Eyal Katz — March 4, 2019 — March 4, 2019
You can have the most sophisticated system in the world set up to market your product, generate sales leads, entice customers, and close sales—but at the end of the day you’ll have a big stack of orders to label and ship. Your eCommerce software solutions shouldn’t end once the transaction is finalized. You need shipping software that can help you get those orders labeled and out the door, along with features that support your business and an affordable price point.
Different companies have different shipping needs, so there’s no single eCommerce shipping software solution that’s objectively better than the others. We’ve put together a list of ten shipping software platforms we really like, along with key information to help you choose which one might be right for your business.
1. ShippingEasy
ShippingEasy lives up to its name by providing a user-friendly, web-based shipping solution that’s perfect for small to medium-sized businesses. It’s free if you ship 50 or fewer orders per month, with pricing tiers ranging from $ 29 per month for a maximum of 500 monthly orders; to $ 149 for the unlimited enterprise plan. Automated labeling and tracking is included, and they offer comprehensive onboarding and support.
If you like saving money, substantial USPS discounts are included. For convenience, ShippingEasy integrates with most major eCommerce software platforms. The dashboard includes shortcuts to various reporting options.
ShippingEasy’s users tend to be pretty enthusiastic about the platform. One reviewer raves,“I love that all of my online stores can all go to one location. I like that it can manage my inventory and sync it with my stores. I like that I can create a favorite shipping method and package options, and quickly ship with those settings with the click of a button.”
2. Shippo
Easy to set up and use, Shippo offers the features and functionality most small businesses are looking for in a web-based shipping platform. Its best feature, however, might be its pay-as-you go pricing model. This allows merchants who ship up to 200 orders per month to opt out of monthly fees, and pay only five cents plus postage for every order shipped. Higher-volume merchants will have to subscribe to their Professional plan, which caps out at $ 125 per month for up to 5,000 shipments.
Shippo offers discounts with USPS and DHL, as well as discounted insurance rates. It also syncs and integrates well with other eCommerce platforms.
On the downside, Shippo’s built-in reporting features are still in beta, and their automatic label printing tools will sometimes have issues when package size varies. Their ticket-based online support can be frustrating at times, and some customers find Shippo’s lack of advanced features to be a limiting factor. As one reviewer put it, “It can also be lacking in features/information at times, but 9/10 times the information is there; it just needs a little digging to uncover.”
3. Sellbrite
Primarily an inventory management platform, Sellbrite is designed for small to medium-sized companies. It covers orders, products, channel analytics, and inventory. While shipping management is not a primary feature of Sellbrite, it does offer integration with ShipStation and Amazon.
Pricing ranges from $ 49 to $ 399 per month. Sellbrite is a cloud-based web platform, simple to get up and running, and it offers powerful, customizable reporting features.
Sellbrite lacks some basic features you’ll find in most shipping-specific platforms, like automated bulk label printing. Some customers report that it has been slow to integrate with some marketplaces. This reviewer was satisfied: “Sellbrite is constantly improving, inventing and integrating features to allow sellers to do what is most important to us…selling!”
4. Refund Geeks
This isn’t a shipping management platform like other software on this list, but if you ship a high volume of orders through FedEx or UPS, you’ll want to look into this one. Both of these carriers offer money-back guarantees against late or missed deliveries. Refund Geeks automatically files claims on your behalf to get you every refund you might be entitled to. Rather than charging a subscription fee, Refund Geeks takes a 25% cut of every refund they get you.
Refund Geeks is web-based, offering reporting services and other extra features. “Everything about this works for a small business with no time to audit and chase down refunds owed by UPS and FedEx,” writes one reviewer. “They do all the processes: researching, requesting and documenting refunds.”
5. ShipStation
ShipStation is a competitively-priced, web-based platform that’s fairly intuitive to use, though some of its features have a steeper learning curve than you might expect. One of the best things about ShipStation is that it’s packed with great features—custom views, automated tagging and shipping rules, a mobile app, and excellent reporting tools. Plan prices range from $ 9 per month for up to 50 orders, to $ 159 per month for unlimited shipping.
ShipStation offers USPS discounts. It integrates with nearly every other platform you might want to link it to, and if it doesn’t, you can use their custom integration features. While phone support is only available at the highest subscription level, they provide reliable customer service and assistance.
The main detractor of ShipStation is its customer management system, which lacks some customer-identifying features and can lead to some duplication errors. This reviewer sums it up: “For many startup companies that do not have a lot of inventory or a high volume of SKU’s, ShipStation will provide a powerful tool that can help speed up fulfillment and release many of the frustrations of shipping product while not costing you huge amounts of money.”
