The best shipping app for Shopify brings efficiency, automation and reliability into the post-order phase of ecommerce.
Most of you would agree that shipping is one of the most time-consuming and possibly, tricky phases of the business.
That’s why we have selected the best shipping apps in the Shopify marketplace for you.
We have evaluated these on the basis of some critical parameters that we will also touch upon.
So, let’s dive in.
What are the Best Shopify Shipping Apps?
Here are our top picks of the best shipping apps for Shopify to try this year.
1. ShipStation
ShipStation is a web-based shipping management suite that aims to simplify the entire post-order phase of ecommerce. That includes order management, label printing, inventory management and of course, all aspects of shipping.
It integrates with a plethora of ecommerce tools and platforms, has ample automation features and allows you to brand every touchpoint, making the customer feel at home.
They never have to exit the comfy confines of your storefront.
We also like the dashboard and the ease of use, despite the platform being crammed to the brim with features.
A short onboarding guide lets you get set and from there on, its pretty straight forward. You never feel overwhelmed trying to accomplish even complex tasks.
Let’s take a look at their key features.
Key Features:
1. Easy Order Management
ShipStation offers multiple one-click integrations which means that you can consolidate all your ecommerce platforms sales at one place. Regardless of where you sell, having one centralized dashboard with a bird’s eye view of the orders makes it easy to manage everything, doesn’t it?
The order management module is quite comprehensive.
You can combine orders shipping to the same address, split orders shipping from different warehouses, filter orders using a variety of criteria, set alerts for a wide range of parameters, use tags to make it easier to sort orders and edit order details on-the-fly.
Each stage also features extensive data logging, which means you have access to comprehensive reports.
2. Shipping Simplified
Let’s talk shipping, shall we 🙂 ShipStation integrates with the best carriers around the globe and features a Rate Browser, which lets you browse for the best shipping prices from within the dashboard itself.
ShipStation Connect is another feature that makes it effortless to scan and print thousands of shipping labels. You can further send these labels directly to the printer, automating the entire process.
Generating end of day manifests or customs documents is generally a cumbersome process. ShipStation makes that as easy as clicking a button. That’s literally speaking.
The suite also includes a branded order tracking page that can send out automated notifications to the customer.
One feature that we would like to be added, is adding additional stages between the order placement and order shipping. It helps maintain customer engagement and prevents anxious customers from contacting support.
If you would like to know how this works, do check out our review of the top order tracking apps for Shopify.
3. Inventory Management
ShipStation’s inventory management capabilities are on par with some of the leading inventory management software that we’ve seen. It allows you to keep track of inventory, set alerts, update inventory levels in real-time, allocate and deallocate stock and view real time updates of inventory levels across warehouses.
We wouldn’t be too surprised if this alone makes this a value purchase for businesses.
Pricing:
ShipStation has 6-tiered pricing plans. The details are as follows.
- Starter – $9/mo – 50 Shipments
- Bronze – $29/mo – 500 Shipments
- Silver – $49/mo – 1500 shipments
- Gold – $69/mo – 3000 shipments
- Platinum – $99/mo – 6000 shipments
- Enterprise – $159/mo – 10000 shipments
Each plan has a fully-functional 30-day trial that you might want to consider using to get an idea of how detailed and effective the service is.
Why we chose this:
There are numerous reasons why ShipStation tops this list of the best shipping apps for Shopify. For starters, it is a complete shipping management suite that integrates with 60 selling channels and a whole range of ecommerce services including 3PL and warehouses.
Everything is automated and smooth, just the way we like it. Secondly, the reviews have been consistently good for the service, over the years. That speaks volumes about the customer support, reliability and consistency.
2. Easyship
As it is rightly named, Easyship will have you wondering why you struggled with ecommerce shipping for so long. This software-as-a-service is a web-based shipping management suite that integrates with your online store.
A quick onboarding and sometime importing your orders is all that’s needed to get up and running with it. While it is very similar to ShipStation in its overall features, there are some that manage to stand out.
For instance, EasyShip offers a lot more customization when you are trying to automate shipping. There are ecommerce stores that only ship to two countries for instance. They can easily set a condition based on the destination country. Every time this condition is met, ShipStation will take the desired action that you set in the dashboard.
No more manual verifications required. That’s a major time and effort saver. In addition to this, there are some great features on offer.
Let’s take a look.
