What is ShipStation?
ShipStation is a multi-carrier, multi-channel shipping solution designed to expedite the shipping process for online retailers. Features such as batch shipping, discounted shipping rates, inventory and customer management, and custom branding helps streamline order fulfillment.
Import your orders from over 60 selling channels and let ShipStation automatically apply configurable presets and shipping options. Once you create shipping labels or send your orders to a fulfillment company like FBA or ShipWire, ShipStation transmits shipping statuses and tracking information to each selling channel.
Managing customer communications can be time-consuming, ShipStation simplifies this process by offering customizable packing slip, email, and tracking page templates to provide a unique, branded experience for customers. Other features include detailed reporting, prefilled international customs forms, the ability to combine and split orders, and advanced user permissions and restrictions.
ShipStation Main Features Reviews
ShipStation also has functions for combining and splitting orders, validating shipping addresses, insuring shipments, creating return labels, connecting scales, tracking customer shipping information, tracking inventory, branding your shipping labels, and more. Let’s go over some of ShipStation’s most notable features.
ShipStation Integrations
ShipStation integrates with over 100 different third-party platforms. Here are some of the most notable options currently available. You can view a complete list on their website (Amazon, BigCommerce, eBay, Shopify, WooCommerce, Jet.co, Alibaba, Squarespace, Walmart, Etsy, QuickBooks, Magento, Big Cartel, Square, Volusion, Salesforce, PayPal, Weebly, Stripe, Zapier…
ShipStation Mobile App
The mobile app, available for iOS and Android devices, allows you to manage and ship orders, check reports, communicate with customers, and receive push notifications from your phone or tablet. Specific features include the ability to view shipment status and resend tracking confirmation emails, get shipping rates for quotes, generate scannable end-of-day manifests, and scan barcodes with your device’s camera.
ShipStation Automation
ShipStation’s automation tools allow you to set specific rules depending on order type to further expedite the fulfillment process. You can automate so that the information is already filled in for things like product lists, auto-routing, using specific packing slips, and more.
ShipStation Branding
ShipStation’s custom shipping labels gives you the freedom to add your logo and other branding info when creating shipping labels and packing slips. You can also customize your confirmation emails with your business’s social media handles, customize images and colors, and add an FAQ section.
ShipStation Returns
ShipStation allows you to print return labels to ship with every order to make the return process simpler for the customer. You can also set custom rules for returns, track returns, and select specific carriers to fulfill returns.
ShipStation International Shipping
All carrier integrations can facilitate international shipping, meaning you don’t have to set up extra accounts. ShipStation also provides $100 package coverage on all international shipments at no cost to you and can facilitate two-day delivery to select international cities.
ShipStation Reporting
From your account dashboard, they provide you with detailed analysis and reporting of operations, customer engagement, sales trends, customer behavior, and product inventory recommendations. The reporting tools can give you insight into the following areas of your business: Pending orders aging, Email performance, Visits to Tracking and Returns pages, Top products by revenue, category, and channel, Customer sales and average order value data, Returned products, Employee productivity by day, week, month, or year, Shipping revenue, costs, and net profit or loss by the customer, Inventory levels.
ShipStation Customer Service
ShipStation offers all merchants direct support via email from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday. Merchants who sign up for one of the higher paying subscription plans can also get access to live chat support and phone support. There is also a lot of documentation on the ShipStation website designed to help merchants. Resources include:
- A support center
- A blog
- Webinars
- A community forum
ShipStation Benefits Product Reviews
ShipStation is an all-in-one hub for organized order management that saves companies times and finances. Satisfied users define it as the ideal fulfillment organizer and a leader of its industry that integrates with all carriers, ecommerce tools, and BI systems that make online retail successful. Thanks to this system, companies begin delivering more professional customer service, and avoid easily all delays and costly mistakes.
The first thing ShipStation allows you to do is to import order data from an unlimited number of sources, including all popular shopping carts and marketplaces. Once data is inside, you can make use of the system’s advanced features, as for instance automated order and bulk printing labels for your product. The best part of this process is that adding selling channels doesn’t involve recurrent fees.
ShipStation won’t restrict you from continuing to work with your preferred carriers and fulfillment providers. You can add all the accounts you’re using, setup and arrange order details in a business-specific fashion, and start delivering in minutes. One of the most distinctive advantages of this system is that it is considerably simple to use – follow the instructions provided by the vendor, and you will run it successfully the very same day you’ve installed it.
Another important benefit is that ShipStation preserves the discounted rates from carriers and fulfillment providers (up to 40%), and import those to your free USPS postage account to lower your monthly subscription.
ShipStation Pros
- The staff at ShipStation is helpful when you need them but they COULD do a better job implementing features that customers request.
- Shipstation syncs seamlessly with various online platforms (shopify, etc.) and contains all of the data you need to successfully run and scale a business.
- I absoutely love using shipstation to manage multiple ecommerce platforms with the ability to fulfill orders, print labels and organize all within one platform.
- Another of our favorite features is the branded tracking page that your customers will see with the tracking code. It looks great and helps give your site a more polished and professional look.
ShipStation Cons
- Not all auto-corrects are...correct but overall it catches more of my mistakes then if there was no auto-correct.
- Mistakes made between placement and delivery of offers can create havoc, especially if more than 1000 shipments are made per day. There is no option for one to edit the manual orders.
- This is really a frustrating distraction, although it could have been worse - not being notified when we made sales.
- No one talk to you if you are not enterprise customer. It is hard to stop this software since you will lose the customer info.
ShipStation Pricing and Discount with Promo, Coupon code
ShipStation offers six different pricing plans. Pricing is based primarily on the number of shipments you send per month as well as the approximate number of user accounts your business needs. Higher pricing levels also have access to greater degrees of customer support. What’s more, if you need to add a few more users to your plan, you can do so for $5/user per month.
If you’re thinking about using ShipStation for your business, you should sign up for the free 30-day trial, which includes access to all features, no credit card required. If you choose to sign up for a plan and you’re not satisfied with the product within 90 days, ShipStation offers a full refund, no questions asked.
Here are the different plans ShipStation offers:
ShipStation Starter Plan
ShipStation’s Starter plan costs $9/month and includes:
- 50 shipments/month
- One user
- Branded labels and packing slips
- Email and community forum support
ShipStation Bronze Plan
ShipStation’s Bronze plan costs $29/month and includes:
- 500 shipments/month
- One user
- Branded labels and packing slips
- Email and community forum support
ShipStation Silver Plan
ShipStation’s Silver plan costs $49/month and includes:
- 1,500 shipments/month
- Two users
- Customized labels and packing slips
- Live chat, email, and community forum support
ShipStation Gold Plan
ShipStation’s Gold plan costs $69/month and includes:
- 3,000 shipments/month
- Three users
- Customized labels and packing slips
- Live chat, email, and community forum support
ShipStation Platinum Plan
ShipStation’s Platinum plan costs $99/month and includes:
- 6,000 shipments/month
- Five users
- Customized labels and packing slips
- Live chat, email, and community forum support
ShipStation Enterprise Plan
ShipStation’s Enterprise plan costs $159/month and includes:
- 10,000 shipments/month
- 10 users
- Customized packing slips and branded labels
- Live chat, phone, email, and community forum support
Conclusion
Overall, when it comes to ShipStation’s services, it seems to be hard to be critical. It may not be a perfect fit for every business, but it will probably be fine for any business that works online and needs to do its own shipping and fulfillment.
Over time, more improvements for the app and platform are likely to happen as well. The platform is already good to use, but ShipStation is always working to troubleshoot any issues. If you want to learn more about the platfom or sign up for a free trial, just click right here to visit ShipStation’s website.
