Copy, paste, print, repeat
For each order: open it in Shopify, copy the name, copy the address line by line, paste into the courier website, pick the service, enter the weight, print the label, copy the tracking number back into Shopify. Then the next one. On a busy day the packing bench is waiting on the person at the computer, not the other way round.
It usually starts as a stopgap when the store is small. Nobody goes back to change it, because each label only takes a couple of minutes. It is only when you add them up that the problem shows.
Why it has not been automated already
Shopify Shipping and the common label apps cover plenty of carriers and are the right answer for many stores. The ones still printing by hand usually have a reason the apps did not fit:
- A business account with a courier or rate that the app does not support.
- Several couriers, with the choice depending on weight, size, destination or value.
- Parcels over certain dimensions that need a different service.
- International shipments that need customs data the product records do not hold.
- Orders coming from marketplaces as well as Shopify.
Each of those is a rule someone applies in their head while typing. That is the part that needs building, not the label printing itself.
The cost of hand-made labels
| Issue | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Typing addresses | Misdeliveries, returns to sender, reshipping costs |
| Picking the wrong service | Overpaying, or late delivery on premium orders |
| Wrong weights | Courier surcharges arriving weeks later |
| Late tracking | Customers chase, and shipping emails go out late |
| Missing customs data | Parcels held at the border |
The surcharges are easy to miss because they arrive on an invoice long after the parcel went. If nobody reconciles them, you never learn which orders caused them.
How we automate courier labels
- Pull ready orders from Shopify, and from marketplaces if you sell there, into one dispatch queue.
- Calculate weight and size from product data, with packaging added, so the courier is given accurate figures.
- Choose the service using your rules: courier, speed and signature requirements based on destination, weight, value and what the customer paid for.
- Validate the address against a postcode lookup and hold anything suspicious rather than printing it.
- Create the shipment through the courier's API and print labels in batches to your label printer, in packing order.
- Add customs details for international orders from HS codes and country of origin stored on each product.
- Write the tracking number back to the Shopify order and mark it fulfilled, which sends the customer their shipping email.
The rules are the part that matters most, so we write them out with you before building anything: which courier for which postcodes, when a signature is needed, what counts as oversized, which orders get the premium service. Those rules are then stored as settings, not buried in code, so you can adjust them when a courier changes its prices.
Where a courier offers no API, we look at whether a label aggregator or a file upload route works instead, and tell you plainly if one courier is holding the rest back.
A different packing bench
Someone presses one button and a stack of labels prints in the order the packers need them. Services are chosen the same way every time. Tracking reaches the customer without anyone copying it. The person who used to type addresses can pack, or deal with the handful of orders the system held for a check.
You also get a record of every shipment with its service and weight, which makes checking the courier's invoice possible for the first time.
Peak periods change too. When order volume jumps before Christmas or during a sale, the label run takes about the same effort as on a quiet day, because the work is in the rules rather than in someone's typing speed. Temporary staff can pack from the printed stack without learning the courier website first.
Tell-tale signs
- Addresses are copied from Shopify into a courier website by hand.
- The choice of courier or service depends on who is doing the labels that day.
- Tracking numbers are pasted back into Shopify.
- Courier surcharges for wrong weights or sizes turn up regularly.
- International parcels sometimes get stuck for missing paperwork.