ShipStation Erfahrungen

Vorteile

I've used ShipStation, ShippingEasy, ShipWorks, Stamps.com, Ordoro, and SolidCommerce with a few clients. My two favorite are ShipStation and ShippingEasy. They both have different strengths - sweat the small stuff because it really makes a difference if you're shipping 200+ packages a day. It's worth using two or more systems and then picking the best. The time spent is worth the effort.

I use ShipStation for managing the shipping and customer service from my website, Amazon, Walmart, Jet, Ebay, and Etsy. The application is rock solid. Creating manual orders is simple, as is importing orders and combining shipments. I like that I can place orders on hold and setup future shipments. Other vendors like ShippingEasy cannot do this (yet). We get a fair number or orders that have a bad address and we're able to put orders on hold until we hear back from the customer. This shipping rules and kitting options are fairly robust. It is easy to identify return customers (this is something not done well by other platforms). The UI is very buttoned-up. ShipStation also has a superior "Search Customers" function that will search on 3 and 4 part names, city, state... Some of the other vendors fail here. Having good search reduces customer service time.

Nachteile

There are some things that ShippingEasy does better - e.g. they're a single page application and that means that the interface is super fast. ShipStation is slower as you mover around in the interface. I wish that ShipStation could manage my inventory across marketplaces and I'm in love with how some of the other vendors solicit reviews using marketing/email automation. I hope someday that vendors like ShipStation will also connect to Auth.net or Stripe.com so that we can Auth and Settle New Manual Orders. It takes a bit longer to learn ShipStation but if you're running a larger/complicated business you'll come to appreciate the power that comes with the complexity.

Vorteile

It's pretty flexible and relatively easy to use. It works with all our existing equipment and systems. It links to Quickbooks to pull orders and provides the tracking information back. The scanning features greatly improved our the speed and accuracy of our shipping process.

Nachteile

Shipstation Connect does not AutoStart consistently. We have issues from time to time where we need to unplug and re-plug devices for Shipstation to recognize them. We do not have this issue with the same equipment and other systems.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Shippo

Warum ShipStation gewählt wurde

Better functionality, better and more reliable the working with 3 separate programs, price comparisons, and pack scanning.

Gründe für den Wechsel zu ShipStation

We do a lot of shipping and have a large Quickbooks file. Shipstar was too slow for us. Some of the other options were more complicated or did not have a good connection to Quickbooks.

Vorteile

I appreciate how quickly and well ShipStation handles the order inventory. The company can communicate with many carriers and order sources in one location. It is extremely well integrated with the primary shipping provider, which speeds up shipment management operations.

Nachteile

When several people use it simultaneously, it will load slowly, which is inconvenient if you need to do the task quickly. Most particularly if you generate return label.

Vorteile

Shipstation is great for companies that are looking for a label printing solution for there shopping carts. Shipstation is able to handle high volumes of orders and allows for labels to be pre-printed, which can greatly increase the fulfillment time. There are pretty good filtering options that can lead to more efficiencies when printing that can save time with your fulfillment team.

Shipstation integrates with many different platforms fairly seamlessly, which allows for more diversity in the ever growing number of platforms that are out there. They are also constantly adding new platforms that can integrated with.

I think the fact that this software is user friendly and efficient in its design makes this software a worthwhile investment for those that need a better shipping solution.

Nachteile

The issues that we have run into with this software as we have scaled to processing over 3000 shipments a day are too many holes which can cause many opportunities for errors, processing speeds, and lack of flexibility.

When you are processing up to 3000 orders a day problems flesh themselves out quickly. One issue that has arisen is the inability to hold people accountable when errors occur. For example, since the labels are pre-printed there is not a simple to way to know who misshiped an order when it is sent incorrectly to a customer. On top of that, since the labels are pre-print there is no way to verify through software on the outbound that a shipment is correct. You have to trust that your team is packing order correctly, which is guaranteed to cause problems regardless. There is also the possibility that labels can be double printed or not printed at all since labels are processed and then a PDF is created to print orders. This has been costly for us an multiple occasions, which is hardly preventable no matter who you have printing.

Due to the fact that Shipstation is cloud based this can cause issues with processing speeds. We have seen hang ups (especially on Mondays) that cause the whole team to be slowed down due.

