Best Ecommerce Shipping Software for 2023

We believe that the best shipping software incorporates elements like steep carrier discounts, various shipping methods, and integrations with ecommerce platforms and marketplaces.

If you're a small business owner, shipping software is essential for keeping customers happy. Regardless of your sales volume, shipping software tends to help maintain lower costs, link you up with fulfillment services, and keep up with trends of shipments getting to customers within a few days.

In our analysis of the best shipping software, we'll talk about the top features in this type of software, explain our process of selection, then showcase the top software for shipping.

In this article:

• Summary
• What is the Best Ecommerce Shipping Software Recommendations
• What is Ecommerce Shipping
• Most Important Factors to Consider When Looking for the Best Shipping Software
• How We Conducted the Research
• Reasons to Trust Our Research
• Conclusion

What to Look for When Choosing the Best Ecommerce Shiping Software?

• Ecommerce software assists with moving your products from warehouse to customer in a speedy and cost-effective manner.
• The best shipping software has several options for shipping carriers, methods, and marketplace integrations.
• Popular shipping carriers include FedEx, UPS, USPS, and DHL.
• Important factors for top shipping software include low-cost shipping, multiple shipping methods, lots of carriers, fast shipping, label printing, multiple sales channels, platform integrations, international shipments, and tracking and return support.
• We conducted our research with a series of tests and eliminations, starting with a long list of every shipping software, then we cut the list down based on features, pricing, and integrations.
• We outline below why ecommerce-platforms.com is a reputable source for learning about shipping software.

What is the Best Ecommerce Shipping Software?

1. ShipBob – Best Overall Shipping Software
2. ShipStation – Best Shipping Software for Small Business
3. ShippingEasy – Best Shipping Software with a Free Plan
4. Shippo – Best Shipping Software for Shipping Worldwide
5. Shopify Shipping – Best Shipping Software for the Steepest Carrier Discounts
6. Ordoro – Best Shipping Software for Large-scale Businesses

1. ShipBob

ShipBob is a third-party logistics provider with shipping software for online stores. It boasts a wide network of warehouses and simple integrations with popular ecommerce platforms. From notifications to real-time stock levels, ShipBob has become one of the go-to solutions for online stores interested in boosting profits and cutting down on time spent with packaging, labeling, and shipping.

The idea behind ShipBob is to automate as much of the shipping process as possible, using the software, syncing processes, and reports to guide you along the way. During our testing, we discovered that ShipBob is a viable software and service for most business sizes, from eager young startups to matured online stores. It offers you a competitive advantage over your competitors because of its ability to offer your customers a wide range of shipment methods and fees.

Many of those fees are cut to a bare minimum, without hurting your own profits in the process. Although ShipBob facilities are only available in the US and Europe, companies in those regions are given a vast network of shipping locations to choose from, all supported by a state-of-the-art software system detailing every step in the process.

Here's our summarized analysis of the ShipBob shipping software and fulfillment service:

Pricing

Similar to other shipping software, ShipBob offers custom quotes to make things economical for all types of businesses. Our research shows that this model often gives shipment companies an excuse to not disclose anything until a merchant speaks with a sales representative.

Although custom quotes are offered, that's not the whole story behind ShipBob pricing. The company displays as much information as possible, making for a transparent first step. For instance, the actual software is free for all merchants. You only start paying fees when using ShipBob fulfillment services.

For fulfillment, ShipBob breaks down its pricing into several services:

• Receiving – This is a flat-rate model at $25 for the first two hours of receiving your products. It goes to $35 per man hour after that.
• Storage – ShipBob has this as a monthly fee. The rates are $40 per pallet per month, $10 per shelf per month, and $5 per bin per month.
• Pick and pack – You receive free picking and packing for the first five picks in one order. A sixth pick is $0.20. In short, most of the picks are included with your software.
• Standard packing – Tape, mailers, dunnage, and plain boxes are all free. There are premium packaging materials that you can use for a cost. You'll also have to pay for branded boxes.
• Shipping – The shipment pricing depends on each order. You can learn more in your custom quote, but each order has its own price based on shipping service, destination, weight, dimensions, and more. The good news is that ShipBob does the work for you to decide on the most economical shipping solution.

The interface

ShipBob is known or its helpful onboarding, allowing you some education on learning about the software's interface.

Besides that, we find the user interface to be intuitive and modern. There's a learning curve, but the average user should have no problem understanding how to modify and monitor orders after some time using the software.

ShipBob offers apps to integrate with some of the most popular ecommerce platforms.

Some of the feature highlights inside the interface include:

• Automated order syncing and fulfillment.
• Guaranteed 2-day shipping.
• Inventory management tools to understand how much of your inventory is left.
• Packaging material management.
• Shipping calculators and access to label printing tools.
• Features that choose the right shipping carrier for each package.
• Details on your sales and where your products are located in the warehouse network.
• Mobile order and inventory management.
• Reporting and analytics for checking numbers for shipping costs, fulfillment times, and more.
• Tracking management.

Ecommerce platform integrations

Onboarding with ShipBob is possible with any website builder or commerce platform. This means that the team at ShipBob is able to figure out a way to either tap into the API, utilize an app, or offer custom coding to make their software work with your current website.

Ideally, you're using an ecommerce platform that has a ShipBob integration or app. Luckily, quite a few platforms are supported, such as:

• Shopify
• BigCommerce
• Squarespace
• WooCommerce
• Magento

Free shipping offerings

Shipping is never going to be free, but ShipBob provides guides and tools for helping you minimize the cost of shipping. This way, you're able to provided free shipping for certain products or thresholds without having to feel like you're eliminating your margins.

Some of the ways ShipBob helps you offer free shipping to customers is with the following cost cuts and discounts:

• Third-party logistics.
• Free and cheap packaging materials.
• Free and cheap storage and picking fees.
• Discounts from the major carriers.
• An automated system that allows you to shift focus elsewhere and make more money.

Low-cost shipping offerings

This ties into the previous section, where all of the elements offered by ShipBob to help with free shipping are also available for low-cost shipping options.

Threshold-based shipment discounts

You have the option to implement threshold-based shipping discounts through your ecommerce platform and ShipBob. Not only that, but ShipBob does a good job of discounting shipment fees for those who are sending out in bulk or selling more.

Because of these discounts, you're able to then turn to your customers and offer cheaper shipping when they spend more money.

Here are a few of the examples of discounts you get from ShipBob based on sales thresholds:

• Shipping rates.
• Domestic and international rates for major carriers.

Fast shipping

ShipBob provides an inexpensive, 2-day express shipping option. This is done by utilizing the large network of shipping locations across the United States, along with a few in Europe and Canada. This way, ShipBob doesn't have to constantly lean on the pricier option of shipping through expedited air shipping. Air shipping is still an option, but ShipBob always looks towards its local warehouses before having to use that.

With its algorithm and integration with ecommerce platforms, you're able to find the fastest shipping solution for each unique order.