6. Ordoro
A good choice for small to large-scale businesses, especially those that ship a high volume of orders or use truck freight. Ordoro offers Basic shipping-only plans that run from free (no more than 50 orders per month), to $ 129 (unlimited orders), to their Pro plans ($ 299 to $ 499) that include drop-shipping and inventory management features.
Ordoro is web-based, so there’s nothing to install, and their minimalist interface is easy to navigate. It also gives you advanced analytics and reporting features, and can integrate with most popular shipping software platforms.
While the Basic plan features are somewhat limited, merchants who need drop-shipping and inventory management solutions tend to be big fans of Ordoro, despite the cost. Nevertheless, this reviewer didn’t find much lacking with the no-frills plan: “Ordoro Basic is exactly as promised. A comprehensive system for managing orders and shipping. Since I started using Ordoro, my orders have gone out faster, my shipping costs have gone down significantly, and fulfillment of orders takes up a much smaller portion of my day.”
7. Shopify Shipping
If you’re already using Shopify for your shopping cart and point-of-sale needs, you might be tempted to give Shopify Shipping a try. After all, it’s already included in your Shopify subscription. This makes it a fantastic deal for existing Shopify customers. As a shipping-only solution, its lack of advanced features are a drawback. Shopify Shipping can handle the needs of smaller businesses fairly well, and they can hook you up with discounts from major carriers including USPS, UPS, and DHL.
Shopify lives on the web, so there’s no installation to bother with, and their interface is designed around being easy to learn and use. Shopify has a huge number of add-on apps to help with integration to other platforms, but be warned—they’re not all cheap, and can quickly run up the monthly cost of what looked like an affordable plan.
Even so, Shopify isn’t hurting for boosters. As one customer review states, “I really don’t have many complaints. I wish I had more access to certain reporting features, but I can have access if I choose to upgrade my plan.”
8. Veeqo
Veeqo is a cloud-based inventory management system that includes shipping software customizable with add-ons. Because of the wider range of services it provides, Veeqo has a higher monthly cost than the other software on this list, ranging from $ 200 for small businesses to $ 1,350 for larger enterprises.
Veeqo originated in the UK, and some users in the United States have reported occasional localization issues. For the most part, merchants looking for a comprehensive product and inventory management solution rate Veeqo highly, for its ease of use and time-saving features. It integrates with most major eCommerce platforms and offers basic reporting tools.
Many customers have high praise for Veeqo’s support team, like this reviewer: “Tech support is always quick to respond and they welcome and actually do implement product improvements. If you run a multi-channel eCommerce business, this is something you must have.”
9. MetaPack
Offering a platform that scales to fit the needs of larger retailers and brands, MetaPack Manager serves as a single point of integration for hundreds of carriers worldwide. By maintaining such an extensive library of carrier rules, MetaPack tries to help merchants break into new markets, and optimize their delivery efficiency.
The web-based interface gets high marks for design quality, but some features can be a bit complex to navigate. MetaPack may be on the expensive side (you’ll have to contact them for a price quote), and it won’t be a good fit for every merchant, but many businesses report major cost savings through their approach. This customer found a lot to compliment: “In terms of streamlined operations, there’s no doubt that working with MetaPack has made a considerable difference in reducing the inherent complexities of order fulfilment and carrier management.”
10. Freightview
Freightview is designed for small to medium-sized businesses that ship via LTL freight. It provides a centralized hub from which to compare and select negotiated rates, handle pickup scheduling, automatically print bills of lading and shipping labels, and track shipments.
Pricing ranges from $ 99 to $ 599 per month for this web-based software, which integrates with several eCommerce platforms as well as FedEx. Freightview includes high quality reporting tools and analytics.
Merchants who do a lot of LTL shipping love Freightview. One reviewer writes: “For standard quotes, it is a great way to obtain all of your carrier’s rates in one easy to use web app. The feature set is constantly growing.”
(Customer reviews sourced from Capterra.)
The Future of eCommerce Shipping
Selecting the correct eCommerce platform can be very challenging and important for the success of your business. After all, your website can do an amazing job, with effective campaigns, great images, high conversion rates, and a great customer experience. But, if the product isn’t delivered in a timely manner and in perfect condition the whole effort goes down the drain.
That being said, the world of eCommerce shipping is changing, especially when it comes to the final mile. Gig economy type delivery services are becoming increasingly popular, and businesses who want to stay ahead need to learn how they can best take advantage without negatively impacting the customer experience.
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