How To Decide If ShipStation Is Right For You

Unmonitored shipping costs and inefficient shipping processes can destroy a company’s profitability. Ship something overnight when it should have gone by ground is a costly mistake. Repeat this for weeks and not discover it until you get the bill from the carrier and it could destroy margins. As an eCommerce (Magento and BigCommerce) and Acumatica Cloud ERP solutions provider, Kensium often finds disconnect among a merchant’s shipping solution. To avoid these situations, we recommend “rules-based” shipping automation.

Acumatica is hands down the best Cloud ERP software for mid-sized businesses, and while you can use its in-built shipping integrations, as customers scale up their commerce operations, they need more than traditional rate shopping and shipping solutions. This is where Acumatica – Cloud ERP can leverage ShipStation – Cloud-based shipping solution. ShipStation integrates with Acumatica and provides an enhanced feature set including:

• Custom branding of your shipping labels and packing slips.
• The ability to send return labels with every shipment.
• Marketplace Integrations including eBay and Amazon.
• Additional carrier integrations beyond just UPS, FEDEX and USPS.
• Works with industry-standard eCommerce platforms including Magento, BigCommerce, and Shopify.

In addition to the above, one of the most important features of ShipStation is the ability to build “If this, then that” statements to systematically determine how an item should be shipped and with which carrier. Some example rules include:

• If Country = U.S. AND weight is < 13oz., then ship USPS First Class
• If Country ? U.S., then ship USPS Priority International
• If Order Total > X Dollars, then insure the shipment
• If Product = X, then always send FEDEX Ground

This “rules-based” methodology eliminates the need for your warehouse personnel to make manual and often costly decisions regarding the carrier and service level selection. This leads to a faster shipping process and saving money.

WHY SHIPSTATION OVER OUT OF THE BOX ACUMATICA SHIPMENT PROCESSING?

By using ShipStation along with Acumtica, eCommerce merchants and distributors can combine flexible shipping solutions with the formidable order management and distribution capabilities of Acumatica.

The integration allows users to create shipments in Acumatica, and allow for those shipment records to be processed via ShipStation, and then push the carrier and tracking information back into Acumatica.

1. Real-Time rate shopping for carriers beyond UPS, FEDEX and USPS – With the rate calculator, one can easily see all the available rates for each configured carrier and apply these to each order individually, or with automation rules, to a group of shipments, saving a significant amount of time in the shipping department.
2. Discounted Shipping Rates – Carriers usually offer negotiated rates to merchants based on their shipping volume. ShipStation allows you to use your discounted rates, or in some cases offer better discounts via their own negotiated rates for customers on their platform. For merchants that do not have a significant volume of shipments, this may provide better pricing.
3. Batch Shipping Process – Instead of clicking through every order/shipment to assign shipping service/carrier and package types, and then print a label, with ShipStation, you can combine all shipments into a single batch and use automation rules to process the entire batch quickly.
4. International Shipping – This can be an overly complicated process without ShipStation. Use features such as automatic validation of international addresses and create labels and forms all within the ShipStation interface and process these efficiently.
5. Tracking – One of the biggest drivers of customer service calls in the eCommerce industry is the tracking of shipments. With real-time updates for shipping and delivery notifications, you can establish custom statuses and update it in Acumatica and then in your eCommerce system. Also, as a merchant, you can see the status of all your shipments in transit in a single place.
6. Branding – For any merchant, including their company’s brand on shipping documents adds a lot of value. ShipStation allows you to have high-quality packing slips and labels with the merchant’s branding included.

Combine these with additional features such as Free Stamps.com account, Robust Mobile-App, integration with over 150 channels/marketplaces including eBay/Amazon, and LTL as well as returns processing – all for a relatively small fee, it is easy to see why merchants would prefer to integrate their Acumatica ERP with a solution such as ShipStation.

HOW TO DECIDE IF SHIPSTATION IS RIGHT FOR YOU

So, how do you know if Acumatica’s standard shipping functionality is not going to cut it? Ask yourself these questions

1. Do you use multiple carriers and perform rate shopping regularly?
2. Do you ship internationally?
3. Do you sell goods through 3rd party Marketplaces?
4. Do you require your company branding on your shipping labels?
5. Do you sell goods that have specific rules around the carrier and type of shipment to use? E.g. special delivery options for perishable items?
6. Would you like to include return labels with all your shipments?
7. Would you like to have detailed and accurate reporting around shipping costs?
8. Do you need a good support team that understands every aspect of Shipping and is willing to support your business holistically?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, your company should definitely consider ShipStation and integrate it with your Acumatica Cloud ERP.