The automated fulfillment tools mean that your customer doesn't have to wait for you to see the order and send it over to the fulfillment center. ShipBob gets the order information and begins locating a product to send out in its many warehouses. This is based on the zip code applied by the customer.

Multiple shipping options

ShipBob partners with UPS, USPS, FedEx, and DHL. Because of these partnerships, you have access to every type of shipment method provided by each of them.

For instance, USPS has methods like its overnight guarantee, 1-3 day priority mail, and the 2-8 day retail ground. That's only a few of the offerings, and the other carriers have even more.

Therefore, you can speak with ShipBob to see which of the methods you'd like to offer to your customers. Then, an order is placed, and ShipBob goes through your selected methods to automatically present the methods and the fees to your customer upon checkout.

You do have the option to show one flat-rate shipment fee/method, but with the ShipBob software, it makes the most economical and customer service sense to list a handful of the methods.

Label printing

Shipping labels are printed automatically at the warehouse location from which a product is being shipped out. The ShipBob software determines the most cost-effective method and carrier, then prints out those labels to be placed on your packaging. Furthermore, the shipment label fees are included in your ShipBob software for free.

You have access to shipping labels from the following carriers: DHL, UPS, USPS, and FedEx.

Shipment labels are also provided for wholesale and B2B orders. It's not a guarantee that the labels will be free for these types of orders, but we simply want you to know that the labeling is offered through ShipBob.

Finally, ShipBob prints boxing labels for FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) orders. It's a slightly different process, but ShipBob does the legwork for you when moving any inventory needed to Amazon facilities.

Shipping discounts from major carriers:

DHL, USPS, FedEx, and UPS are all supported by ShipBob and its software.

International and domestic rates are heavily discounted compared to if you were to ship with those carriers yourself.

These discounts are dependant on your shipment quantity and various other factors like weight, size, and content of the shipments. However, the ShipBob model is made so that you and your customers see real-time shipping fees, with the discounts already factored into the equation. Not only that, but international shipment discounts are provided as well.

Support for multiple sales channels

ShipBob does a wonderful job of providing its standard software features for sales outside of your website. You can specify the marketplaces you sell on and allow for those sales to go through the ShipBob fulfillment.

Some integrations currently supported include Amazon and Walmart, where you can import orders from those marketplaces and utilize the ShipBob fulfillment offerings.

Although not listed, we've clarified that other marketplaces like Etsy, eBay, and Facebook are supported through ShipBob. The only difference is that you may not receive as many built-in features for those channels. What's good to know is that some of the ecommerce platforms like Shopify and Bigcommerce already provide the order syncing, connecting to the ShipBob interface as well.

Tracking support

ShipBob's web-based software eliminates any wondering about shipment times. Both you and your customers are provided a shipment tracking code from the carrier decided upon by ShipBob.

The tracking information is automatically sent out after the package has been scanned and placed into the system by UPS, USPS, or one of the other carriers.

The customer then clicks on the tracking code or pastes it into the tracking system from that carrier.

We like the ShipBob tracking process, since everyone is kept in the loop, and there are no expectations based on the type of package or the carrier being used.

Return systems

With carrier-specific printing labels and tracking codes, ShipBob also offers return management services through its software.

This works by providing a Returns page on your website that links directly to the ShipBob return tools. A customer can take their shipping label and generate a return with the same information. Shipping labels and tracking details are generated for the customer, usually through the same carrier from before.

After that, the products aren't sent back to your office or apartment. ShipBob accepts the returns to nearby warehouses to be inspected and placed back on shelves for future orders.

International shipping solutions

International shipping is provided for those who know their products are being shipped across borders. The software also offers tools for expanding upon your current operation to scale into an international business.

For fast international shipping, ShipBob focuses on using its fulfillment warehouses outside of the US. ShipBob has locations in Ontario, Ottawa, Dublin, and London. So, if you sell to people in Europe or Canada, ShipBob utilizes these warehouses to get fast deliveries to customers in those regions.

Shipments to other countries are also possible seeing as how the partnered carriers, like FedEx and UPS, ship to many countries around the world. The only thing is that you'll find that the costs and shipping times are less desirable.

As for customs, duties, and freight, these are handled in the pre-shipment process when you send products to be stored in the Canadian and European warehouses. After the initial shipments, products are sent locally without any extra charges.

Multiple fulfillment options

ShipBob is considered a third-party logistics fulfillment option. When we look at it this way, there's really only one fulfillment solution from ShipBob. However, ShipBob also provides fulfillment to Amazon facilities.

Therefore, you wouldn't utilize ShipBob if you planned on going with a dropshipping situation or if you wanted to ship the products yourself.

2. ShippingEasy

ShippingEasy is far more than software with a free plan. Yes, we like it as a way for startups to get discounted rates and monthly shipments without having to pay any monthly fee (for up to 50 shipments per month,) but it also has the integrations, carrier support, and tracking tools that all small businesses need.

ShippingEasy packs several elements into a powerful shipping software. You receive the following modules:

• Shipping – With discounted rates, advanced reporting, tracking, returns, and options to streamline shipping workflows.
• Marketing – With interactive metrics, feedback requests, campaign management, and email marketing.
• Inventory management – With product and supplier management, purchase orders, and reporting.
• Amazon support – With a full seller suite, Alexa for shipping, FBA support, and feedback management.

In conclusion, ShippingEasy serves as a solid suite with more than standard shipping software features. The free plan is great for those smaller businesses on a budget, but it's also worth looking into for those that also want elements for marketing and Amazon selling.

Pricing

The ShippingEasy pricing is broken down into the varying products provided. For instance, the shipping software is sold as a separate module from the email marketing tools.

Seeing as how we're focusing on shipping software, we'll outline the pricing for that, with a brief look at the other offerings.

As mentioned before, a Starter package is sold for $0, allowing for super small businesses to run a shipping operation without the monthly fees. It's realistic to assume that you won't be on the free plan forever, but that's such a strong advantage when money is tight in the earlier stages of your business.

Here are the pricing plans for the ShippingEasy shipping software:

• Starter – $0 per month for 50 shipments and the lowest available USPS rates.
• Basic – $29 per month for 500 shipments, and the lowest rates from USPS. You can also ship with all major carriers.
• Plus – $49 per month for 1,500 monthly shipments, the lowest USPS rates, lowest possible cubic discounts for USPS, and the ability to ship with all carriers.
• Select – $69 per month for 3,000 shipments, and all benefits from the previous plan.
• Premium – $99 per month for 6,000 shipments and all discount and shipping benefits from the previous plan.
• Enterprise – $149 per month for unlimited shipments and support for all major carriers.

Add the email marketing package for an extra fee. That part starts at $14 per month for 5,000 contacts.

If you go over your shipment limit, you're automatically upgraded to the next highest plan.

The interface

Installing the ShippingEasy software is usually done with the help of an ecommerce platform app. You can also get it custom coded into your website or integrated in some way.

We like the integrations with platforms like Shopify to make the onboarding as quick and simple as possible.

