Shipstation

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compunerdy
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Shipstation

Post by compunerdy » Fri Mar 20, 2015 1:10 pm

I started looking into how to set this up and created a shipstation account but during setup it does not list ablecommerce as one of the integrated systems. Is there a write up on how this interface works? I see they support bi directional syncing so I hope we do not have to manually push orders to them.


I found the info by searching in the help file after Mike pointed me to it.. here are the links.

Step 1
http://help.ablecommerce.com/mergedProj ... tation.htm

Step 2
http://help.ablecommerce.com/mergedProj ... tation.htm

Step 3
http://help.ablecommerce.com/mergedProj ... n_data.htm

So it looks like it is not really automatic unless I am overlooking something. You need to log into AC and export the orders, Log into Shipstation and ship the orders, and then go back to AC to sync the orders and mark as shipped. Is AC considering a full integration in the future with automatic import/export?

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Re: Shipstation

Post by Katie » Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:41 am

I started looking into how to set this up and created a shipstation account but during setup it does not list ablecommerce as one of the integrated systems.
ShipStation won't make our integration certified until they see at least 3 customers using it for production.
Is AC considering a full integration in the future with automatic import/export?
As far as I know, we implemented ShipStation according to the API. I don't know how much automation we can provide, or that merchants want. The export orders page has quite a few search filters so you can decide what orders are being sent to ShipStation. The process of re-syncing is literally one button to push. I think the main thing is that we have the integration completed, and as time goes on and merchants begin using the feature, we can make further improvements.

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Katie
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Re: Shipstation

Post by compunerdy » Sat Mar 21, 2015 4:15 pm

First I want to say thanks for integrating it at all.. not trying to take away from that.

If you look at this video..

http://www.shipstation.com/videos/getti ... ipstation/

At the 3 minute mark they show you can simply click a button on shipstation to import orders and mention that it automatically downloads new orders. This is also how the shipper system works that web2market offers. No need to log into AC at all to download or upload the orders. In the scheme of things I am sure it is just a few extra minutes a day but since they obviously have the capability to do this I see no reason to not have it that way.

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Re: Shipstation

Post by Katie » Sun Mar 22, 2015 7:25 am

Thanks for your feedback Tim. I will need to look into this further. I seem to recall that ShipStation had two different API's we could use. We chose one over the other because we needed support for multiple warehouses/shipments. I was not intimately involved in the development though. I was involved in testing, so I was coming in after the design work had already been discussed. Let me get back to you on this point. I'm interested to find out myself.

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Re: Shipstation

Post by Shopping Cart Admin » Tue Mar 24, 2015 6:21 am

At the 3 minute mark they show you can simply click a button on shipstation to import orders and mention that it automatically downloads new orders.....
That is for the xml download, which is their older 'primitive' system which has MANY limitations. We took the extra time and used their new API integration which gave us more abilities.
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Re: Shipstation

Post by compunerdy » Tue Mar 24, 2015 8:11 am

I found the info from shipstation that explains this..
The method that's right for your integration very much depends on the type of integration you're planning on implementing.

A Custom Store allows ShipStation to pull order information from your platform the very same way we pull data from marketplaces such as eBay, Amazon, and Shopify. Once an order has been shipped in ShipStation, ShipStation automatically pushes tracking information back to your custom store. Though the functionality afforded by this approach is limited to these 2 main functions, much of the heavy lifting is performed by ShipStation. Importing orders and sending tracking information is performed automatically by ShipStation, as long as your XML endpoint is available to receive our data.

An API integration, on the other hand, exposes much more functionality, but requires that the developer do much of the heavy lifting. Orders must be pushed to ShipStation by using our "/orders/CreateOrder" endpoint. The API allows developers to perform functions such as tagging an order, shipping an order, creating a shipping label (without an order), retrieving shipping rates, adding funds to a carrier account, creating a warehouse, listing products, and much more. The functionality the API affords are typical actions that a user would perform if using the web app.
The shipper software from web2market works more like the first option. The second option which is the way AC went seems more like for if you wanted to be able to do all of the printing from within AC and not use the shipstation web app. "The functionality the API affords are typical actions that a user would perform if using the web app" I am not sure what convinced you this was the better route to take. Doing the first route also allows for "When you integrate using the Custom Store Integration, you could be eligible to have your company branded within the ShipStation admin" which would be a extra advertising route for AC.

Anyways as I said I am glad you implemented it at all but I probably will not use it as implemented and I am a bit perplexed by the decision you made on how to implement it. As usual I am probably just not aware of the reasons you decided to go this route.

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Re: Shipstation

Post by Shopping Cart Admin » Tue Mar 24, 2015 9:15 am

Hi Tim,

We initially started down the easy road with just creating an xml file for ShipStation to grab, but found it too limiting to work properly with AbleCommerce.
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Re: Shipstation

Post by Katie » Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:55 pm

Also, the custom store integration doesn't support an order with multiple shipments to different addresses.

After a lot of discussion and talking with Shipstation support, we decided to go with the more flexible integration. As time goes on, we can make improvements and maybe even create a scheduled event to export orders and re-sync them. I believe that if you are doing a lot of shipping, then this feature will make your life easier.
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Re: Shipstation

Post by compunerdy » Tue Mar 24, 2015 3:41 pm

For me it seems like the custom store integration which sounds very similar to what I use now would have worked fine. Maybe in the future you could offer both implementations which would also allow you to get listed on shipstation as a partner. Doing some sort of scheduled event as you suggest would work just fine as well. Actually even just making it so the "to" date is auto filled with the current date and being able to assign a default order status to have selected would speed things up and reduce the chance of errors.

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Re: Shipstation

Post by gdelorey@mitcs.com » Fri Aug 14, 2015 1:02 pm

Any updates on this? We are also working with a client who's using Shipper but transitioning over to ShipStation. Having to manually export orders to ShipStation is clunky; would love to see the option to have them auto-pull. We're about to launch two stores with ShipStation integration enabled - maybe that'll help you reach the 3 store threshold to be listed on their site :)

Greg

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Re: Shipstation

Post by bhill » Thu Apr 20, 2017 4:20 am

Any updates? We are switching to shipstaation and are interested in automatic import, export and/or a quicker easier to use export page.
Thanks,
Brandon

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Re: Shipstation

Post by Katie » Thu Apr 20, 2017 4:33 am

All feature requests need to be submitted through the Feedback form.

https://ablecommerce.uservoice.com

Please take a moment and request this. Give it your votes and we'll be happy to consider for a future release.

Thanks
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