The other issue with cloud based system is the lack of flexibility for Shipstation to be customized to how you would like it. If changes are made they have to be made globally, which can take a while or just simply cannot happen altogether.

Vorteile

Shipstation connects with some important channels that it's parent Stamps.com does not.

Nachteile

price is expensive compared to Stamps.com it's parent company.

Vorteile

• I was assigned a specific person as my customer service representative, and when I called with an issue, one of the customer rep picked up the phone and answered my question on the spot; meaning, I didn't have to dial a ton of menu options or wait on hold at all to speak with a person. She is also very responsive to emails. We tend to look at websites and applications as faceless businesses, but with ShipStation I know there is someone on the other end that cares about my experience.

• Integrates seamlessly with Squarespace Commerce account

• Automatically marks order fulfilled when a shipping label is printed

• Connects to printer easier than Stamps.com

Nachteile

• Have to load balances instead of paying for what you use as you go. I encountered this with Stamps.com as well, but it is annoying because I have to make cash flow considerations when all I need is a few extra dollars to print a label.

• Cannot edit manual orders, need to delete and re-create an order if changing quantity or amount of a product.

• I "chose" ShipStation because it was the only shipping option that would integrate with Squarespace. Most of my issues were encountered while trying to transition from Stamps.com to become familiar with the new platform. Though very similar, ShipStation INITIALLY felt like a clunkier, gaudier version of the same thing. Thankfully, they've recently made some positive design changes. However, there are still some quirky user interface aspects, including:
— animated "help/info" bubbles (which I just figured out how to hide).
— In Stamps.com, I was able to see if my thermal printer was connected (or visible to the website) before clicking "print" — which, when I click, charges the postage to my account regardless if the label actually printed. In ShipStation, I have to click "print" without knowing if the website is able to send the job to the printer. This has resulted in additional postage billed to my account because I clicked "print." I then have to wait for that amount to be refunded in my account. Though I should add, I rarely have printer connection issues with ShipStation, whereas it used to be the bane of my Stamps.com experience.
— Stamps.com also made it easy to see all the USPS shipping options and rates at a glance, while viewing an order. In ShipStation, I either have to select a service, then an option from within that service or open up a separate rate calculator. This makes it harder to find the lowest shipping fee/service or fastest method for its value when modifying individual orders.

Vorteile

One of the best features is being able to assign the shipments to a specific person. We partner with other companies and suppliers and we can actually have the accounts connected and have them only see the orders that are assigned to them - perfect for the way we manage partnered ordes.

Nachteile

Sometimes the layout can be a little confusing to me. The way the organization is laid out per order and overall can feel a bit too much.

Vorteile

Integrated with my PayPal and it's easy to launch. Also the saved address book.

Nachteile

Sometimes it glitches and I have to restart it.

Vorteile

Apart from the easier navigation of the tool itself, i am also a fan of the labelling of the items in a more comprehensive manner.

Nachteile

I didn't really see any downsides of this particular product as it was all smooth for me navigating it then.

Vorteile

Its is super easy to navigate and it displays all the necessary information related to an account and order.

Nachteile

It does not display the realtime inventory of an item, but order-processing and status-wise, it is recommendable

Vorteile

Ease of use and feature richness. We had tried a couple of other shipping systems for our online shop, and none were as intuitive and user friendly as Shipstation. We were able to get up and running very quickly when we first started, and now, many years later, I've learned much of the the deep functionality that lays beneath the simple surface.

Nachteile

I had to think a while, but I do with the dashboard reporting was a bit clearer and easier to read. There are a couple of widgets on there that I have still to figure out quite how to read.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Shippo

Warum ShipStation gewählt wurde

We needed something more powerful and intuiutive

Zuvor genutzte Software

Stamps.com

Gründe für den Wechsel zu ShipStation

I preferred the interface

Vorteile

I like how all shipping services are available and easy to apply. Everything is easy to understand and operate. The software communicates with most selling platforms and keeps updated inventory.

Nachteile

I would like the pricing to be based on volume not number of platforms.

Vorteile

In today's eCommerce industry, brands have to be listed on multiple marketplaces to survive and it's hard to keep track of all orders without a hub. ShipStation is the perfect hub to see orders from every single marketplace, without needing to login to every back end individually. The discounts with ShipStation are comparable to their competitors.

