ShipEngine is committed to offering the best shipping solutions for large-scale businesses. Along with our integrations to hundreds of global carriers, we provide direct carrier access through ShipEngine Carriers. You can ship with four newly added providers: GlobalPost, Canada Post, EVRi, and Yodel. These new integrations join UPS®, USPS®, and other providers that you can access as soon as you sign up ShipEngine. These new partnerships provide new shipping options for shipments originating in the US, Canada, and the UK. Keep an eye out, because we have more integrations coming soon!

What is ShipEngine Carriers?

ShipEngine Carriers is a collection of shipping provider accounts that are unique to your ShipEngine account. Each of these new native shipping solutions uses the same postage balance within ShipEngine. ShipEngine Carriers uses the funds in your ShipEngine Balance to fund label creation. A major benefit is that these services are available for immediate use on all of our plan levels. With these options, you can compare our native rates against any of your existing carrier accounts you wish to connect. 

GlobalPost Added in the US

Shipments originating in the US can now access even more ShipEngine Carriers services. Along with USPS and UPS, we’re adding more robust international delivery options thanks to GlobalPost. GlobalPost provides international parcel shipping and consolidation services to over 220 countries. It utilizes a network of last-mile carriers and delivery providers to offer a mix of speed and affordability that is hard to beat. 

Canada Post Added in Canada

Canada Post is now available to use for shipments originating in Canada. This is the first ShipEngine Carriers integration for Canada, but it certainly won’t be the last. We support sixteen services for domestic, cross-border, and international shipping options. You can also still use your own Canada Post account. We also have a range of Canadian carriers and delivery integrations available. 

Yodel and EVRi Added in the UK

In addition to our nearly twenty UK integrations, shipments can now access two new providers from ShipEngine Carriers. There’s no need to create and connect individual carrier accounts if you ship with Yodel or Evri. 

EVRi

EVRi (formerly Hermes) provides businesses of all sizes with delivery services throughout the UK. This integration can access domestic shipping services, including next-day delivery options. Signature confirmation options and custom package types are available. We also provide a standalone EVRi integration with more options including international delivery.

Yodel

Yodel is a prominent parcel delivery service in the UK, known for its extensive network and efficient logistics. With ShipEngine Carriers, you can access domestic services like Yodel Direct. We also support custom package types. We also have a standalone Yodel integration. This supports more features and services including international shipping options. 

Scale Shipping With ShipEngine

As ShipEngine adds more immediate access to carriers, we also provide a range of solutions for businesses of all shapes, needs, and sizes. Our integrations with hundreds of carriers and order sources provide programmatic delivery solutions. Regardless of what you need—an in-house shipping solution, a way to provide shipping functionality on your platform, or any other custom logistics solutions—our robust APIs can help empower fulfillment, shipping, and delivery. We power parcel delivery for 3PLs, marketplaces like Facebook, and much more. Our embeddable UI elements and shipping APIs can power your platforms, too! Chat with one of our experts today to learn how partnering with ShipEngine can solve shipping.

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Consumer spending continues to evolve and reshape. The major trends we uncovered are that customers shop over a much longer holiday shopping season, express delivery options matter, and marketplaces are more popular than years past. This runs against the grain of trends from previous years when supply chain issues and closing businesses inspired customers to shop from smaller, independent businesses and accept longer fulfillment and delivery times. However, as manufacturing stabilizes and inflation rates remain high, customers are more cost-conscious and prefer to hunt for bargains. It’s not just younger generations, either—older digital adopters are learning to embrace online shopping. Customers also expect express delivery options at affordable prices over the long-preferred standard, free options. Our Holiday Shopping Trends Report dives into what is influencing these new trends, where you have opportunities for success, and how other businesses plan on catering to their customers. With a few tweaks to your service offerings, you can be ahead of the competition all season long. 

Download the Full eBook

Shoppers Are Ready For Bargain Hunting

The official kickoff to the holiday shopping season may be Black Friday, but businesses and consumers start well before then. For instance, Amazon kicks off their holiday shopping season with Amazon Prime Day Early Access, offering promotions starting in October. Furthermore, customers aren’t only shopping sooner, they shop for longer. Many marketplaces and retailers offer holiday sales through much of December. Shopping around has made customers more cost-conscious and more concerned with delivery costs and transit times. Because the new norm is a longer holiday shopping season, merchants not selling where customers are shopping may find themselves out in the cold come winter. 

