Subscription Timing API Overview

Overview

If you operate a business that uses a subscription model, a common problem is knowing when to ship product to your customers in order to hit an approximate delivery date. The Shipium Subscription Timing API solves that problem by using information about your business and shipping carrier transit times to recommend when to ship a given customer package.

It's probably obvious, but Customers with the same desired subscription delivery date who live different distances from your warehouse may need different ship dates! This API will help you manage the flow of those shipments and hit the times your subscription customers expect.

How the API works

Broadly, the Shipium Subscription Timing API takes a customer country and postal code, the desired delivery date for the shipment and where you plan to ship the package from and returns a recommendation for when you should ship it and when it should be released to your fulfillment center.

Depending on your company, you may use one or both of these values as part of your flow. Most Partners load a list of their subscriptions that have desired delivery dates in the next 15 days (or longer, depending on your longest shipping time) and check them against the API to determine whether or not they need to be dropped to their fulfillment center today or tomorrow. They then send shipment requests for the appropriate subset of shipments that need to be sent and wait on the rest.

Next steps

Take a look at:

• Subscription Timing API Details for examples of the API in action.
• Subscription Timing API Specification for the detailed API.