Shipping labels

The same box from Seattle to Atlanta can cost $6.80 one way and $11.40 another. OrderDen asks the carriers at once: open the order, pick the box, and USPS, UPS and FedEx come back priced side by side. Buy one and the shipment is recorded, the postage goes against the order, and the label is saved to print.

Shipping by hand

You don't need a network to ship. Open an order's Fulfillment tab, pick what goes in the box and use Enter tracking to record a tracking number you already have, or Not shipping it to record a collection. The tracking number becomes a link when its carrier is under Carriers, at the bottom of Company Settings → Inventory & shipping. Each carrier has a tracking link template, and you can add your own.

Connecting a network

Postage is bought on your own account with the network and charged to it. OrderDen never handles the money, and the rates you see are your account's rates. You connect by signing in to the network and approving OrderDen; there's no key to copy.

There are 2 networks, each with a card in Company Settings → Shipping:

• Easyship: couriers for parcels going abroad, with the customs declaration filled in from the order.
• Shippo: the US carriers. One account prices USPS, UPS, FedEx and DHL side by side.

Connect the one you ship through, or connect several and see them priced together. Every rate list then holds every connected network's services in one list, cheapest first, with the network named beside each. The same parcel is often cheaper one way at home and another way abroad.

If one network doesn't answer, the rates from the others still come back, with a line saying which one didn't.

No account with a network yet? Its card has a Sign up with Easyship (or Shippo) link under the Connect button while it isn't connected. The link is there on a Coming soon card too, so you can open the account before connecting it here is switched on. It opens the network's own website in a new tab. When the link is one OrderDen earns a commission on, the line says so, and you pay the network the same either way. The link passes through OrderDen on its way, and OrderDen counts the click: which network, and that your workspace clicked it. Nothing else is sent to the network.

Easyship

1. Press Connect Easyship on the Easyship card.
2. Sign in to Easyship and approve OrderDen.
3. You land back on the card, which reads Connected.

Every Easyship quote needs a product category. Easyship prices and routes a parcel by what's in it (home decor, jewelry, an accessory with a battery), and each category carries the battery and liquid flags that decide which couriers take it. There's no "other", so OrderDen won't guess. Set Default product category on the Easyship card and the Product category box on Buy a label starts on it. Pick a different one for an unusual parcel; it applies to that parcel only. Changing it after Get rates hides the rates until you ask again. With no default, the box starts empty and has to be picked.

For a parcel going abroad, an item's own HS code (on its Shipping tab) replaces the category on its customs line. A parcel within the country always sends the category.

Easyship also wants to know what a parcel is worth, even at home. OrderDen declares the lines in the box at what they sold for, in your workspace's currency, so nothing is declared at zero.

Easyship needs a phone number and an email at both ends. Yours come from Company Settings → Profile, so fill both in before quoting. The buyer's come from the client: their primary email and phone, or a contact's. A client with neither gets yours, so the courier contacts you about the delivery. If something required is missing, the quote says which field and where to add it.

Shippo

1. Press Connect Shippo on the Shippo card.
2. Sign in to Shippo, or create an account there, and approve OrderDen.
3. You land back on the card, which reads Connected.

A network's card reads Connected, Not connected, Needs attention (the last call to it failed) or Paused. Coming soon means OrderDen can't connect that network yet, and the card has no button until it can. While neither network can be connected, Company Settings → Shipping shows one Coming soon card pointing to Carriers, with a sign-up link for each network, and the Posting and Your boxes cards appear once a network can be connected.

Needs attention with a Reconnect button means the network stopped accepting OrderDen's connection, usually because it was removed on the network's side. Press Reconnect and approve OrderDen again. Your settings on the card are kept.

Disconnect stops OrderDen using that network and forgets the connection. OrderDen stays listed in the network's own connected apps until you remove it there.

The Posting card at the top of the page has two settings for every network. It's disabled until a network is connected.

• Post from: one of your saved addresses. Left at Your company address, it uses the address in Company Settings → Profile. Labels will show under it is exactly what goes on the label as the sender: your name, the address, and the phone and email from your profile, flagged if either is missing.
• Pre-select: whether the cheapest service, the quickest, or nothing is ticked when rates come back. You always see the whole list and choose.

At the bottom of the page, Carriers lists the carriers you ship with and their tracking links. Buying a label from a carrier that isn't on the list adds it.

Your boxes

Your boxes, on the same page, holds what you ship in. Each has its inside dimensions and its empty weight: the box on the scale with nothing in it.

3 are there from the start (a small box, a medium box and a padded envelope). Rename them, resize them, delete the ones you don't use and add your own. The default box is what the ship screen starts on. Deleting the default leaves none, so pick another. Delete them all and the starter boxes come back.

If you post in a carrier's own packaging, such as a USPS Flat Rate envelope, put the network's code for it in Carrier packaging (for example FlatRateEnvelope). Every connected network is sent that code, along with the box's dimensions.

Weighing what goes in

A parcel quoted light gets reweighed by the carrier and billed the difference weeks later. So OrderDen works the weight out: what's in the box, plus the box's empty weight.