The dashboard offers a detailed, yet intuitive design, with all shipments organized into one list. You're able to filter, sort, and search through the orders and even batch and split the orders if needed.

Rate comparisons are done on the ShippingEasy dashboard, presenting the fees from all major carriers whenever you need to ship a product. For instance, you can type in a zip code and where the shipment is going, along with the weight and package type. After that, ShippingEasy presents the rates and times for all carriers, side-by-side.

We also enjoy the convenience of the reports page. It outlines revenue, shipping stats, and order values in charts. Combine this with automated social media campaigns to see which of your marketing efforts are bringing in the most sales.

It's nice to see that ShippingEasy provides templates for product reviews and recommendations, further boosting your sales and turning this solution into a hybrid of marketing and shipping tools. You could technically get rid of your email marketing software in exchange for ShippingEasy.

Ecommerce platform integrations

Feel free to check out all ShippingEasy integrations here. ShippingEasy has done a great job of integrating with the top ecommerce platforms, most of the time with well-executed apps.

There's a long list of platforms to integrate with, but here are some favorites:

• Shopify
• Magento
• Bigcommerce
• WooCommerce
• AmeriCommerce
• Volusion
• Squarespace
• PrestaShop
• Many more

Free shipping offerings

You can always offer free shipping through your ecommerce platform, but what parts of ShippingEasy make that easier on your margins?

First of all, ShippingEasy has that free plan to eliminate early expenses and pass the savings to your customers. We like this quite a bit, since it's often difficult to stand out from competitors when you're getting started.

There are also plenty of shipment discounts to take advantage of. Most notably, the USPS shipping discount.

Low-cost shipping offerings

Commercial Plus Pricing is available for all ShippingEasy merchants, regardless of volume sold. Insurance and shipping rates are all discounted. There's also a Flat Rate Green discount if you plan on shipping smaller, heavier packages.

Overall, these parts of ShippingEasy are bound to give you some flexibility in the low-cost shipping game. And once you choose your carriers, rates, and methods, the process is automated so that you're not constantly looking for the lowest rates for your customers.

Threshold-based shipment discounts

What's interesting about ShippingEasy is that you already gain access to shipment and label discounts as a smaller business.

These are definitely helpful if you're thinking about giving out free shipping when customers hit a certain dollar amount when shopping.

The Commercial Pricing Plus program expands upon the discounts available if you ship at least $50,000 annually. So, although it's indirect savings, ShippingEasy does have additional savings as you grow. Many companies tend to pass these savings along to customers.

Fast shipping

All speedy shipping options are provided through the major carriers. So, if a customer wants overnight shipping through UPS or USPS, you can offer this on your website.

As for how the software speeds up the shipping process: ShippingEasy prints your labels, packing slips, and pick lists. The software quickly prints those items so that the shipment is ready fast.

Choose to print straight from the software or bulk print several slips or labels for a full day or week of shipments. You even have the chance to print labels automatically, cutting out any human error or delay. This is done with the InstantLabel tool.

Finally, your entire shipping process is automated by choosing the right carrier from customer preferences and locations. You can create rules and add insurance if you want. But everything is automated once all settings are configured.

Multiple shipping options

With support for UPS, USPS, and FedEx, ShippingEasy provides access to the myriad of shipping options from those carriers. As such, ShippingEasy recommends sticking to real-time shipping rates and methods when possible.

They also provide settings for flat-rate and free shipping, but the main goal is to give your customers a handful of shipping methods with accurate rates and times–all of which are offered through ShippingEasy.

Label printing

The ShippingEasy workflow is fueled by its convenient and automated printing process. The shipping software integrates with all major marketplaces and platforms. You can then see all orders in your dashboard with the possible printing options.

Choose to print your labels manually or through the automated process.

The name of the game is to print every document as fast as possible, speeding up the entire shipment.

To do so, ShippingEasy has browser printing for labels, packing slips, and pick lists.

You can also choose to print in bulk or to have labels and other documents printed automatically, or when they come in.

If you're wondering about printer compatibility, ShippingEasy supports printing to thermal and laser printers.

There's also a long list of other printing settings like multi-printer support, keyboardless printing, scanner shortcuts for printing, and the option to designate printers to certain users.

Shipping discounts from major carriers

Discounts are available through some of the most popular carriers in the world. FedEx, UPS, and USPS are all available as shippers through ShippingEasy, with DHL and some other carriers not on the list.

You have the option to bring your previously negotiated rates to ShippingEasy. All you need is your account number from each of the carriers.

If you don't already have good rates, ShippingEasy provides some of the best discounts for USPS.

From the looks of it, you'll have to negotiate rates with UPS and FedEx on your own. The good news is that ShippingEasy is a multi-carrier shipping software, which is often more economical than sending through just one carrier.

Support for multiple sales channels

ShippingEasy provides a unique offering in its Amazon Seller Suite. They help you integrate with the marketplace and get set up with the Fulfilled By Amazon program. There are also options to incorporate Alexa for Shipping and Amazon Feedback Management into your store.

When looking at the marketplace integrations, it's clear that there aren't many limitations.

Some of the most popular marketplace and sales channel integrations include:

• Amazon
• eBay
• Etsy
• Walmart
• Wish
• Yahoo!
• Bonanza
• Jane
• Reverb
• Sears
• Jet
• Newegg
• Many more

Tracking support

Real-time tracking information is sent to your customers and your own dashboard. The emails are branded to your store and automatically sent out without you having to approve them.

We like that the tracking numbers are catered to whichever carrier is being used. You can even go with a dropshipping operation and paste in your own tracking codes from your dropshippers.

ShippingEasy provides a branded tracking page on your website so that the website traffic goes to you and it looks like most of the support is coming from your company.

Return systems

All returns are automated through ShippingEasy. Like tracking, ShippingEasy helps with setting up a Return Center page on your website.

As with shipping, low rates are negotiated for USPS return labels. The tracking information is sent to you and customers for the return, and they're shown everything they need to know to get that package back to your company in a reasonable time (like with packaging guidelines and where to drop off the package).

International shipping solutions

International shipping is an interesting aspect of ShippingEasy, since it's not as simple as we've found in other shipping software.

As of right now, all shipments must originate in the United States. You can send your packages to just about anywhere in the world, but the product needs to begin its journey in the US. This may eliminate some non-US companies, unless you plan on storing your inventory in a US warehouse.

For shipping across borders, ShippingEasy auto-generates the right customs forms and information to cut out any roadblocks. These settings are carrier-specific, so you may need to manually send the custom forms to USPS, but customs forms are sent to UPS automatically.

Multiple fulfillment options

ShippingEasy is for printing shipping documents, tracking, and potentially using email marketing. This means that fulfillment isn't really part of its service or software.

However, that also means that you can run any type of fulfillment operation. It makes sense that self-fulfillers use ShippingEasy for its printing capabilities. You can also put tracking codes in there for dropshipped products.