Key Features:
1. Easy Courier Selection
Easyship connects with 250+ courier services from all around the world, from within the dashboard. You can quickly compare and shop for the best prices, using their pre-negotiated discount rates that offer up to 70% off retail shipping.
Alternatively you can connect your own courier accounts to get your negotiated prices within the dashboard.
One of the features that we liked is the Flat Rate detector. This is an automated AI powered algorithm that scans the list of carriers and uses your package’s dimensions, destination and other parameters to come up with the best flat rate price.
If you prefer a hands off approach, this does the job for you.
2. Shipment Management
EasyShip shines and possibly, edges out the rest of the competition with its shipment management module. This is one of the most feature-rich shipping management apps that we’ve seen.
Right from easily creating shipments to uploading from CSV files, there’s batch shipping, bulk printing, configuring box sizes, USPS integration for form scans, tagging and accurate delivery estimates. The icing on the cake is automated customer notifications at different stages of shipping.
3. Complete and Accurate Pricing Visibility
EasyShip supports shipping to 220+ countries. With so many options, it becomes a lot easier for a business looking to scale and expand.
But the conundrum is that taxes and duties can become a handful. With EasyShip, you have no numbers to crunch or unexpected surprises awaiting you. It automatically runs the calculations and comes up with accurate predictions for Pre-determined duties & taxes.
You can select the closest category to ensure that you are not over taxed and it also lets you choose who will pay the tax. Whether it’s you or the customer, you decide in one click.
4. Global Fulfillment Network
EasyShip also has a full-fledged fulfillment service where you can choose to have your shipments distributed across their warehouses all around the world.
They cover Asia, North America, Europe and Australia for now. When you sign up, you will be assigned a dedicated account manager who can map out the best fulfillment and distribution strategy for your business model.
Once again, it’s all about reducing effort and taking the load off your shoulders. EasyShip does both.
5. Increased Conversions
EasyShip’s multiple carrier integrations and real time rate scanner allows you to display the most updated shipping rates at checkout. For one, this increases conversions. Secondly, it offers your customers more shipping options.
Did you know that statistics reveal that customers don’t mind paying a little extra for quicker shipping?
Pricing:
Easyship offers four tiered plans. They have a fully functional free plan for small startups that generate only up to 100 shipments a month. Apart from the ability to link your own courier account, this is a fully loaded plan, which is terrific. Then they have a plus plan at $29/month, Premier at $49/month and Enterprise, which is a custom quote-based plan.
Why we chose this
With international shipping, warehouse network and automated comparison shopping for courier services, Easyship is one of the most feature rich shipping app for Shopify. Besides, it has a fully functional free plan for startups.
3. Shippo
Shippo is a full-stack shipping and order management software that currently processes more than 100 million shipments each year. It is being used by more than 100000 ecommerce brands and that gives us a fair idea of the kind of service levels and features that it brings to the table.
If we compare Shippo with the earlier two options that we have listed, it does have most of the best in-class features. But there are a few distinct ones that make it pop out from this list. One of these is address validation.
A lot of times, typos and silly mistakes result in failed deliveries which slowly etch away on your bottom line. Shippo features an in-built address validation tool that will cross check each shipping address and alert you of a possible mistype. You can then contact the customer and ask them to update it, without wasting your time and limited resources.
There are many other features that make Shippo one of the best shipping apps for Shopify.
Here are some of them.
Key Features:
1. Label Creation Made Easy
Shippo’s label creation tools bring automation, reliability and efficiency into shipping management. You can select from multiple packing slips and label formats, batch print hundreds of labels at a go to stay ahead of incoming orders during peak season and also save time spent on label creation by automating orders using order history.
For instance, if a customer regularly orders to one address, Shippo gives them the choice to select the default address and automatically generates and prints the label for you.
You can also upload and print labels from a CSV file. Customers can also generate return labels easily without breaking a sweat, which improves the overall experience.
2. Compare and Shop
Shippo connects with 60+ carriers around the globe. While that may sound a little less when compared with Easyship’s 250, a lot of small to medium sized ecommerce businesses will find it optimum.
Also, you get the same features. Shippo compares and displays the cheapest shipping options for you and the customer during checkout.
3. Tracking
We have reviewed some of the best tracking apps for shopify recently. Shippo’s tracking module is quite extensive and ticks off all the boxes that we checked while evaluating these services.
It lets you create a branded tracking page within the storefront, sends customers with proactive updates about order status, brings in reliable tracking by getting real time updates from the integrated carriers and also allows the customers to track shipments that have been generated outside of Shippo.