For that, the things you sell need weights. Put one on each item's Shipping tab: what one weighs, in pounds and ounces. (A variant's own weight can be set through the API.)

An item with no weight isn't treated as weighing nothing. Ask for rates on an order with one and OrderDen refuses, naming the item. You can always type a weight on the ship screen instead, which is what to do when you've weighed the packed parcel.

Buying a label

On a confirmed order, open the Fulfillment tab. In the Ship items card, set how many of each line go in this box (they start at everything still open). With more than one location, Ship from says which shelf the stock leaves. Then, on the Buy a label tab:

1. Pick the box (the default is already chosen), or Custom size… and type its length, width and height in inches.
2. Leave the weight blank to work it out from the lines, or type one from the scale in pounds and ounces. A custom box adds no empty weight, so weigh it if the box itself is heavy.
3. Press Get rates.

Every service the networks offer comes back, cheapest first, with its price and how many days it should take. The cheapest and the quickest are marked. With more than one network connected, each service says which network quoted it (via Easyship or via Shippo), so the same USPS service can appear twice at two prices. Pick one and press Buy this label. It's bought from the network that quoted it, for the lines that were priced. Change a quantity, the box, the weight, Insure for or the product category after getting rates and the list hides until you Get rates again.

Insure for is bought with the label: the parcel is insured for that amount, and the shipment records it.

Buying a label does four things:

• records the shipment with its tracking number, so the order moves toward Shipped and the stock leaves the shelf. Partial shipments work as usual.
• puts the postage on the order as a cost, so the margin you see is what you kept.
• saves the label as an attachment. Print it from the shipment's Label button, now or in a month.
• emails the buyer with the tracking number, using your Order shipped template, if that email is switched on.

Entering tracking instead

Posted it some other way? The Enter tracking tab records a shipment with the carrier and tracking number you type. It buys nothing and emails nobody.

The address

The address comes from the order, the same block that prints on the paperwork. When the network has an opinion about it (a misspelled street, a missing ZIP+4) it's shown, but nothing is rewritten: what the buyer typed stays on the order. A residential address is flagged, because carriers charge more to deliver to one.

Crossing a border

A parcel going to another country needs a customs declaration, and OrderDen builds it from the order: each line's description, what it sold for, what it weighs, its HS code and where it was made. Fill in the last two on the item's Shipping tab (HS code and Made in) and every parcel after that declares them.

Printing forty at once

The Orders page has a packing-table panel listing the open, non-draft orders with a ship-to address, oldest first, up to 50. Tick what's ready (everything starts ticked), then Choose & buy labels: pick the box and whether you want the cheapest or the quickest, and press Buy N labels.

Each parcel is rated and bought on its own, so a heavy one and a light one each get the right price. Anything that can't be shipped (no address, nothing left open, an item with no weight) is reported by name and the rest go ahead.

Then Print them all gives every label in one PDF, in the order they were bought. Print N slips does the same for the packing slips.

Either button shows Printing… while the file is put together in the background. If a label or slip couldn't be produced, the file still comes out with the rest and says how many were left out; print the missing one from its own order. The file stays available for six hours, so a paper jam means a reprint, not a re-run.

Not shipping it?

On the order's Ship items card, the Not shipping it tab records a hand-over instead:

• Collected: set aside for pickup, with the date it's Ready from. Tick Tell the buyer it is ready and they get the Ready for collection email.
• Delivered by us: you're driving it over. Add the window ("Thursday, 9–1").
• Handed over: they took it with them.

None of these buy postage or make up a tracking number. They're recorded as shipments, so the order moves and the stock leaves the same way.

Where is it?

A bought label is marked Delivered when the network tells OrderDen the parcel arrived. That needs a webhook from your network account to OrderDen, and OrderDen doesn't set one up for you, so without it parcels stay at Shipped.

When it works, the shipment moves to Delivered with the carrier's own scan time, the buyer gets the Order delivered email if it's switched on, and you get a notification. Only delivery changes anything; the scans in between don't. A carrier reporting the same delivery twice sends one email, not two.

Bought the wrong label

Refund label on the shipment asks the network for the postage back. The postage comes off the order only if the network approves the refund when you ask. Carriers often take days to decide, and OrderDen doesn't hear about a later approval (Easyship never reports one), so the postage stays on the order. Most carriers refuse a label that's been scanned, and a delivered parcel can't be refunded. Refund label shows on any shipment with a bought label that hasn't been delivered, even on a canceled order. Voiding a shipment with a label offers to ask for the refund first.

Emails to the buyer

Three templates, which you can edit under Email templates in Company Settings → Email:

• Order shipped: sent when you buy a label. On by default.
• Ready for collection: sent when you set an order aside for collection and tick Tell the buyer it is ready.
• Order delivered: sent when the network reports a bought label delivered. Off by default.

The switches are on the Order status emails card, on the same page. Order shipped covers both the shipped and the ready-for-collection emails. All three can use {{shipment.summary}} (each carrier and tracking number, with the carrier's tracking link on the line after it when you've set one up), {{shipment.trackingUrl}} and {{shipment.readyAt}}.

Through the API

Rating an order, buying a label, buying a batch, fetching a label PDF, voiding one, managing your boxes and checking an address are all on the API.