ShippingEasy becomes less valuable if you're utilizing a third-party logistics company, but you could use it for some of your shipments if needed. Finally, ShippingEasy has direct integration with the FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) service, which has become increasingly popular.

3. ShipStation – Best Shipping Software for Small Business

Small business shipping software generally caters to companies that don't yet want to opt for a third-party logistics partner. The ShipBob software from above is more for those who'd like to get shipping software and a logistics company involved with shipping.

However, smaller businesses often have their own warehousing or even ship from their own homes, garages, or rental facilities. This is called self-fulfillment, and it presents an economical shipping system so that you're not stuck with pricey monthly fulfillment and you have increased control over the products and packaging.

ShipStation caters to those small businesses with software and some services for self-fulfillment. You can also utilize ShipStation in tandem with other fulfillment services like a third-party logistics company or Fulfillment by Amazon.

Overall, ShipStation is an inexpensive shipping software with high-profile integrations, order management modules, and label printing.

Here's our analysis of ShipStation based on the factors we find most important for shipping software:

Pricing

ShipStation pricing plans are based on the number of shipments you send out per month. For instance, the $9 per month Starter plan allows for up to 50 shipments per month. Each of the pricing plans below includes some sort of customer support, packaging slip, and label.

• Starter – $9 per month for 50 shipments, one user, ShipStation branded labels and packing slips, and support through a forum and email.
• Bronze – $29 per month for 500 shipments, one user, ShipStation branded packing slips and labels, forum support and email support.
• Silver – $49 per month for 1,500 shipments, two users, customized packing slips and labels, and support via live chat, email, and a forum.
• Gold – $69 per month for 3,000 shipments, three users, customized labels and packing slips, and support via live chat, email, and forum.
• Platinum – $99 per month for 6,000 shipments, three users, customized packing slips, and support via live chat, email, and a forum.
• Enterprise – $159 per month for 10,000 shipments, ten users, customized labels and packing slips, and support via the phone, email, live chat, and the forum.

Custom quotes are available if your company ships over 10,000 packages per month.

It's also worth mentioning that 30-day free trials are available for you to test out the software and services.

There's no fee to sell via other sales channels/marketplaces like Amazon or Etsy.

Important: All fees for postage and insurance are your responsibility. There also may be some fees if your third-party marketplace integration is classified as “premium.” You'll know this before signing up for ShipStation.

The interface

The ShipStation software has respectable reviews online, many praising the interface for being simple and intuitive. We like that ShipStation offers several ecommerce platform integrations via apps. This allows for quick installations without any need for programming knowledge.

The dashboard shows information like orders, shipment processes, and packaging slip downloads. You can check which orders are awaiting shipment and check to see where the sales were made. Mark carriers and see the shipping rates for each of the orders sent out.

There's a mobile interface for checking your shipments on smaller devices and reviewing the shipment status of those orders.

We like the analytics for viewing charts for things like sales, order values, and repeat customers, all of which are consolidated into reports.

Ecommerce platform integrations

Along with integrations for other software like Salesforce, ShipStation provides app integrations for some of the top ecommerce platforms on the market.

These are the ecommerce apps currently listed on the ShipStation website:

• BigCommerce
• Shopify
• WooCommerce
• Shopify Plus
• Squarespace
• Wix
• Magento
• Bigcartel
• Volusion
• Ecwid
• PrestaShop
• Opencart

Several other integrations are available. Take a look at the ShipStation Partners page for a better understanding of the extendibility of the software.

Free shipping offerings

There's no direct free shipping offering from ShipStation, but you gain access to discounted shipping rates and labels from most major carriers. Combine this with volume discounts from the carriers and there's a chance you could offer free shipping for orders on your website.

Low-cost shipping offerings

Similar to the free shipping element, ShipStation automatically pairs your orders with the most cost-effective shipping carrier. You can also decide to offer a wide range of shipping methods for your customers.

You may decide to pre-negotiate rates with the major carriers or browse the rates on a regular basis. Regardless of your configuration, ShipStation offers a tool for comparing the best rates and fastest methods, then communicating the shipment information to your customers.

Threshold-based shipment discounts

Quantity discounts are provided from major carriers, and from the ShipStation software. This allows you to pass savings onto your customers and make for a more appealing sales process. In short, the idea of giving out free shipping for a $50 or $100 sale is more reasonable with ShipStation.

Fast shipping

All carriers partnered with ShipStation offer multiple shipment methods, many of which have overnight or two-day shipment times.

Combine that with the speed of the ShipStation software and it delivers one of the fastest options for self-fulfillment.

The software automatically finds the best rate, then provides the shipping label to print out. All that's required is a quick scan of the packing slip to view all order information.

For instance, a scan generates shipping labels, package weight, and picking order so that your workers aren't confused at all during the process. This system of scans eliminates error and makes for the rapid movement of your orders through the entire logistical process.

Multiple shipping options

You're able to present multiple shipping methods to your customers, but you may need to pre-negotiate your rates, or at least decide on a few primary shipping methods, prior to listing them on your website

Label printing

This is the huge benefit of going with the ShipStation shipping software. The labels are presented to you for printing on the software whenever an order comes in. You have the opportunity to print individually or in the thousands. You can print the shipping labels by clicking the Print button in your dashboard or by having your workers scan packing labels.

Shipping documents are also handled for you by ShipStation. For instance, pick lists are essential for sending a worker to find the items needed to ship out. ShipStation generates pick lists for you.

Finally, labels and packing slips are either branded or customizable based on your ShipStation plan. For instance, the $9 per month Starter plan provides ShipStation-branded labels and packing slips, while the $49 per month Silver plan has customizable labels and packing slips to put your logo or business information on them.

Shipping discounts from major carriers

Businesses are able to contact the major shipping carriers and sign up for high-quantity shipment discounts or small business rates.

However, ShipStation has several programs that are already pre-negotiated to get you the best rate from carriers like USPS, UPS, and FedEx.

We like these discounts because you don't need to be a high-volume user to take advantage of the discounts.

An example is the ShipStation USPS discount program. ShipStation users automatically receive up to 40% off Priority Mail rates, up to 13% off Priority Mail Express, and up to 40% off  USPS insurance rates.

Support for multiple sales channels

Along with various integrations with ecommerce platforms and small business software, ShipStation assists with multi-channel selling and through marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, and eBay.

The benefits vary depending on the partner, but a good example is the Amazon partnership. Benefits include support for international Amazon stores, carrier discounts, worldwide carrier integrations, and a branded post-purchase experience.

The list is long, but some of the top sales channels supported by ShipStation include the following:

• Amazon
• eBay
• Jet
• Alibaba
• Walmart
• Etsy
• Best Buy
• Many More

Tracking support

ShipStation has a powerful system for generating tracking codes for all customers. The code is made for the carrier of choice, with links, statuses, and auto-tracking included.

Once you've generated a label for shipping, the merchant has the option on which type of tracking to send to the customer.

Tracking links are often popular, but you can also send out messages for changes in statuses or shipment tracking on your own website.

Your shipment tracking decision is affected by the carrier being used for that particular order. For instance, USPS doesn't have auto-tracking for some First Class Mail shipments and Media Mail.

Return systems

ShipStation includes a branded returns portal for all users. The portal makes it look like the entire return process is being generated by your company, since it's on your website, and there aren't many elements of the page that show ShipStation branding.

This way, your customers are able to activate a return and print out return shipping labels. After that, the return module tells them how to package the product, where to bring it for shipment, and more. This is all customizable based on your return policies.

International shipping solutions

Seeing as how ShipStation is often used for self-fulfillment, you don't have the advantage of international warehouses from a service like ShipBob. However, you can always partner with a third-party logistics company to make this happen.

As for international shipment labels, ShipStation has impressive features to support your customers in other countries. One benefit is that all shipments include $100 package coverage, which is even more important for international shipments.

Confusing customs forms are eliminated with the use of ShipStation. It's all done for you, with discounts included for the cross-border shipments. What's more is that ShipStation puts your packages into the international system so that they get handed off to the right carriers, like if FedEx were to pass off a package to USPS for speedier local transit.

Tracking is still provided for most international shipments.

Finally, ShipStation has a program for 2-day shipping to major cities across the globe. This program has special discounted rates and ensures that your customers in larger cities (even if on the other side of the world) get their packages in a reasonable amount of time.

Multiple fulfillment options

ShipStation is ideal for self-fulfillment operations, but it also leaves merchants open to other fulfillment options. You wouldn't use this for dropshipping, but there are no limitations for third-party logistics. ShipBob even has an integration for ShipStation.

4. Shippo – Best Shipping Software for Shipping Worldwide

Shippo partners with major carriers like DHL, FedEx, UPS, and the USPS to maintain a consistent network of multi-carrier sending. Merchants get discounts for these carriers and have a stronger option for efficient sending across borders.

With various fulfillment partners, flexible pricing, and domestic and international shipping tools, the Shippo software stands out as a viable option for small businesses, particularly when shipping abroad.

Pricing

Shippo provides a straightforward pricing page with two choices: Pay As You Go and a monthly Professional Plan. You can also opt for a Premier plan which is a completely customized version of the software and service.

The flexibility of these pricing plans makes it easy to test what works for your company.

The pricing looks like this:

• Pay As You Go – $0.05 per label for up to 5,000 shipments per month. You still get the best possible USPS discounts and email support, without having to pay monthly fees.

The Professional Plan is set at a monthly rate based on your shipping volume. Each Professional Plan has great USPS discounts, five user accounts, a branded customer experience, and email and live chat customer support. You also don't have to pay per label. The labels are included in the monthly fee.

Professional plans:

• $10 per month – For 0-60 labels.
• $25 per month – For 61 to 200 labels.
• $35 per month – For 201 to 450 labels.
• $50 per month – For 451 to 750 labels.
• $75 per month – For 751 to 1,750 labels.
• $100 per month – For 1,750 to 3,500 labels.
• $125 per month – For 3,501 to 5,000 labels.
• Custom pricing for anything above 5,000 labels.

As mentioned, the Premier Plan is for a fully customized solution. You get 15 user accounts, a dedicated customer support rep, and the discounts and branding from the other plans.

The interface

During testing, Shippo installed just fine with integrations. The user interface appears organized, with menu items on the left, similar to that of WordPress or Shopify. Shipments, orders, and carriers are highlighted in the menu, with a list of each displaying the items being shipped and fulfillment options.

You can create a label right from the dashboard. Other automation tactics implemented by competitors don't seem to be available from Shippo, like quick scanning and a truly automated carrier selector.

Having said that, the Shippo dashboard still provides packing slip downloads, labels, and a notification sender. You can also activate carriers from a long list of options, like Deutsche Post, UberRUSH, and Fastway Australia.

Ecommerce platform integrations

Shippo integrates with many business software tools, including the top ecommerce platforms.

Platforms to integrate with include the following:

• Shopify
• WooCommerce
• Wix
• Bigcommerce
• Squarespace
• Weebly
• GoDaddy
• Commerce7
• Webflow
• Magento
• Volusion
• Arcadier

You can link to these platforms with the use of system-specific apps. If your website builder is not on the list, contact the Shippo support team to see if it's possible.

Free shipping offerings

You have the option to provide free shipping through your online store, and Shippo helps keep the shipping costs low for you by providing USPS discounts on all pricing plans.

It's also worth talking about the Pay As You Go pricing plan, which is bound to assist smaller businesses in approaching a Free Shipping option, seeing as how it helps with controlling expenses.

Low-cost shipping offerings

Tying into the discounts from the previous header, Shippo has discounts for UPS, DHL Express, and FedEx. These all come into play to pad your margins for lower cost shipping.

The main problem with Shippo is that it will most likely require an additional fee for the fulfillment, but that's also the case with pretty much every shipping software except for ShipBob.

Threshold-based shipment discounts

You can always offer a threshold-based shipping discount, but it's best to see additional discounts from the shipping software to support this idea.

Shippo has its built-in carrier discounts, but there aren't discounts for printing a higher volume of labels in the Pay As You Go plan.

The Professional plan, on the other hand, provides discounts savings (per label) as you expand your business. This is essential for gaining the ability to offer volume-based discounts.

Fast shipping:

Carrier speed variations are available through Shippo. There's also a much longer list of carriers through Shippo compared to other shipping software, opening up speed options that weren't there before.

As for the software speeding up the process, Shippo prints labels in bulk and sends automated emails to customers. It also validates US addresses and pre-fills any insurance information required.

Along with automated label creation and the pre-filling of package weights, Shippo does a handful of tasks to expedite the flow of shipping.

Multiple shipping options

Shippo allows you to set shipping methods based on your used marketplaces. You can also offer niche delivery methods, like day-of or other interesting delivery options provided by the industry trend-setters.

It's arguable that Shippo actually provides the largest selection of shipping methods, seeing as how it has the longest list of carriers.

Regional, national, and international carriers are provided, with unique next-day deliveries from some and tracking-only options like Aramex and BorderGuru.

Label printing

Label printing with Shippo involves making your own rules, then having the software print out automated labels. Things like addresses and package weights are prefilled, and the email notifications are sent to customers without clicking a button.

We particularly enjoy the ability to batch print labels.

It's unclear whether or not pick lists are printed, but it looks like return labels are possible.

Shipping discounts from major carriers

From the USPS to FedEx, and DHL Germany to Hermes, international, domestic, and regional carriers almost all have discounts for corporate customers.

Shippo does a wonderful job of linking its software with these carriers, many of which have discounts inside Shippo. If not, you typically just have to type in your carrier account information.

You also receive discounts regardless of operation size.

Some discounts to highlight include:

• Up to 90% off USPS
• Up to 55% off UPS
• Up to 75% off DHL
• Up to 29% off FedEx
• Great discounts from other carriers like Fastway Australia and Sendle

Support for multiple sales channels

Selling on major marketplaces seems simple enough with Shippo.

