About bound printed matter (BPM)

Bound printed matter, or BPM, refers to a category of materials that may qualify for domestic shipment discounts within the United States, depending on the carrier. BPM generally consists of printed paper materials that are permanently bound together. Materials bound in three-ring binders are not considered BPM. Examples of BPM include annual reports, catalogs, directories, handbooks, information kits, technical guides, and telephone directories.

BPM discount eligibility varies by carrier. Further information can be found for each of the following carriers by clicking the link beside the carrier name:

DHL: https://www.dhl.com/content/dam/dhl/local/us/dhl-ecommerce/documents/pdf/us-ecommerce-smartmail-bpm.pdf

UPS: https://www.ups.com/media/en/Dom_Int_Mail.pdf

USPS: https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-Bound-Printed-Matter-Service#:~:text=Bound%20Printed%20Matter%20is%20a,permit%20account%20or%20a%20penalty

Specify BPM in shipments

In order to enable service methods with cheaper rates for rate shopping, your organization will need to specify that the content of the shipment is BPM when calling Shipium's application programming interfaces (APIs). In addition to other item properties that are passed, such as productId and quantity, you can specify a BPM property in order to make sure that the BPM products are considered for any applicable discounts during carrier selection.

BPM information is provided within shipments as part of the orderItemQuantities field. Specifically, you should include bound_printed_matter in the existing field shipmentParameters.orderItemQuantities.productDetails, as shown in the example below.

Example API request including BPM designation

The following example shows BPM information passed as part of the productDetails:

curl --location 'https://shiptime-service.stage.shipium.com/api/v1/shipment/carrierselection/label' \
--header 'X-MEGA-PROCESS-VERSION-OVERRIDE: 2' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Accept: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer <>' \
--data '{
    "currencyCode": "usd",
    "generateLabel": true,
    "labelParameters": {
        "currencyCode": "usd",
        "customLabelEntries": {},
        "includeLabelImagesInResponse": true,
        "labelFormats": [
            "zpl"
        ],
        "manifest": true
    },
    "shipmentParameters": {
        "fulfillmentContext": "ana-upsmi",
        "shippedDateTime": "2023-05-06T11:00:00.000Z",
        "orderedDateTime": "2023-06-06T16:30:00.000Z",
        "desiredDeliveryDate": "2023-06-10T11:00:00.000Z",
        "referenceIdentifier": "166165427",
        "purchaseOrderIdentifier": "00000199990166165427",
        "testMode": true,
        "destinationAddress": {
            "name": "Chris Customer",
            "phoneNumber": "5555555555",
            "company": "N/A",
            "street1": "2901 ne blakely st unit 400",
            "city": "SEATTLE",
            "state": "WA",
            "countryCode": "US",
            "postalCode": "98103",
            "addressType": "residential"
        },
             "shipFromAddress": {
            "name": "Just Great Products",
            "company": "N/A",
            "street1": "4285 Buford Hwy",
            "city": "Atlanta",
            "state": "GA",
            "countryCode": "US",
            "postalCode": "30345",
            "addressType": "commercial"
        },
        "orderItemQuantities": [
            {
                "productDetails": ["bound_printed_matter"],
                "productId": "12345678",
                "quantity": 1,
                "hazmatInfo": {}
            }
        ],
        "packagingType": {
            "packagingMaterial": "box",
            "packagingSizeName": "test-package",
            "packagingWeight": {
                "weight": 15,
                "weightUnit": "lb"
            },
            "linearDimensions": {
                "height": 6.13,
                "length": 12,
                "linearUnit": "in",
                "width": 0.7
            }
        },
        "shipmentTags": [
            "test"
        ],
        "totalWeight": {
            "weight": 15,
            "weightUnit": "lb"
        }
    }
}

Resources

Your Shipium team member is available to help along the way. However, you might find these resources helpful: