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 Easyship and Shippo by signing in to the network and approving OrderDen, with no key to copy. ShipStation doesn't offer that yet, so you connect it with an API key from your ShipStation account.

There are 3 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.
• ShipStation: the carriers connected to your ShipStation account, priced side by side. For a shop that already buys its labels there.

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.

What a carrier needs before it sells a label. A network quotes on two ZIP codes, but it won't sell a label until both ends have a name, a street, a city, a ZIP and, in the US, Canada and Australia, a state. Your end also needs a phone number (and, for Shippo and Easyship, an email). A connected card checks your side the moment it's connected: it reads Ready to ship, or lists what's missing under Before you can buy a label, each with a link to where you fill it in. It checks again every time you open the page, so the list clears once you've filled them. The sender's name is your legal name from the profile, or your workspace's name when that's blank.

When the client has no phone or email on file, the label carries yours, and the rates say so: No phone on the client, so the label carries yours. The carrier calls you rather than nobody.

Which account is connected. A connected card names the account it's on, so a real account and a test one can't be mixed up. Shippo's card reads Connected as and the account's email, then Carriers on the account with each carrier, a test-mode one marked (test). ShipStation's card names the account by its carriers, with the nickname you gave each one in ShipStation. Easyship doesn't say which account it is, so its card reads Connected alone. The carrier list is checked again when you open the page, at most every quarter of an hour, so a carrier you switch on or off at the network shows up there. If it's the wrong account, click Disconnect, then connect again signed in to the right one.

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.

Testing with Shippo. The Test Mode tag on a carrier in Shippo's own web app covers labels you buy in Shippo's dashboard, not labels bought through OrderDen. Shippo keeps separate test carriers for apps like OrderDen, switched off to start with. To test, tick Test labels only on the Shippo card and Save. OrderDen switches those test carriers on in Shippo and the card reads Test carriers switched on: with their names (or says there are none, with a link to your carriers in Shippo). From then on the rates show only Test services, with a line saying live ones are hidden, and a live rate is refused even if it's sent through the API. Buying a Test service gets a sample label: the carrier won't accept it and Shippo charges nothing for it. The shipment says Test label, records no postage, sends the client no email and leaves the order's lines unshipped. The Ship items card says so: Test label bought and opened in a new tab. It's a sample, so nothing shipped and these lines are still open., and the rates clear so the next label starts fresh.

Unticking Test labels only switches Shippo's test carriers off again, so the list goes back to live rates only. A Test row that still turns up is never picked as Cheapest or Quickest while a live rate is listed, and buying a live label on an account with test carriers asks first: This is a live label, charged to your Shippo account. Buy it? Buy labels on the orders list asks once for the whole batch.

Shippo is the strictest about a complete address: it quotes an address with gaps and then won't sell the label. OrderDen checks the same things first, so you see what's missing before you press Buy this label rather than after.

ShipStation

1. In ShipStation, open Settings → Add-Ons and turn on Shipping API. ShipStation needs it, and a plan that includes API access, before a V2 key works.
2. Open Settings → Account → API Settings, set the version to V2 and press Generate. ShipStation shows the key once, so copy it then. An account has one key at a time: generating a new one replaces the old.
3. On the ShipStation card in OrderDen, paste it into API key and press Connect ShipStation.
4. OrderDen checks the key with ShipStation before keeping it. A key ShipStation refuses is not saved, and the card says why, with the status ShipStation answered.

A V1 key, the older 32-character one, won't work, and the card says so before asking ShipStation.

Rates come from every carrier connected to your ShipStation account, so connect your carriers there first. A key starting TEST_ is a ShipStation test key: the card shows a Test badge, and its labels are test labels. Test keys exist only for ShipStation API-portal accounts, not regular ShipStation accounts, so most workspaces have no test mode.

Connecting points your ShipStation account's tracking updates at OrderDen. ShipStation sends tracking updates to one address per account, so this replaces any address it was sending them to before.

To use a new key, press Replace key on the card and paste it; your settings are kept. Disconnect forgets the key in OrderDen; delete it in ShipStation too if you no longer need it.

ShipStation expects to offer connecting by signing in, with no key to copy, around early 2027. We'll move the ShipStation card to it when it's available.

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. For ShipStation, paste a new key instead. Your settings on the card are kept.

