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2401 Ideas

UPS EOD is a MUSTDeclined

Currently, Shipstation does not offer a UPS End of Day scan sheet.  Shipstation management seems to think (from their documentation) that an EOD (End of Day) scan is not needed for UPS, since Shipstation is sending the data anyway to UPS every day.  This purpose of the EOD for UPS has nothing to do with pushing data to UPS.  Proof for this if obvious, because UPS has their own free shipping software called World Ship.  World Ship automatically pushes all shipment data to UPS when each shipment is created while developers of World Ship still understand the need to create an EOD each day for the driver to scan anyway.   The reason that UPS themselves create a scannable pickup sheet for the end of day in their own software is so that there is "proof" that the packages have been picked up and in their possession.  This is important for a few reasons:1. It documents that the package was picked up giving the recipient comfort that their package is in transit.2. It gives proof that a package was picked up in case it is lost or stolen in transit.  Then the shipper can then prove that the fault lies in UPS's hands causing them to be responsible to pay a claim.  3. The scannable EOD page allows the UPS pickup driver to scan just 1 barcode instead of 50 or a100 separate cartons causing a waste of time to the driver.  The lack of this EOD scan sheet causes to the shipper not to know whether the driver scanned every package while not having the time or the stamina to stand on top of the driver themselves to watch him scan every package.  Nobody can run a business like this. Shipstation tells you that if you "really" want the driver to sign a manifest which is REQUIRED by any insurance claim, then you can go through the trouble to print out a list of your shipments and ask the driver to sign it.  This is tedious and the drivers will not usually want to do this - it is not UPS's way of doing business and without an EOD sheet, they are not required to do so. It is a no brainer for Shipstation to make a scannable EOD to have it printed and scanned daily just like Shipstation makes one for USPS EOD. We have experienced our 3rd claim today in a year where a package was not scanned and now missing in transit.  The unscanned packages then become vulnerable for theft with no accountability.  There will be no recourse that we can take on this missing package today specifically because there was no EOD sheet that could have been scanned. Shipstation: PLEASE LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS, HAVE COMMON SENSE and DO SOMETHING TO KEEP YOUR CUSTOMERS SAFE.  Businesses need to sign for things that they take in their possession as proof that they picked it up.  It needs to be made easy.  Make a scannable UPS EOD sheet to protect us from these issues.

Integration of UPS Hundredweight ServicesNew

The company I work for has grown to the point that we are starting to branch out into handling larger orders with higher frequencies. Our UPS representative suggested that we give their UPS Hundredweight Service a shot. For an order to be classified as a candidate for Hundredweight service, the order has to be more than 200lbs and less than 700lbs. Supposedly the rates for UPS Hundredweight are more competitive than our UPS Ground rates and could potentially save us some spend on our shipping. For us, this would be a decent amount of orders considering we ship items that weight anywhere between 15lbs and 50lbs. Multiple item orders with items that between those weights don't take particularly to reach Hundredweight territory. Anywhere from 4 to 7 boxes of category cable will get us there. These processed packages get palletized with all of our normal outbound UPS Ground packages. Only thing we would have to do is change the shipping service to UPS Hundredweight.  The problem is ShipStation does not have any integration with UPS Hundredweight shipping service. The only option we have right now is to utilize UPS WorldShip, which is definitely not a palatable idea compared to using ShipStation combined with our website's, back office application's, and WMS application's automation capabilities.  We certainly cannot be the only business looking to utilize this particular UPS shipping service. ShipStation has quite a few different types of UPS, USPS, FedEX, and a plethora of other shipping services that can be integrated with it. How difficult would it be to get UPS Hundredweight able to be integrated as well? Is this something that could possibly be explored?