Our favorite integrations:

• Amazon
• Etsy
• Mercari
• eBay
• Vinted
• Zibbet
• OfferUp

Tracking support

Customers are sent automated tracking emails with the codes.

You're even able to brand these emails to look like they're coming from your company.

All of these tracking codes are synced with your store for your own use. It depends on the carrier, but Shippo will tell you if a tracking code isn't available.

Return systems

The return features don't stand out for Shippo, but you do have the option to print return labels and put them in your boxes. This is an interesting approach because you actually don't have to pay for them unless used by your customers.

Many may argue that this is a better form of customer service than making customers to go to your website and print out their own return labels.

International shipping solutions

Every shipping software on this list supports international shipping in some way. However, none of them have an expansive list of international carriers like Shippo. You can find Fastway Australia, Deutsche Post, Parcelforce, and several other carriers to link to your account.

The international shipping options are superior in almost every way, with some of the following standing out:

• FedEx
• DHL
• CouriersPlease
• Hermes
• Globegistics
• Australia Post
• Deutsche Post
• GLS France
• Canada Post
• Asendia
• APC
• Orangeds
• Parcel Force Worldwide
• Many more

As you can see, the international, and multi-carrier, options are seemingly endless. You can connect to your own corporate accounts or use Shippo to make the accounts. What's great is that sending to international customers often requires transfers from one carrier to another. Shippo makes sure this is seamless.

Multiple fulfillment options

Fulfillment isn't part of the Shippo software, but it does integrate with several fulfillment partners, allowing for dropshipping, self-fulfillment, and third-party logistics.

Here are a few of the fulfillment integrations (you may recognize some from this article):

• ShipBob
• ShippingTree
• ShipHero
• Wizmo
• SnapShip
• ShipDaddy
• Baja Fulfillment
• Mainfreight

5. Shopify Shipping

Shopify Shipping is limited to those using Shopify. That's a huge downside in itself, but we do like it quite a bit for current, or future, Shopify users. Not only does the interface look beautiful in the Shopify dashboard, but there's a hard focus on getting the best possible discounts from carriers.

Pricing

The app software is free when you install it on your premium Shopify store. You're still responsible for postage and label costs, but we'll talk about those discounts further down.

The interface

Similar to the rest of Shopify, the Shopify Shipping dashboard has a beautiful design.

The interface includes options for calculating shipping costs, finding the best rates from carriers, and streamlining shipping tasks like printing out labels.

The interface is useless for non-Shopify users, since it doesn't work for WooCommerce, Bigcommerce, or any other platform.

Ecommerce platform integrations

This is the primary downside to Shopify Shipping. It's wonderful for Shopify users, but a non-option for others.

Free shipping offerings

With up to 90% discounts for USPS, UPS, and DHL, it's very plausible that you can provide free shipping to your customers.

Not only that, but Shopify already has quick shipping method tools for implementing free shipping.

Low-cost shipping offerings

Just like the benefits that make free shipping possible, it's more than likely that you'll be able to provide all sorts of low-cost shipping options to your customers. The discounts are great, and Shopify provides excellent tools for adding real-time shipping rates, not just flat-rates.

Threshold-based shipment discounts

It's not clear if Shopify Shipping provides any shipping discounts based on volume. However, we know that USPS, UPS, and DHL all have volume-based discounts, making it easier on your margins when thinking about threshold-based discounts.

Shipping rates do get better if you're paying for a more expensive Shopify plan. So, there is that.

Fast shipping

You gain access to overnight and expedited shipping methods from UPS, DHL, and USPS.

Shipping speeds and methods change with the real-time shipment calculator, ensuring that your customers receive their packages in the most efficient way possible.

Some elements that speed up shipments in Shopify Shipping:

• You can buy and print your labels in Shopify, instead of going to the post office.
• Clicking on the Fulfill Order button also generates a label.
• Real-time methods and rates are calculated.
• Shopify automatically finds the best carrier.
• Bulk printing is possible.

This list is shorter than what we've seen from the competition. We'd like to see improvements in the future, like options for scanning and more automated printing processes.

Multiple shipping options

Shopify Shipping lacks support for FedEx and most international and regional carriers.

You'll have plenty of shipping methods through USPS, DHL, and UPS, but other solutions have even more.

Label printing

Label buying and printing are done in Shopify. You don't need any special equipment. Print labels right to your home printer.

Shopify Shipping doesn't support other printouts like pick lists or return labels.

Shipping discounts from major carriers:

The shipping discounts are provided by UPS, USPS, and DHL. Shopify boasts up to 90% discounts on regular rates.

Unfortunately, the list of carriers is limited, and the best rates are provided to the highest paying Shopify users. However, it does look like these discounts are often much better than the competition in this article.

Support for multiple sales channels

The Shopify Shipping app doesn't support other channels on its own. However, Shopify is required to use the shipping software, so there is a list of supported sales channels:

• Facebook
• Google
• Amazon
• Instagram
• Etsy
• eBay

Tracking support

Shipment status emails and tracking numbers get automatically sent to you and customers. The tracking information is stored in your Shopify dashboard.

All carriers supported by Shopify Shipping have tracking numbers.

Return systems

Shopify Shipping doesn't provide a return module, but the Shopify platform has tools to get this done. If the built-in features don't satisfy your needs, you can always install a third-party app.

International shipping solutions:

International shipping is available through USPS, UPS, and DHL. It appears that all shipments must originate in the United States, but you can send anywhere that's allowed by those carriers.

Multiple fulfillment options

Shopify Shipping doesn't have its own fulfillment service, but the Shopify platform integrates with just about every type of fulfillment app. Go with self-fulfillment, dropshipping, or a third-party logistics partner.

6. Ordoro – Best Shipping Software for Large-scale Businesses

Ordoro is the powerhouse shipping software that fast-scaling, and already mature, businesses are looking for.

It incorporates far more than standard shipping labels and carrier matching. Ordoro provides everything from shipping to inventory management, and dropshipping to kitting.

The software is more expensive than all solutions in this comparison, but that's why it makes the most sense for rapidly-growing, large-scale businesses.

Pricing

No free trial is available for Ordoro. You must schedule a demo to see the software in full.

The pricing plans include the following:

• Express – $59 per month for discounted carrier rates, barcode scans, shipping presets, automation rules, and no SFP fees.
• Pro – $499 per month for all features from Express, the inventory management software, dropshipping features, kitting, and purchasing.
• Enterprise – This plan requires custom pricing. You get every feature, including a dedicated account manager, supplier management, vendor portals, and custom workflows.

The interface

The Ordoro interface is more complex than the competition. It requires onboarding and training, but once you understand the system you'll see how powerful the features are. Everything is organized well, but it takes some time to feel prepared to use it on a daily basis.

The dashboard for shipping includes a detailed list of orders, quick buttons for printing, and automated processes for selecting the right methods and pricing for shipping.

