When you run an eCommerce business, many things need to be handled, and one of them is shipping. But shipping can be a considerable burden to tackle on your own. Thankfully, some companies can help automate this process and seamlessly integrate functionalities like order tracking, order cancellation, order statuses, and other capabilities. On top of that, if you’re dealing with multiple delivery partners like UPS, or DHL, using these APIs can be very useful.

Below, we’ll review some of the most popular APIs you can use to integrate shipping functionality into your applications.

EasyPost

The EasyPost API is a simple, easy-to-use API that allows you to integrate shipping into your applications. With EasyPost, you can get real-time shipping quotes, print shipping labels, track shipments, and much more. Using the EasyPost API, you can create shipping labels online, verify addresses, track packages, and ensure shipments.

The EasyPost API uses Basic Auth for authentication and allows you to create separate API keys for test and production servers. The API also supports about 240+ countries’ addresses with different levels. Some of the basic functionalities API comes with are address, parcels, shipment, and trackers. The API also allows you to perform batch operations to handle many different shipments.

Shippo

Shippo is a shipping API that provides developers with the tools they need to integrate shipping functionality into their applications. The API allows developers to access a variety of shipping carriers, including UPS, FedEx, and USPS, and provides them with the ability to track shipments, create shipping labels, and more. The documentation also offers code examples for multiple programming languages, such as Python, Ruby, and Node.js. The API uses API Basic authentication with a special header name called ShippoToken.

ShipEngine

The ShipEngine API is an easy-to-use REST API that lets you manage all of your shipping needs without worrying about the complexities of different carrier APIs and protocols. ShipEngine is a powerful shipping API that allows you to connect your eCommerce store or marketplace to multiple shipping carriers, print labels, track shipments, and manage returns all from one platform. Since ShipEngine provides a REST API, it’s super easy to use in a web app and will integrate quickly into your existing system.

Here’s the sample request and response from the API:

POST /v1/addresses/validate HTTP/1.1
Host: api.shipengine.com
API-Key: __YOUR_API_KEY_HERE__
Content-Type: application/json

[
  {
    "address_line1": "525 S Winchester Blvd",
    "city_locality": "San Jose",
    "state_province": "CA",
    "postal_code": "95128",
    "country_code": "US"
  }
]

ShippyPro

ShippyPro is a powerful shipping API that enables eCommerce businesses to automate their shipping processes. With ShippyPro, businesses can connect to multiple shipping carriers, compare rates, print labels, and track shipments in real-time. The ShippyPro API makes it easy to integrate shipping into any eCommerce platform, allowing businesses to streamline their operations and focus on their core competencies.

Here’s the example request and response from the API:

{
  "Method": "CheckAddress",
  "Params": {
    "CarrierName": "DHLExpress",
    "CarrierID": 23,
    "Address": {
      "street1": "123 Main St",
      "street2": "",
      "city": "Park City",
      "state": "UT",
      "zip": "84060",
      "country": "US"
    },
    "FromAddress": {
      "country": "US"
    }
  }
}

Pitney Bowes

Pitney Bowes provides a set of APIs to allow developers to access and integrate the functionality of Pitney Bowes products and services with other applications. The APIs enable developers to access data and functionality from Pitney Bowes products and services, including shipping, tracking, and billing.

The API allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Pitney Bowes products and services with other applications. The API has a strong focus on the developer experience. The API uses OAuth and comes with test and production environments.

Here’s an example request-response from the API:

{
    "address": {
        "addressLines": [
            "27 Waterview Dr"
        ],
        "cityTown": "Shelton",
        "stateProvince": "CT",
        "postalCode": "06484-4301",
        "countryCode": "US",
        "name": "John Smith",
        "residential": false,
        "deliveryPoint": "27",
        "carrierRoute": "C010",
        "status": "VALIDATED_CHANGED"
    },
    "suggestions": {
        "suggestionType": "company",
        "address": [
            {
                "addressLines": [
                    "27 Waterview Dr"
                ],
                "cityTown": "Shelton",
                "stateProvince": "CT",
                "postalCode": "06484-4301",
                "company": "PITNEY BOWES CREDIT CORP",
                "name": "John Smith"
            }
        ]
    }
}

Shyplite

Shyplite is a powerful tool that helps you create and manage your shipping operations. With this API, you can directly connect to a vast network of carriers and providers from your website or application. With Shyplite, you will have the ability to track your shipments and print labels directly from the API. All this is available to you by simply sending requests in either secure HTTP or HTTPS as prompted when collecting specific data. Shyplite provides easy-to-use methods for each API request and returns predictable responses.

