I can tell the only fees are 5 cents a printed label.

Does anyone have experience using Shippo- pros and cons?

I contacted support and asked if they had any specific Zen Cart integration but they said they did not. They do have API stuff available here https://goshippo.com/shipping-api/wrappers/ .

Wondering what it would take to integrate with Zen Cart or even better make a plug in so could get all the rate quotes and print labels right in Admin.

Thanks, Ted

Hi Ted- around Oct. 2013 we evaluated multiple shipping solutions for use with Zen Cart and settled on ShipStation.com. ShipStation supports USPS, FedEx, UPS and others. Some of the key features include:

• simple, **working **integration with Zencart
• a web based client
• flexible order management
• customizable notifications

In addition, while not an elegant solution for drop shipping, we are able to use ShipStation with our suppliers.

ShipStation integration with Zen Cart is easy to configure and actually works (NO API CODING REQUIRED). Do not assume other vendors interfaces actually work ... we tested the Stamps.com interface with Zen Cart, and at the time of testing, was NOT functional. This was due to Stamps.com built-in 2+ hour delay for importing orders, along with many other limitations. Stamps.com has actually purchased ShipStation.com ... not sure how this will shake out over time.

This solution may be overkill for your requirements, but it works well, and their support is acceptable.

I hope this helps ... Sean.

For convenience, Shipwire and Stamps.com details are visible at https://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?15-Business-Services-Providers, along with links to their respective sites. (And if you sign up through one of those links, they may give Zen Cart a few cents to help pay for our hosting costs. Thanks in advance, assuming you find their services useful.)

Sean thanks for the reply. I looked over Ship Station and least expensive plan is $25/Month. I am a low volume shipper so assuming the 5 cent per label on the Shippo service are all the fees there are (they say it is) would have to ship over 500 packages a month to make it a better deal. Some months I ship less than 20 items...

Thanks Dr. Byte for heads up on Stamps.com and Shipwire. Just checked them out and Stamps.com has monthly fee of around $15 so wouldn't really be worth it for me unless my business ramps up a lot.

Any software people out there who can take a quick look at Shippo's API stuff and give me a ballpark estimate on what it would take to make a free Plugin for Zen Cart that would be available to everyone? I know very little about this kind of stuff and don't know if we are talking an evening's work for a talented programmer or many months work for an entire team, and then a year more to work out the bugs...

Probably just a pipe dream but had vision of setting up some kind of crowd funding to hire a programmer, having hundreds of people contribute, getting Shippo to kick in something. And ending up with perfect integration just like on Shippo site, only through the Admin.

Thanks, Ted

Ted Grapler:

Due to USPS discontinuing online discounts for small sellers who use Click N Ship website I have to find a third party service.

Have been testing out Shippo and I like what I see so far. USPS discounts on First Class Mail Parcel, Regional Rate boxes, Fed Ex discounts if you have account, UPS, etc. As far as I can tell the only fees are 5 cents a printed label.

Does anyone have experience using Shippo- pros and cons?

I contacted support and asked if they had any specific Zen Cart integration but they said they did not. They do have API stuff available here https://goshippo.com/shipping-api/wrappers/ .

Wondering what it would take to integrate with Zen Cart or even better make a plug in so could get all the rate quotes and print labels right in Admin.

Thanks, Ted

Hi Ted, did anything ever happen with your Shippo integration issue?

rayzermatic:

Hi Ted, did anything ever happen with your Shippo integration issue?

i have 0 experience with shippo. they have not updated their php API in a 2 1/2 years. and there are people complaining about problems on use with php 7.4.

https://github.com/goshippo/shippo-php-client/pull/68

unfortunately, i am seeing this more frequently; even with established vendors of various products.

While I see the issues of that php API not being maintained fully, Shippo does have a CSV import option. So you do have the that as a backup. The reason I started using Shippo is the small volume plan that is super inexpensive plus all the great USPS rates they have. I got spoiled with Amazon's access to Priority Cubic rates and I can get them in Shippo without paying monthly fees. Sure, once you scale up, the next step gives you options that are about the same as Shipstation but for those just getting started, Shippo is a viable option.