Seeing as how Ordoro is more like a suite of tools, each module has its own section on the dashboard. Analytics are separate from dropshipping, as is the barcode scanning from the supplier management.

Ecommerce platform integrations

Since Ordoro is our favorite shipping software choice for large businesses, it makes sense that it integrates with most platforms.

Here are a few notable ecommerce platforms that integrate with Ordoro:

• Shopify
• Shopify Plus
• Bigcommerce
• Magento
• Volusion
• WooCommerce
• Ecwid
• Squarespace
• 3dcart
• Shopsite
• Zoey

Free shipping offerings

Each carrier partnership through Ordoro provides discounts to the merchants. For instance, USPS is discounted up to 67%.

Linking to a supported ecommerce platform makes it possible to provide free shipping, and the discounts from Ordoro are sure to help with keeping your own costs low.

Low-cost shipping offerings

The main downside of Ordoro is its monthly pricing. Everything you need is included, but you better hope that your volume and margins are high to cover the monthly Ordoro costs.

Having said that, we assume that most companies using Ordoro are already providing low-cost shipping.

Threshold-based shipment discounts

The carrier discounts from Ordoro are based on your sales volume. This is bound to help if you'd like to offer threshold-based discounts.

Fast shipping

Ordoro carrier partners provide several fast shipping methods, many of which are priced well to incentivize the use of those methods.

The actual software speeds up the shipping process with the following features:

• A barcode scanning system
• Automation rules
• Shipping presets
• Auto-routing
• Quick order splitting
• Real-time shipping rates
• Automated label printing
• An expedited return process

Multiple shipping options

Ordoro has integrations for USPS, Canada Post, FedEx, UPS, DHL, and Amazon SFP. So, you get all shipping methods from those carriers.

The most common offerings built into the software include flat-rate shipping, fast methods, low-weight methods, and international methods.

There's no shortage of shipping methods for you to provide to customers.

Label printing

Shipping labels are all printed upon an order coming in, as long as you have all rules configured.

Print pick and pack forms, and use the scanning system to decrease human error.

You have the option to print manually, but most of it is automated. Ordoro also provides a direct-to-printer solution to get rid of PDFs.

Shipping discounts from major carriers

Cost-effective rates are provided for all carriers, including UPS, DHL, FedEx, and Canada Post. The steepest discount is 67% for USPS.

It's not the best discount on the market, but it's still a good deal.

Support for multiple sales channels

The sales channel and marketplace integrations are plentiful as well. All of the following are supported:

• Amazon
• eBay
• Etsy
• Walmart
• Jet
• Reverb

Tracking support

The shipping status and tracking codes are sent directly to customers. Tracking codes are automatically generated based on the sales channel and carrier being used.

Return systems

The Ordoro return module is robust and feature-filled. You can email branded return labels to customers, and offer a Return page on your website to inform customers how to complete returns.

Furthermore, Ordoro includes a return and restock feature for your employees to go through a checklist and log each return.

International shipping solutions

Cross-border shipments are highly supported through the DHL International integration. In addition, UPS, Canada Post, and FedEx all have their own international shipping methods.

For the most part, items like customs forms and shipping insurance are included with each printed label.

Multiple fulfillment options

Ordoro doesn't provide fulfillment services. However, it does have a dropshipping software element for adding your own suppliers and streamlining the dropshipping process.

The software also integrates with popular fulfillment services like:

• Fulfillment By Amazon
• Shipwire
• 3PL Central
• RedStag Fulfillment
• Accolade Distribution

You also have options to integrate with popular suppliers like Moteng, Barco Uniforms, and CWR Wholesale.

What is Ecommerce Shipping (and the Ecommercce ShippingSoftware That Goes With It)?

We have a detailed guide on the meaning of shipping and how it affects your customers in different ways.

From the perspective of our current research, we're looking at ecommerce shipping and the software that makes shipping better for customers and easier for merchants.

A Simplified Definition of Ecommerce Shipping

Ecommerce shipping involves the moving of goods from one location to another, like from a retail business to a consumer's doorstep or from a business to a purchasing business.

How Ecommerce Shipping Ties Into Your Ecommerce Business

Running an online store requires a wide range of tools and responsibilities, from marketing to design, and product development to shipping. That's only a few hats you have to wear as an ecommerce professional, making it appealing to cut costs on some of the elements.

For instance, a small online store may ship packages in-house. An entrepreneur could take a product, package it up in his apartment, then walk to the local UPS or post office to send it out.

That's often where the relationship between shipping and ecommerce begins. However, as many experienced ecommerce professionals know, it's best not to cut corners when it comes to shipping. A process like this quickly becomes uneconomical and you're risking slowing down the shipping process or not doing as good of a job with packaging compared to the professionals at UPS or FedEx.

Therefore, businesses typically turn to shipping and logistics companies to manage larger scale shipping operations and ensure that packages are delivered promptly, in secure packaging, and with tracking codes for the customers.

Methods for Ecommerce Shipping

One of the first elements to consider is the methods of shipping offered to your customers. If you've shopped online, you know the drill. A handful of shipping methods are available, most of which have different fees and get your product to you faster or slower.

For instance, these are common shipping methods to think about:

• Flat-rate
• Overnight
• 2-day
• International
• Air
• Ground
• Size or weight-based

Each carrier has its own names for these types of shipping methods.

Popular Shipping Carriers

The most popular shipping carriers include:

• UPS
• USPS
• FedEx
• DHL

This list is, of course, limited to certain regions. Shipping software performs best with additional carriers like Hermes, Globegistics, Australia Post, Deutsche Post, and Canada Post.

Choosing a Shipping Partner

A shipping–or fulfillment–partner handles parts of your delivery process, such as:

• Storage
• Picking from shelves
• Packaging
• Postage
• Shipping

You don't have to get a shipping provider to complete all of those tasks, but it's available from some of the popular software and service options. However, fulfillment isn't provided from some shipping software that's mainly focused on helping you with label printing, shipping rates, and carriers. Sometimes you have to pair a shipping software with a third-party fulfillment partner.

Most Important Factors to Consider When Looking for the Best EcommerceShipping Software

As we mention in the “How We Conducted the Research” section below, features and offerings are the most important part of comparisons like these. The reason for this is because so many elements go into software, so it's easy to lower or elevate a software in our rankings when we find that one or two essential elements are either missing or superior in a given software.

So, what are the most important factors to consider when looking for the best shipping software?

