Shipping Solution for a Growing, Handmade Business
Shipping used to be a nightmare for me; and I needed a solution to streamline our process.
It used to take a dedicated employee half the day to print and ship orders from my handcrafted cosmetics company, Orglamix. She'd spend her day logging in to multiple sites like Etsy, Shopify, eBay and Amazon to print orders and shipping labels. If we had a daily deal on a site like Zulily, Jane or Backyard Buffalo -- craziness ensued.
This tool has made running my small, handmade business a million times easier by simplifying our shipping.
It's ability to put multiple storefronts shipping information all in one place creates quick and easy pick tickets and shipping labels so I can focus my work towards other important tasks, like making and selling products throughout the day. No matter where all the orders originate from, they all come together in one unified place. Today it takes just three clicks and 15-20 minutes to print out 150 orders!
Since all the orders are in once place, customer service and tracking wayward packages is especially easy. Need to update an address, no problem. ShipStation lets you change addresses quickly. Need to find an order, no problem. There's no going back and forth with the customer to find an order number or see what platform they used to complete the purchase. Everything is in one centralized location.
I'm not super techy, so there was a slight learning curve, especially to set up automated tasks and filters. These make it faster to ship, but aren't necessary. Don't overwhelm yourself and forget about them at first.
I ship a lot of small orders every day, many to overseas addresses. After initially setting up the rules on how orders are processed – you never have to think about it again. Then, with a single click of a button, your shipping labels & invoices come pouring out – with customs forms already filled out. Awesome!
Initially I had a lot of support from ShipStation. There is a great database of how to’s, and I always get a quick and helpful response from support via chat. Everyone I've chatted with has been very friendly, and has gone above and beyond to make sure I’m all set.
Pros:
- I don't have to login to multiple sites to compare costs and print labels. I can print labels to the shipping dept. from anywhere.
- Multiple shipping carriers in one place. I have USPS set up for retail and international order, UPS & FedEx are configured for wholesale orders.
- A great historical account of all of the shipping I've done in one place
- It's cloud based, so I can log in anywhere. They also have an iPhone app. I do my end of the day on my phone and the post office can scan it from there. No wasted print outs.
- Save money by using the discounted pricing you receive on postage through ShipStation.
- Many tools to automate functions and make your work quicker and easier setting up filters, rules, and batch actions.
- Integrates with tons of other apps and tools.
Cons:
- There are definitely some quirks getting everything setup. I trouble with printing and getting the ShipStation connect to work.
- Interface is overwhelming at first. However, once you've overcome the slight learning curve (stated as a con below), the layout feels very natural and easy to navigate.
Does your handmade business struggle with shipping? Using Ship Station has drastically improved our workflow when it comes to shipping and expediting products out of our lab.