Nachteile

If you go over 500 shipments a month, your monthly bill with them will increase. We sometimes buy labels from Shopify because the discount per package is cheaper. Wish there was a way to quickly import orders without having to build a document to use ShipStation to send out marketing materials.

Vorteile

The interface in ShipStation V2 is fantastic. As the department manager, I can easily assign orders to my CSR's and use tags to designate anything I want. We use different tags/colors for suppliers, whether we are shipping ourselves or dropshipping, or marking things as HOT! Using the tags to filter, makes it easy to find and sort orders and see what needs to be worked on.

We also use the custom fields for notating PO #'s, which supplier we dropshipped from, and sometimes other important notes.

The interface is so easy on the eyes and the filtering are so good that we use ShipStation instead of ChannelAdvisor to handle our orders.

Another great feature is ShipStation Connect, which allows us to print to anyone's printer, even if they are not on the same network. Fantastic feature, especially, if not everyone has a Zebra printer at their station.

Nachteile

I wish we could interface with our website. Right now, we're using it with the marketplaces, but our website is on its own, which is unfortunate, because we lose all of that monitoring functionality.

The other con is V3. We tried it. It's very much not ready for prime time. It was buggy. The interface was not as good and the user experience was lacking. What we could do in V2 with a few keystrokes and the Tab key, took several more clicks. We're hoping they fix that up, before forcing the "upgrade."

Vorteile

OMS, carrier, product, inventory and integrations

Nachteile

Everything. There isn't a single feature in ShipStation they haven't changed in the last two years and made worse. Integrations are broken and the team doesn't work on them. Order Management has become barren of features as they remove things instead of fixing them. You can't trust that a feature you rely on will be maintained. Customer Service group is absolutely worthless and the development team doesn't work on any request. The forums are a joke. Tons of people with tons and tons of people supporting their bug reports, feature requests, etc. and all being completely ignored by ShipStation.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Shippo

Gründe für den Wechsel zu ShipStation

Accounting integration

Vorteile

Shipstation was not the first shipment software I tried but it will definitely be the last. The platform is perfect for busy online retailers. At times, I was shopping 2,000 packages a day and shipstation handled it like a boss.

Nachteile

At times, it can be difficult to reach the account manager assigned to our account. When customers depend on the shipment estimations we provide, we can’t afford software issues that go unresolved for any length of time.

Vorteile

Shipstation is a fantastic shipping suite for our business. We use the integrations for Shopify, eBay, and Amazon. Orders are automatically imported and we are able to simple and efficiently manage shipments for UPS and USPS. Rates are automatically displayed, invalid address warning shown, and everything can be managed from a web-based UI with remotely connected printers using Shipstation Connect. We are able to use our UPS business account with the UPS integration for our set rates. Labels and Pack Slip templates are customizable and simple to set up. Our 4x6 Brother QL1000 continuous label printer works perfectly with Shipstation and Shipstation Connect, and we use standard letter paper for pack slips.

Nachteile

The Shipstation android app does not work with Shipstation Connect very well in terms of printers, and there are UI issues with it. On top of that, the Shipstation web-based application does not work well on small browser screens, so it is currently almost impossible and very painstaking to print labels from a phone.

Vorteile

It is incredibly helpful when all is well and is a major benefit to businesses that ship.

Nachteile

I pay for "Silver service" which boasts "Live Chat support". There is no live chat support actually and we have submitted tickets via email that have gone unanswered for weeks. This dramatically impacts our business. What could take potentially minutes to sort out with tech support could feasibly cost us thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Customer support is immediately there for on-boarding new clients....but is entirely absent when it comes to upholding promises of live support, or sustaining proper functioning of customer accounts.
I get that times are tough and some delays can be expected, but to promise live chat support and then not respond for weeks on end just feels like negligence at this point. Just because its more profitable to focus on new accounts than it is to help existing customers doesn't mean its the right thing to do.  Please reallocate some resources to uphold your promise to provide customer service.

Vorteile

Remote label printing works well. Does work with non-US based UPS accounts. Web based ... that's about it really.