So you are not shoehorned or limited by anything really.
4. International Shipping
Many shipping software have the fanciest feature list, but lack international shipping features. Shippo has a bunch of useful ones. It generates pre-filled customs forms based on the destination country and package type, which allows you to generate labels a lot faster.
Secondly, it enables paperless trade, which means you don’t have to spend time and money generating paper invoices like the past.
Pricing:
Shippo has three tiered plans. There’s a free plan with no monthly commitment that will charge you only 5 cents for a label that you generate with your own connected carrier account. The professional plan is priced at $10/month and offers the best value. You also get a 30-day free trial with this plan. Lastly, there’s the Premier plan which is a custom quote-based one.
Why we chose this:
We chose Shippo because it has all the top features that one seeks from shipping software. To add to this, it validates addresses which prevents failed deliveries, has a fully loaded free account and also integrates returns/tracking into the package.
4. ShippingEasy
ShippingEasy is one of the oldest shipping app for ecommerce merchants.
It was set up in 2011 and since then, they have managed to stand out from the competition with a bundle of smart features. At the forefront are guaranteed lowest shipping rates.
That’s a huge motivator, especially if you are a large brand that deals with hundreds of shipments a day.
Are you wondering how ShippingEasy manages to get these prices?
Here’s how. They are partnered with USPS, and this allows merchants access to USPS commercial rates, provided you ship more than 50K per year. Now that’s not much. In exchange, you get up to 62% off Daily Rates on UPS, and you are saved from seasonal surcharges.
These are numbers that can quickly add up. In other words, ShippingEasy can save you a lot of money if your business generates a large number of orders.
Here’s a look at some of their key features.
Key Features:
1. Automated Shipping Workflow
ShippingEasy allows you to create as many conditions + actions, based rules for automating shipping workflows.
For instance, if a package is shipping to USA, use this carrier. Or, if an order value is more than this, offer free shipping. These of course are just some basic rules.
ShippingEasy allows you to customize these rules and take actions such as send to the ready-to-ship page, print labels and drop ship.
2. Flat Rate Green Cubic Pricing
If your shipments are more than 2 lbs. in weight and less than 20 lbs. then you can get Flat Rate Green, which is an exclusive feature that uses package dimensions and destination to provide you with the lowest shipping cost.
This doesn’t even have to be compared. Its guaranteed to be the lowest price you will get on priority mail for the parcel.
What’s amazing is that you can create an automated workflow for this, and top it up with one for label printing, you have pretty much automated the complete shipping workflow.
3. Advanced Reporting
ShippingEasy also lets you generate detailed, graphical reports for almost any shipping related data. You can segment the shipments by destination, or by the carrier, export data based on unshipped orders and also create a summary of your product sales.
All of these reports can be downloaded based on premade templates, or customized according to your needs.
4. Alexa Integration
Hate typing or performing even basic clicks? ShippingEasy integrates with Alexa that lets you use your voice command for most automation tasks. Alexa will source the order information and automatically source the best shipping quote, it will batch print labels or purchase USPS postage if need be.
5. Shopify Seller Suite
ShippingEasy offers a complete shipping management suite of tools for Shopify sellers. You can manage your orders across multiple sales channels, send out automated emails for notifications and promotions, follow up emails for order cart abandonment, and get access to all the other features that we mentioned earlier.
Pricing:
ShippingEasy has six tiered shipping plans. The starter plan is priced at $5/mo for up to 50 shipments.
- The basic plan is priced at $29/month for up to 500 shipments,
- The Plus plan at $49/mo for up to 1500 shipments,
- The Select Plan at $69/mo for up to 3000 shipments,
- The Premium Plan at $99/month for up to 6000 shipments and
- The Enterprise plan at $159/month for up to 10000 shipments.
You can get a 30-day trial without a credit card, which is amazing.
Why we chose this:
From lowest price guarantees to the Flat Rate Green, there are many features that make ShippingEasy a terrific choice for medium and large-sized ecommerce businesses. The pricing plans may be a little steep for startups. But don’t forget that you will be saving a lot of money on shipping costs with the low price guarantees.
5. Pirateship
Pirateship is a shipping-centric software for small and medium sized Shopify stores.
It’s ironic that we have to emphasize on shipping-centric in a list of the best shipping software, isn’t it?
However, most of the shipping software in this list also have overlapping features with other shopify tools, such as the best return tracking apps or even reporting apps.