Disconnect stops OrderDen using that network and forgets the connection. For Easyship and Shippo, 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 three 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, and whether the list starts cheapest or quickest first. Every service is in the list, and you choose.
• Label size: 4×6 label (the default) for a label printer, or Letter page for a desk printer, with the label on a full page. Every network is asked for this size when you buy, whatever its own settings say. Easyship has no Letter page, so it prints on A4.

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 with its price and how many days it should take. Cheapest first and Quickest first above the list change the order. It starts on your Pre-select setting (quickest first when that's The quickest service, cheapest first otherwise), and your browser remembers the one you pick. The cheapest and the quickest are marked. Every service carries the mark of the network it would be bought through, beside its days and price (ShipStation's name, for now), so you can see where the label comes from. With more than one network connected, each also says via Easyship, via Shippo or via ShipStation, so the same USPS service can appear twice at two prices.

Rows that are the same service at the same price and speed show once. Where two rows of one service differ, the row says why: the packaging (Priority Mail · Flat rate padded envelope) or, when you have two accounts with one carrier, the account (via ShipStation · Stamps.com). A list of more than five is grouped by speed (1 day, 2 days, 3 days, 4 days or more, No estimate), with each group after the first showing its cheapest service and Show N more; Show all N services opens everything. Under Cheapest first the cheapest service sits above the groups. A list of more than twelve says where each network lets you turn off the services you never use, which makes it shorter. 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.

Carriers need to read the order's Ship to, so put the city, state and ZIP on one line (Edison, NJ 08840) and the country last if it isn't the US. A Canadian address with its province and postal code on that line (Toronto, ON M5V 3L9) is read as Canada without the country. When we can't find a postal code in a US, Canadian, UK or Australian address, you get a message showing the block instead of rates.

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

When something the network needs is missing for the parcel in hand (a Ship to with nobody named on it, say), the rates still come back but Before you can buy this label lists it above Buy this label, which stays off until it's fixed. Each line links to where to fix it: the order's Ship to, the client's contacts, or your company profile.

If no rate comes back at all, the card says so where the list would be: that no carrier quoted for the parcel, or that Test labels only hid every live rate.

If the network refuses the purchase, its reason shows under Buy this label with the network named, such as Shippo: Rate has expired. Nothing is bought or recorded. A quote that has expired needs Get rates again; a refused connection says to reconnect it in Company Settings → Shipping.

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.
• opens the label in a new tab, ready to print with your browser's own print dialog, and saves it as an attachment. The tab reads Getting your label… for the few seconds the PDF takes, then shows the label. If the PDF takes too long, the tab says so and you print it from the shipment. Reprint 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.

If your browser blocks the new tab, the message says so and a Print label button beside it opens the label. To print later instead, turn off Open labels for printing when bought under Personal Settings → Appearance. It's kept in that browser, since it's about that computer's printer. Buy labels from the orders list opens all of them as one file the same way.

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. With Shippo connected, every Get rates to a US address asks Shippo to check it. When Shippo can't verify it (a street that isn't in that city, say), a line above the rates reads Shippo couldn't fully verify this address. You can still buy the label, but it may be undeliverable or cost extra fees. Open What Shippo said under it for Shippo's own reasons. When Shippo suggests a corrected address, it shows under the line: Use this address saves it as the order's Ship to and gets the rates again. Nothing is rewritten until you click it, so what the buyer typed stays on the order. A residential address is flagged, because carriers charge more to deliver to one.

When the Ship to was picked from one of the client's saved addresses, the rates are asked with that address's Delivery to (home or business; see Clients). A Ship to typed by hand sends neither, and the network works it out. If the saved address doesn't say and the network does, the rates show one line such as Shippo says this is a home address. Mark it? Mark as home saves it to the address, and the client's history records it.

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.

The declaration is signed in the name of the person buying the label, as it appears on their account. Without one (a label bought by an automation, say), it is signed with the sender name on the label: your legal name from Company Settings → Profile, or the workspace name.

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 shipment then shows where the request stands:

• Refund requested: asked, with the date. Carriers take a few days to decide, and the postage stays on the order until the refund is granted. OrderDen asks Shippo again once a day for up to 30 days. Easyship doesn't report back on refunds, so for an Easyship label check your Easyship account.
• Refunded: granted, with the date. The postage comes off the order.
• Refund refused: the network said no, with its reason when it gives one. The postage stays on the order, and you can ask again.

ShipStation decides when you ask, so its labels go straight to Refunded or Refund refused. When a refund is granted or refused later, you get a notification and the order's History records it. A label can't be refunded twice: once a refund is requested, Refund label goes away until the network answers. 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.