Here's what to look for:

• The shipping software and service offers free shipping to your customers. This doesn't have to be the only option, but it's important to know that consumers like the idea of at least having a free shipping opportunity. Most of the time this comes in the form of heavy postage and carrier discounts, which can then be used for cheaper shipping rates for your customers.
• Low-cost shipping comes into play as well. Stats show that many consumers will cancel an order once they release that shipping costs are too high. This is why you want to find a shipping software that promotes the idea of low-cost shipping. Even if you don't have free shipping, showing a $10 shipping fee at the end of a checkout process is sure to scare away some of your customers.
• It's nice to see options for free shipping based on sales thresholds. This would be where a customer receives free shipping on an order when they get to $50 or $100 in their shopping cart. This not only makes your customers feel good about not paying for shipping, but there's a chance they spend more money at your store. Again, shipping prices are set on your own website, but the shipping software can provide options for decreasing your fees.
• Your shipping software must provide fast shipping. In a world with Amazon, consumers have become accustomed to getting their products within a few days. Consumers state that it's very important to get their items fast, so you want to give them options to receive overnight shipping, or two-day-shipping. We also like the idea of the slowest shipping methods being no more than one week, eliminating any dropshipping methods that can take anywhere from two to four weeks to get to the customer (it's ridiculous to assume that anyone would want to wait this long considering the wide array of other places to shop online).
• Shipping choices are ideal. Some customers don't have any problem waiting a week or so for their items as long as it saves them money. Others are willing to spend a little extra to expedite the delivery process. Flat-rate shipping is great for simplicity, but you're often better off providing three or four shipping methods to put the choice in the hands of your customer.
• The best shipping software includes label printing. This means that orders are sent to the fulfillment company (and the merchant,) then the shipping software links to multiple carriers to figure out the fastest, most cost-effective solution for sending out that particular package. You can then print out the shipping labels for all of your orders (with different carriers,) instead of having to do them individually for each one.
• Shipping discounts that improve your margins are ideal when looking at your shipping software. Does the software/fulfillment service have partnerships with major carriers like USPS, UPS, and FedEx? They should. After all, they're making far more shipments than individual sellers, so your small merchant operation should be able to take advantage of these discounts.
• Can you link to other selling channels? It's not nearly as common anymore to only sell through your online store. Merchants are finding customers on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and a wide range of other marketplaces. You'll want a shipping software that links to those marketplaces to quickly fulfill the orders, print out labels, and get the product to customers in a timely manner.
• Tracking support comes in handy considering consumers have come to expect emails with tracking numbers. That's why your shipping software should send out a tracking number that links to the tracking page from the respective carrier.
• Return support is a necessary element of your shipping software as well. The best shipping software provides online return centers for you to put on your website. This allows customers to process their returns, print out return labels, and send the items directly back to the storage facility.
• International, or cross-border, shipping assistance is nice to have from your shipping software. It's already intimidating trying to ship your products domestically. Can you imagine having to worry about customs, taxes, and duties required when sending your products to other countries? The ideal situation is to find a shipping software that partners with local carriers, so that the customer receives their packages from a carrier that they trust. More often than not, this also involves multi-language and currency support.
• Look for shipping software that offers multiple types of fulfillment solutions, even if it's through an integration with a third-party service. From dropshipping to third-party logistics, it's essential to have a partner that does much of the heavy lifting for you. Not only does quality software sync with your online store and provide fulfillment options, but it gives you control over the shipment process. Would you like to see some of your products before you start shipping them out to customers? Is there a shipping label or branding element you'd like to include with every package?

Quite a few other elements factor into our research, but with the above items seen as essential, and a few others required as well, here's the list that we'll utilize in our analysis below:

• Pricing
• Integrations with major ecommerce platforms.
• Software interface.
• Free shipping offerings.
• Low-cost shipping offerings.
• Threshold-based shipment discounts.
• Fast shipping.
• Multiple shipping options.
• Label printing.
• Shipping discounts from major carriers.
• Support for multiple sales channels (like marketplaces).
• Tracking support.
• Return systems.
• International shipping solutions.
• Multiple fulfillment options.

How We Conducted the Research

For each article written on ecommerce-platforms.com, we take a slightly different approach to research. However, we stick to a fair, outlined strategy to highlight facts in our comparisons, tutorials, and reviews.

For this particular comparison, we began with a list of the hundreds of shipping software options available for ecommerce shipping. After that, we highlighted the options that have been around for at least enough years to consider them credible.

Moving forward, it made sense to remove shipping software that either didn't fit our pricing expectations or lacked necessary features/offerings such as integrations with the most popular ecommerce platforms, like Shopify and WooCommerce.

Our feature comparison is the most effective method for removing software from contention, seeing as how there are so many required features and offerings to make a shipping software and service useable from an ecommerce perspective.

After narrowing down the list to about 20 shipping software solutions, we began testing out the interfaces and getting rid of the ones that didn't work as well as their marketing claimed. For example, some of them simply didn't sync well with products on ecommerce stores, while others had clunky online interfaces that we couldn't imagine anyone would want to mess with.

Once getting the list to around ten, it became a more in-depth test, running the software through rigorous experiments to ensure that every single feature worked the way it's supposed to. With our final batch of shipping software to recommend, we lined up each of the best ones in a chart and compared the most important elements, like pricing, interface, support, and features, to rank the ecommerce shipping software and deliver to you the results in this article.

Reasons to Trust Our Research

Our website is dedicated towards honest, unbiased information for building an online store. Each of our reviews, comparisons, tutorials, and other articles are researched and reviewed from as impartial a perspective as possible.

ecommerce-platforms.com has been around since 2014, providing articles meant to clarify the complicated world of ecommerce for those who are either just getting started or would like to expand upon their current business. Much of the “make money online” information you can find online is filled with skewed perspectives, articles only written for affiliate promotions, and constant truth-stretching to make it seem like certain types of ecommerce are easy to make money with.

An example of this is dropshipping. Take a look at YouTube, or a quick search on Google, to find a wide range of ecommerce “experts” who explain how easy it is to get started with dropshipping and claim how people make tens of thousands of dollars each month with the fulfillment option. Is dropshipping a decent fulfillment alternative for some businesses? Yes, but it has so many caveats. And it's definitely not a way to get rich quick or passively make money. That's why we try our best to focus on the pros and cons of ecommerce elements like these, so as to offer people the facts, allowing them to make their own decisions.

In addition, we refrain from only promoting tools, platforms, and services based on their affiliate payouts. ecommerce-platforms.com does implement the use of affiliate links on its website, but we never promote one solution over another simply because we feel like we may get more money for it.

Combine our unbiased approach with a team of experienced researchers and writers in the ecommerce market, and we're proud to say that ecommerce-platforms.com is one of the top resources for locating accurate information about online stores, as opposed to hyping up your expectations and making it seem like this type of business is any easier than the rest.

Conclusion

To sum up our analysis, here's what we've learned:

• ShipBob is the best overall shipping software with its combination of fulfillment services and excellent software.
• ShipStation does the trick for small businesses because of its lower monthly prices, steep discounts, and rapid printing processes.
• ShippingEasy has a free plan that is invaluable for smaller businesses looking to cut costs early on.
• Shippo stands out for international shipping due to its long list of worldwide carrier options.
• Shopify Shipping has incredible carrier discounts, but it's limited to those using Shopify.
• Ordoro is expensive and it has a steep learning curve. But it's the most powerful shipping platform on the market, meant for rapidly-growing businesses with serious demands.

If you have any questions about the best shipping software for ecommerce and all online businesses, let us know in the comments section below.