Some, as you would have noticed are complete shipping suites that also include warehouse management along with a host of other features. Pirateship though is 100% shipping centric.
It allows small businesses to get access to cheapest shipping prices, with no hidden charges or markups. In addition to this, it brings label printing automation and basic order management to the table, for a very affordable price.
Here’s a look at their key features.
Key Features:
1. Three Step Shipping
Pirateship allows you to ship in 3 steps. You enter your package details, or import it from one of the multiple sales channels that it integrates with, or upload it manually, buy postage and print the label for handing it over to USPS.
That’s regardless of whether you are shipping one package at a time or a thousand packages. The process remains the same.
This is the one of the easiest shipping workflows for Shopify guys. It’s practically, a no-brainer. There’s zero chances of manual error, its fast and its easy.
2. Print labels with any device
Pirateship is designed with smaller brands and home-office-shops in mind. So they offer support for the standard 4 x 6 label. But also allow you to print a 2 x 7” label if need be, which can be printed in thermal printers.
You can also use normal desktop printers or a commercial label printer to print your labels. The labels can be saved in PDF or ZPL formats for easy compatibility.
In case the printing is handled elsewhere, you can send the labels using a secure link that allows the other person to access and print it easily. Also, there is no cap on batch label printing. So you can even print 1000s of labels with one click.
3. Pay On Use return labels
If your business handles a lot of return shipments, creating and managing postage-paid return labels can eat up into your valuable time.
Pirateship allows you to create return labels that will be paid for only if they are used. So, if a customer wants to return a shipment, you can automate the workflow and send them a return label.
But if they change their mind and don’t send the package back, you are not billed for that label.
4. Shipping Address Features
Pirateship, despite being a smallish shipping software, offers automated address validation using the USPS-certified address database. So minor typos or mistakes will not result in failed deliveries anymore.
5. Automation
At first glance, we thought that Pirateship was more of a bare-bones service with no bells and whistles. But we were in for a surprise when we found that it has some great automation features built in.
The software can use order history to autofill the shipping address. It uses Google Maps global address database to automatically suggest addresses when you type.
If you have frequently shipped package types or destinations, you can create presets for these. Tracking emails and status alert emails can be automated as well. Like we mentioned earlier, maybe not as comprehensive as a full-stack suite, but pretty useful nevertheless.
Pricing:
Pirateship is free to use. There are no charges. You only pay for the packages you ship through them. Just like ShippingEasy, Pirateship gives you access to USPS commercial rates, which can result in net savings of up to 89%.
Why we chose this:
Pirateship is one of the most flexible shipping software for Shopify stores. There is no minimum commitment, you can even ship one package if need be and the shipping workflow is one of the easiest. Its three basic steps and you can even avoid the queue in the post office by handing over the package to a letter carrier authorized to receive it.
If you are a small branded dropshipping business that would like to cut costs and avoid minimum commitments, you won’t find a better option.
6. Parcel Panel
Parcel Panel is one of the most popular order tracking apps, especially for ecommerce businesses who dropship from China. It integrates with 800+ carriers around the world. Some of these are dropshipping-specific ones like AliExpress tracking & YunExpress.
It automatically integrates with your store creating a branded tracking page. One of the added perks is that businesses can hide the Chinese origin for the shipment.
Key Features:
1. SEO Optimized Tracking Page
Parcel Panel automatically creates a branded tracking page. The default elements include your logo and store branding. But there’s a drag & drop interface allowing you to add as many elements as you want to. This is a great way to bring back the customer for tracking and throw a targeted upsell. Also, the tracking page is completely SEO optimized.
2. ETA
Rather than showing ad-hoc, cookie-cutter status messages, Parcel Panel shows them the exact remaining time for delivery. Rather than showing ‘In Transit’, it will show ‘Expected in 6-days’.
3. Shipping Progress Bar
The progress bar is another neat feature. It eases customer anxiety and gives them a fair idea of where the shipment is. In the backend, you can get map coordinates for the exact location.
4. 8 Order Statuses
Parcel Panel offers 8 standard order statuses. You can add custom ones too. Setting automated alerts for any status lets you deal with potential delayed shipments before the customers complain.
Pricing:
Parcel Panel is completely free for small brands generating up to 20 orders a month. They have three other volume based plants at $9/month, $19/month & $99/month. The platinum plan gives you a dedicated account manager. The number of shipments tracked is capped at 5000 for the top plan though. For more, you need to contact them for a custom quote.