Be Ready for Marketplace Shoppers

Buying from established marketplaces provides a greater sense of security for shoppers. Their  conveniences attracts 68% of global shoppers to places like Amazon and Walmart over other forms of online sales channels. Two-day delivery and flexible returns are the buyer-leaning advantages. Additional  membership perks like Amazon Prime provide even more cost savings, quicker deliveries, and features that keep shoppers coming back. 

Merchants, however, have less of a favorable time selling products on these marketplaces. Their rigid delivery guidelines, tighter profit margins, and customer-leaning refund policies can cut into your bottom line more than hosting products on your own website. However, there are still advantages. 

Due to their popularity among consumers, listing products on Amazon, eBay, or Walmart can do more for brand awareness and buying potential than costly marketing campaigns. It makes sense, then, that the majority of merchants (53%) selling on marketplaces do so because they can reach a broader audience. Despite the innumerable online stores, there are only a handful of marketplaces that most people shop from. And half of all online holiday orders will be through a marketplace in 2023. 

Delivery Options Matter

Free delivery drives a lot of online sales—but it’s by no means the only winning tactic. Premium shipping options provide buyers with peace of mind and quicker delivery times. 

This comes in handy during the holiday season when shoppers have heightened concerns about timely, secure delivery. 

This is especially true the closer we get to holiday shipping deadlines. With porch pirates and delivery delays on the rise during the holiday season, Americans’ major holiday shipping concern is lost or stolen packages. Shoppers in many of the other geos are more worried about on-time delivery and delivery costs during the holiday season. Delivery security is less of a concern in countries where PUDO (pick up, drop off) delivery options are common. Retailers have options to provide shoppers with delivery security, though. And premium features like signature confirmation, weekend delivery, and express delivery soothe concerns, particularly for last-minute shoppers. We found that a majority of consumers (61%) are willing to pay up to $9 for services such as same-day, next-day, or premium delivery during the holiday season. This increases to as high as 78% among individuals under 45 (Millennials and Gen Z) – the most commercially significant consumer demographic for online retail. Because this price may not cover the full cost of shipping—particularly for premium delivery options, affordable shipping is key. 

Get Your Copy Now

Our 2023 Holiday Shopping Trends report dives into much more than these three topics. To get a country-by-country breakdown, more delivery preferences and insight from other merchants, you can get your own copy! 

The post ShipEngine’s 2023 Holiday Shopping Trends Report  appeared first on Shipstation API.

Consumers are increasingly cost-conscious and, as a result, are pivoting more towards free shipping options. While this has long been the preference, this push towards affordability also brings with it lowered expectations of delivery time. Two-day delivery windows that you find with services like Amazon Prime are no longer the gold standard. In fact, standard shipping has become the new standard! Understanding which delivery options and shipping services are most popular leads to more customers checking out and higher satisfaction. 

Scaling Up: How to Meet Consumers’ Growing Expectations

Click here to download the full report

Inflation Is Shaping Shopping

Of the $310 billion dollars in global inflation projected to impact consumer spending in 2023, $210 billion of that is expected to hit American wallets. This is causing 66% of Americans to change their spending habits this year. The important thing to note about this, though, is that Americans are not shopping less. They may be spending less, but shoppers are in fact shopping around more. This change in consumer behavior speaks to customers looking for better deals and becoming smarter about what they want to buy. 

Shipping Costs: The Major Concern

In our research, we found that 41% of consumers consider cost to be the most important delivery factor. This remains the highest concern year over year from 2022—increasing by 8%. While speed of delivery also remains the second highest concern from last year, it has decreased in importance since 2022. Factors such as inflation and stabilized supply chains have led to these more fortified consumer preferences. Additionally, we found that 60.9% say that high shipping costs make them less likely to shop with a brand. Shoppers are getting smarter. 

Standard Delivery Transit Time Preferences

On average, 34% of consumers are willing to wait 3–4 days for standard delivery. Unlike other preferences, this delivery timeframe is consistent across generations from Gen Z to Baby Boomers. This is due in part to the reset consumers had from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing supply chain delays.

Because shoppers no longer have to buy the moment they find an in-stock item, they can shop around a little more. Additionally, buyers don’t have to worry about fulfillment and delivery delays, so patience around shipping speeds have cooled. The other side to this is that consumers also started shopping from a greater variety of stores than they had previously. As a result, providing affordable shipping has become increasingly important for merchants looking to have the edge over other retailers. But it’s worth noting that, as mentioned above, delivery speed is still a big deciding factor for many shoppers. 

Expedited Delivery Still Matters

While standard delivery options are increasingly popular, many customers are still willing to shell out for expedited delivery. When a customer expects an express shipping option, you have to deliver. Moreover, 28% of consumers still expect standard delivery to arrive within 2 days. Additionally, 22% of shoppers still consider speed of delivery to be the biggest factor when choosing a delivery option from a retailer. Finding the line between affordability and speed isn’t as tough as you might think, though. Many services such as UPS® Ground, USPS Priority Mail®, and others can arrive within this 2-day window. 

Affordable Shipping, No Matter What

ShipEngine is dedicated to providing convenient carrier integrations and APIs you need to make shipping, logistics, and fulfillment simpler. One way we do this is through our USPS discounts up to 89% off and  UPS discounts of up to 84% provided for all companies leveraging our APIs. With ShipEngine, you can provide a full range of standard and express shipping services for your customers. Best of all, the discounted shipping rates we provide allow you to pass savings on to your customers. 

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What is DDP? 

​​When you ship products internationally, each country has its own set of customs regulations and duty/tax rates. Customs fees are then applied to the imported items depending on the items and their commodity being imported. Delivered Duties Paid (DDP) is the international trade term for a shipment whose seller has assumed/paid the total costs for delivering the goods to the destination. 

While DDP has been a feature available through carriers like UPS and FedEx for some time, the USPS has historically not offered it. Keep in mind that this is only a feature available for parcels headed to Canada. ShipEngine provides DDP to Canada through the Global Advantage Program. The Global Advantage Program (GAP) is an international shipping program that allows you to take advantage of the trusted USPS delivery network while benefiting from the discounts and ease of use provided by GlobalPost. Without this program, USPS shipments to Canada would require the customer to pay customs charges.

The opposite of DDP is Delivered Duty Unpaid (DDU). This is when the recipient is responsible for paying the amassed tax/duty amount that customs officials may have assessed. This can create friction if a customer doesn’t realize they have to pay extra when their parcel is delivered. Because international shipping already carries a higher cost than its domestic counterpart, additional charges may cause a customer to not accept the parcel. This can lead them to reject the shipment, resulting in either returned merchandise or abandoning the shipment. Both of these options can be quite costly.

Benefits of DDP

With DDP, the shipper is responsible for paying tax and duties on behalf of the customer, eliminating surprise fees at delivery time for the customer. This allows you to front the costs associated with international shipments and charge shipping fees upfront. With ShipEngine, these costs aren’t always going to range dramatically—particularly when sending to our neighbor to the north.

How Much Does USPS DDP to Canada Cost? 

When you create a DDP shipment with the USPS headed to Canada, you will be charged a flat fee to pay duties or taxes in advance. The fee is determined by the USPS international service you select:

• USPS First Class Mail International®: $9.95
• USPS Priority Mail International® and Priority Mail Express International®: $9.95

Additionally, a DDU shipment can accrue additional charges that DDP eliminates. If Canadian duties and taxes are assessed by customs and DDP was not included, Canada Post collects the fees upon delivery, plus an additional $9.95 surcharge. That extra surcharge could end up being a large percentage of the overall product cost, cutting further into the seller’s margin. DDP eliminates the $9.95 Surcharge. Keep in mind, though, that parcels you send using Canada DDP have a maximum value that cannot exceed $400. 

How to Apply Canada DDP to Shipments in ShipEngine

In ShipEngine, DDP is specified in your Create Label requests as an Advanced Option. The flat fee will display in the other_amount field of the rate response. To access the full documentation on configuring international shipments read ShipEngine’s international shipping documentation

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