The API uses Seller ID, App ID, Public Key, and Private Key for authentication. Using the Orders API, you can create, edit, and retrieve orders, but it is only limited to one order per request. This means it doesn’t support batch operations. You can also track a package status using the Shipment API.

Shiprocket

The Shiprocket API is an interface that allows you to connect your eCommerce store with Shiprocket’s shipping and order management platform. This enables you to automate your shipping process and gives you the ability to manage your orders from a single platform.

The Shiprocket API is easy to use and can be integrated with any eCommerce platform. Once you have connected your store, you can start managing your orders and shipping from the Shiprocket platform. You can also use the Shiprocket API to connect with other shipping and logistics providers, which gives you the ability to compare shipping rates and choose the best option for your business.

The Shiprocket API uses a username and password for the authentication. The API comes with many CRUD-like functionalities for orders, Couriers, Shipment, Return orders, Listings, Inventory, and others.

Here’s an example of a response from the API:

{
  "order_id": 16161616,
  "shipment_id": 15151515,
  "status": "NEW",
  "status_code": 1,
  "onboarding_completed_now": 0,
  "awb_code": null,
  "courier_company_id": null,
  "courier_name": null
}

Easyship

The Easyship API is a powerful shipping automation solution that allows eCommerce businesses to connect their online store to multiple shipping carriers. It gives developers the ability to automate the shipping process, get real-time shipping quotes, create shipping labels, track shipments, and more. By using the Easyship API, you can have your inventory, orders, and customers’ information automatically updated and integrated with the preferred shipping carrier. It gives you a better overview of your shipping process, allowing you to make better financial decisions and keep your customers happy by shipping their orders as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The API uses the Basic authentication method and supports functionalities like Rate API, Shipment, Tracking, Countries, and Courier, allowing you to integrate these functionalities into your app.

Here’s the example response from the API:

{
    "status": "success",
    "shipments": [
        {
            "easyship_shipment_id": "ESUS12345678", 
            "status": "success",
            "errors": []
        }
    ]
}

Shipstation

The Shipstation API is a powerful tool that allows you to manage your shipping needs in a streamlined and efficient manner. By integrating with Shipstation, you can automate your shipping process and take advantage of features such as order tracking, shipping labels, and more.

With the Shipstation API, you can take your shipping operation to the next level. The Shipstation API is a REST-based API that allows developers to access and integrate the functionality of Shipstation with other applications. The API enables developers to programmatically manage orders, customers, shipments, and more.

Here’s an example response from the API:

{
  "fulfillments": [
    {
      "fulfillmentId": 33974374,
      "orderId": 191759016,
      "orderNumber": "101",
      "userId": "c9f06d74-95de-4263-9b04-e87095cababf",
      "customerEmail": "apisupport@shipstation.com",
      "trackingNumber": "783408231234",
      "createDate": "2016-06-07T08:50:50.0670000",
      "shipDate": "2016-06-07T00:00:00.0000000",
      "voidDate": null,
      "deliveryDate": null,
      "carrierCode": "USPS",
      "fulfillmentProviderCode": null,
      "fulfillmentServiceCode": null,
      "fulfillmentFee": 0,
      "voidRequested": false,
      "voided": false,
      "marketplaceNotified": true,
      "notifyErrorMessage": null,
      "shipTo": {
        "name": "Yoda",
        "company": null,
        "street1": "3800 N Lamar Blvd # 220",
        "street2": null,
        "street3": null,
        "city": "AUSTIN",
        "state": "TX",
        "postalCode": "78756",
        "country": "US",
        "phone": "512-485-4282",
        "residential": null,
        "addressVerified": null
      }
    }
...

Flexport

Flexport is a modern freight forwarder and logistics platform that helps businesses ship their products worldwide. The Flexport API allows developers to build their own applications and integrations by allowing them to access its platform and data and take advantage of real-time shipping quotes, track shipments, and schedule pickups.

The Flexport API enables developers to create programs that make programmatic interactions with the company’s freight data. The Flexport API also grants developers access to the company’s core data and ensures that all communication occurs over HTTP protocol using JSON.

Final Words

Shipping APIs can be very useful for eCommerce companies as they come with lots of functionalities. This can help automate things and enable easy integration with third-party carriers, like UPS. Of course, the use cases for these APIs are broad and utterly dependent on the requirements of the project at hand.