7. Tracktor
Aftership connects you with 848 carriers across the world. Tracktor integrates with more than 1000. So, if you have a global ecommerce store, Tracktor might be a better pick purely because of the increased carrier integrations.
Other than this, it has all the standard features one expects with a top-notch order tracking service. It is fast, easy, customizable and reliable. While it is not as old as Aftership, it has some great reviews already. A majority of these are about the terrific customer service.
Key Features:
1. Map View
Tracktor tracks your packages even when they are in transit. This information is not broad strokes either. You get to track the exact location on a map. You can also set alerts for packages that are delayed.
2. Real Time Tracking
A lot of brands use the term ‘Real Time’ loosely. But Tracktor with its 1000+ carrier integrations is as close to being real time tracking as it can get.
3. Order Stage Customization
Often, the customer can get anxious to know when an order will be shipped after they place it. Tracktor lets you customize and add multiple stages in between order placement and shipping. For example, you can add a stage for ‘Picked from Warehouse’, and many more.
4. Reduce Support Requests
Tracktor lets you embed the tracking button in automated emails, as well as the account dashboard. Self-help reduces support requests.
Pricing:
Tracktor has 4 pricing plans at $8.99/month, $36/month, $99/month & $249/month. Dedicated support is only available in the final one. All plans have a 14-day trial option that lets you test the service levels.
How to Choose the Best Shipping App for Shopify
As you would have noticed by now, Shipping app for Shopify varies extensively across the marketplace. From software that lets you ship one single product and comes with no minimums, to fully-loaded suites that let you distribute inventory across international warehouses, your choices are diverse.
That’s why we have created a checklist that we used to evaluate these services. We believe that this will be helpful if you are torn between two of these services and are unsure of which one to pick.
1. One tool vs. Many
Let’s take a look at the critical parts of the ecommerce supply chain after the customer places an order on your website. There’s order management, shipping, returns & tracking.
Many of the best shipping apps try to integrate all these features into one suite. The advantage of opting for something like this is that you have one centralized dashboard with tons of features. The disadvantage is that many times, the features may be lacking in one or more aspects.
For example, there are tracking apps that also offer some basic reporting. Their forte is still tracking and the reporting is just a basic add-on. There are shipping apps with basic tracking features and so on.
This is the first thing that you will have to decide. Do you opt for one single software suite (pricey) or do you go for individual apps that offer more features, but may take more effort to set up?
2. Automation
Automation is a default checklist item for any software that we review. In this case, the shipping app should allow you to automate repetitive and basic tasks such as generating labels, batch printing, sending automated update emails and so on.
Ideally, it should also let you create custom automated workflows based on a variety of rules, especially if you are a large brand. But as long as it does offer basic automation, it still works for smaller brands.
3. Carrier Integration & Rates
Many software brands will harp on the number of carriers that they integrate with. So 300+ carrier integration reads great on the website. Its great sales copy. But do you really need it? Will you be shipping to different parts of the world? Maybe all that you need are the lowest prices from USPS.
On the flipside, are you looking to scale? Then you might quickly outgrow the basic USPS based service and start to seek more carrier options. Pick one wisely taking into consideration your current and future business plans. This will help you avoid a lot of unwanted hassles later.
4. Integrations
While you are selling on Shopify now, you might want to consider a platform that also integrates with other sales channels like eBay or Amazon FBA.
This allows you to scale or expand operations without switching over to a new provider.
Talking about integrations, do consider software that easily integrates with other ecommerce tools, such as reporting tools or analytics tools.
5. Order Creation
How easy is it to create or import orders?
The best shipping apps for Shopify will allow automated imports from most ecommerce sales channels. But you should also have the option to create manual orders if need be. Ditto with uploading CVS files for creating orders.
6. Label Printing Automation
We prefer software that allows one-click label printing with support for multiple label sizes, printing devices and file formats. No caps on batch printing either because then you may be limited, or be forced to subscribe to a higher tier plan while looking to batch print during peak season.
Closing thoughts
The best shipping app for Shopify will take the guesswork out of one of the most complex phases of the ecommerce supply chain.
Don’t look at it merely as a tool to print labels quicker, or expedite the process. Look at it instead, as a tool that eliminates errors, reduces effort and improves the customer experience.
If you are looking to outsource your ecommerce fulfillment and shipping, our team can streamline the operation and bring efficiency. Moreover, our clients have an added advantage.
We oversee everything and there’s personalized attention for all your packages. You can speak to us now to know more about how Sourcingbro works.
Further Reading: