Carrier and Method Selection & Shipment Labels

Configure your account to select the best carrier service method for your shipment, generate a shipping label, or do both at once.

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About Carrier and Method Selection and Shipment Label services

Shipium's Carrier and Method Selection service determines the least expensive carrier and ship method that meets a set of rules you define for any given shipment, and the Shipment Label service provides a way for you to purchase postage and generate a shipping label. You can use each of these services independently by calling each of the APIs separately, or you can use a third option, the Carrier and Method Selection and Shipment Label API, to combine the two separate API calls into a single call to one API.

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Pre-requisite for using APIs

Before starting to use the APIs for carrier and method selection, your organization must set up one or more carriers and associated shipment methods. You can find details about setup for your organization in Carrier Selection Configuration.

In addition to the Carrier and Method Selection & Shipment Label APIs, there are several applications to set up new shipping carriers or ship methods, manage rate changes, temporarily disable certain carrier methods, configure label preferences, and other useful functionality. Information about setup is included in Carrier Selection Configuration. To establish preferred label settings, you can refer to the Label Configuration documentation, which provides guidance for setting up label preferences, and to the Label Customization documentation for any desired label augmentations in the Shipium Console.

This guide provides the use cases, with links to technical documentation, for each of the Carrier and Method Selection and Shipment Label APIs. To use the APIs related to Carrier and Method Selection, you'll first need to set up Carrier Selection for your organization's account. Guidance for doing so is included in the next section. You can read more about Carrier Selection on our website. For a list of the carriers in our network, see Supported Carriers.

Set up Carrier and Method Selection for your organization

To start using Carrier Selection, you'll need to complete the following steps. Your dedicated Shipium Implementation team member will assist you with each one.

  1. Set up your Shipium account.
    You’ll set up your organization’s account within the Shipium platform.
  2. Configure your fulfillment network.
    All carriers and carrier contracts, rate sheets, warehouse or store origins, and origin schedules are set up on the Shipium platform as fulfillment contexts and configured to your organization's exact network properties.

Use Carrier and Method Selection and Shipment Label services

When selecting a carrier and service method for a shipment, Shipium recommends using the Carrier and Method Selection & Shipment Label API, whether or not you want to retrieve a shipping label. However, you also may choose to call the Carrier and Method Selection API, which does not generate a label, for this same use case.

For label generation without carrier selection, you can use the Shipment Label API.

Carrier and Method Selection & Shipment Label API

Use cases and sample calls are outlined in the Carrier and Method Selection & Shipment Label API documentation:

There are many considerations your organization may have when determining the carrier and ship method for a shipment, such as preferred shipping options, product specifications and packaging, and account billing. Options for calling the Carrier and Method Selection & Shipment Label API are included in the Carrier and Method Selection & Shipment Label API document. Other considerations are listed in the Additional Considerations section of this document.

Carrier and Method Selection API

Use cases and sample calls are outlined in the Carrier and Method Selection API documentation:

Shipment Label API

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Test mode for label generation

Including testMode = "true" in your call to the Shipping Label API enables generation of labels for testing purposes, so that your account will not be charged. This also works for the Carrier and Method Selection & Shipping Label API.

Use cases and sample calls are outlined in the Shipment Label API documentation:

Additional options for carrier selection and shipment labels

Some cases require additional consideration, such as designating a desired delivery date or specifying a shipment as containing hazardous materials. These use cases are described below. For use cases that exceed the guidance provided in this documentation, please reach out to your Implementation or Customer Success team member.

Shipment timing

  • Ship options. Specify a particular class of shipment, such as "NextDay", or determine when specific carriers and their service methods are considered for a given shipment.
  • Desired and exact delivery dates. Designate a desired or exact delivery date in your API call.
  • Business days of transit. Include a business days of transit value, which indicates operational days for your fulfillment center, in your API call.

Carrier considerations

Configured shipment settings

  • Fulfillment contexts. Establish your organization's operations fulfillment network within the Shipium platform. Context configuration includes Origins, Carrier Contracts, Label Configuration, Third Party Billing, and Injection.
  • Tenants. If your organization employs tenants, you’ll configure them as part of your fulfillment contexts.
  • Carrier selection rules. Configure delivery zone rules to specify a set of one or more carriers to cover a delivery zone as well as establish package and tag criteria for those deliveries.
  • Schedule and shipment limits. Set limits on the amount of shipments processed at a certain fulfillment center, the number of shipments a certain carrier will process or the number of shipments processed by selected service methods, or the costs of shipping.
  • Shipment labels. Configure label settings, use label test mode, and generate labels for shipments.

Shipments and packaging

Carrier fees and billing

  • Third party billing. Configure your organization's account to bill another account, or third party, for the cost of shipping a package.
  • Carrier surcharges. Configure carrier surcharges for your organization's account.
  • Labels without costing. Generate shipping labels without having to provide costing information like carrier service method rates.

FAQ

Q: How long is shipment data stored in the Shipium Console?

A: 100 days

Resources

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

Updated 16 days ago

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