Shipping is a complex endeavor. Hundreds of moving parts, each with their regulations, costs, and intricacies. To truly be successful in the fulfillment space, you have to have a good grasp of how shipping works from a logistical standpoint. With services that provide content for your e-commerce site growing in popularity, there is a need for a reliable resource where developers can learn about rate code structure, packaging regulations, and international regulations. This is an attempt to provide this resource.
The shipping api can help eCommerce businesses expand their international reach and reduce operating costs. In this post, we’ll look at some common use cases for shipping APIs and review six ground shipping carriers that offer shipping APIs
How to utilize a shipping API
Shipping APIs offer us great flexibility, so we shouldn’t limit their use to shipping. Shipping is one of the very first use cases for APIs, and we’ve been using them for years.APIs don’t have to be exclusive. Shipping APIs can use the same API as the others. As long as they access the same data, they behave the same. There is no advantage to shipping APIs being private APIs. They make it harder for developers because they must jump through extra hoops to get access to them.
APIs don’t have to be complicated. The shipping api are relatively simple. They require only two functions: create and update. The update function is called when a shipment status changes; it retrieves the current status and delivers the new status. You can achieve similar results without most of the complexity. Using just two functions means you only have to think about shipping once, not twice: once for the API and once for the application.
If you use multiple functions, you have to think about shipping twice: once for the API and again in the application. Shipping APIs have predictable behavior. Shipping APIs always provide the same data in the same way. The only tricky part is deciding what data to return. Each shipping API follows the same rules, and you can ask the same question of any shipping API.
Is Shipping API worth it?
Shipping API is most useful to small businesses or individual entrepreneurs who don’t have a lot of access to distributors. Shipping API isn’t useful for larger companies because they already have good access to distributors. The shipping API isn’t free. It will cost you a monthly fee. For example, the UPS API costs $79 a month. But the price is extremely cheap compared to what you would have to pay if you tried to figure it out yourself.
The shipping api is extremely valuable, so it’s hard to justify charging much for it. But the cost of shipping API must be more than offset by the saving in shipping time.