Nachteile

Struggles with international shipments. Shipstation does not support multi-currency, so if you have more than one sales currency, you are hosed. Shipstation does not support shipping to any country that needs a special customs declaration (like NAFTA statement on US->Canada shipping) so for many countries, you will need to do a manual UPS shipment. Shipstation uses pounds or GRAMMES ... very few stores ship in grammes, mostly kg, which Shipstation does not support, so imported weights are always wrong. Does not support international returns. No "rule set" for allocating different countries/services to different carrier services ... etc etc You cannot easily see which shipments are attached to an order. Having printed a label in "orders" you cannot then print a packing slip afterwards, you have to do packing slip then label. Cannot easily print a UPS return label on the thermal printer .. can only email or download ... theres a workaround, but it's non-obvious. The multi-currency and customs failings are a pain for us :(

Vorteile

ShipStation is very useful for small companies. I work for a small online boutique, and use ShipStation to package/ship items all over the United States, Canada, and Australia. ShipStation is user friendly and very useful for large order quantities. I find there are many useful options when shipping. For instance, it allows ability to combine orders, hold orders until a selected date, sort orders by name, date, size, etc. It is an extremely helpful software.

Nachteile

I have not found many flaws in this software. The only issue I have encountered with ShipStation is its inability to function well with other pages open. For instance, when I am shipping, I often have other windows/internet tabs open. ShipStation slows down substantially when I have these other windows open.

Vorteile

Shipstation, above all, is very easy to use. The features list is really comprehensive and it works extremely well as an integral part of your online shipping program. Our needs were for a non-standard integration but their support team and API made it very easy for us to get up and running. Plus, with a 3rd party app, we seamlessly use Shipstation as an order pass-through to get orders into Quickbooks online. It's given us an ability to grow without increasing staff for mundane work!

Nachteile

We wish that an order wasn't tied directly to a singluar shipment. Our orders contain various products from various vendors and we'd prefer to keep a single order together and post multiple shipments to it, as opposed to needing to split and duplicate orders to ship multiple items for one reference. This and other annoyances are the most we could say negatively about Shipstation, but are not representative of a need to change in any way.

Vorteile

I like the ease of syncing our orders with shopify, shipping them through shipstation, and having the tracking number then re-uploaded to shopify.

Nachteile

I had an issue a long time ago of not being able to change SKU or UPC numbers in my inventory. It has been a year and customer service never figured it out or replied to my most recent messages. We were able to edit the packing slips on our old plan, then they changed it so you had to be upgraded further to access that ability. We have an error on our old packing slip and am not able to get it fixed unless I pay an additional $100 for one month.

Vorteile

easy to use, has many reports, many integrations with other programs and seems like they are working constantly on more.

Nachteile

no phone calls to customer service
I need to set up the inventory differently and not sure how it can be done.

Vorteile

Shipstation is extremely easy to use. It also has better pricing for postage than USPS itself! It even has more applications than I ever dreamed of! You can have your brand name on your postage (or anything you'd like), it also allows you to: send your customers an email -AND- choose WHEN to have it sent; like so, I learned you can have shipping tracking/delivery confirmation sent to your customer; when it is mailed (scanned at post office - and on it's way), or even sent at the moment you print it out! You can add other venue's that you sell from, integrate the sales from them & print your shipping label right from Shipstation! SO MUCH MORE, that I am still learning I can do! SHIPSTATION IS A WONDERFUL APP IN MORE WAYS THAN I CAN COUNT! ... AND IN MORE WAYS I'VE YET TO LEARN! EXCITING -AND- SIMPLY PUT - IT IS SO EASY TO USE! I'll never go back to printing shipping labels from my on-line account with USPS directly, they do NOT have all the capabilities & extra's that shipstation offers! ONLY SHIPSTATION FOR ME!

Nachteile

The only 'con' for me is because I don't have enough customers to warrant the monthly charge. A smaller fee for people like me (who -in a way- are paying more for postage when you add on the monthly fee with the postage). That would help me, or people like me, who can barely afford even the lowest per month for 50 postages per month because I am only printing up to 10 per entire month. It's great for bigger business' tho!

Vorteile

Besides everything? The thing I loved the MOST would be how fantastically easily it was to get up and running and integrated with every platform. I looked like a real genius. But it wasn't me, it was the simplicity of the system. Its that easy.

Nachteile

They had an inventory management portion of the software that I didn't quite understand how to utilize it.