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Automatic printing of Packing Slips for new orders

Related products:Printing & Documents
  • June 30, 2012
  • 162 replies
  • 12 views

Because this original request I made for this was closed when an unrelated feature was introduced, I'm creating a new one. I would very much like to be able to have the automation in ShipStation be able to print. This would allow me to have it automatically print all new orders that have downloaded, so that warehouse personnel know an order has come in when the printer starts spitting out packing slips. This is something we're used to having in a different product we switched from to ShipStation and it's the main thing we miss. With printing being done through ShipStation Connect now, this should be entirely possible too. The other thing that would have be added is another feature that ShipStation really does need anyway: an indication of some kind that an order has already been printed. This would allow automation to "print all unprinted orders" as well as greatly reduce the possibility of orders being double-packed when more than 1 person is working shipping. We've had this happen multiple times simply because there's no good way to tell when an order has already been printed right now. Thank you!!

162 replies

We would absolutely love the ability to have incoming orders automatically print to a printer using Google Cloud Print. Ideally, there would be new rule actions: Print Packing Slip to Default Google Cloud Printer, Print Postage Shipping Label to Default Google Cloud Printer. Then our shippers can just walk to the printer when a new order comes in and start packing. We print 2 packing slips for every order so a bonus would be to have the ability to print 2 slips by either setting the number to print or simply running the rule action twice. We would prefer to have packing slips automatically printed to cloud a Google Cloud Printer for every order. Postage labels could be automatically printed if ShipStation had a way to determine shipping weight by what products were ordered.

Ah, I didn't see this and gave my votes to a new request for the same feature. This would be awesome to have!

  • October 14, 2012
Please do this! We rely on printed invoices to help us pull inventory from the warehouse, so having them automatically print when an order comes in would be ideal. We have evaluated one other desktop shipping software that does this fairly easily. I hoped ShipStation would be able to do this but I'm finding it difficult to even figure out how it might be possible. The suggestion the poster recommended for new rule actions was the first place I looked. Please add this!

  • December 15, 2012
This would be amazing. This would keep my warehouse team on task by automating the printing of labels. Please do this

Be nice if you could just add this to the Automation Rules so it can be added by those who want it, and I would love to be able to have 2 copies print.

  • May 14, 2013
I presume you would have to know your shipping weight in advance to print shipping labels?

  • September 18, 2013
Just to have the ability to simultaneously print a packing slip to a different printer, when a label prints would be great.

  • October 14, 2013
This would be crazy awesome.. Just imagine waking up to a stack of labels all ready to just fill and drop off instead of loading up ShipStation and selecting orders and all that stuff to print.. any order with issues could just be set aside and marked with a notification

  • April 22, 2014
Please add this feature so we don't have to change providers :-(

  • Author
  • August 29, 2014
Please add this feature ASAP! I am switching from a competing product that does have this feature and while I love ShipStation I'm missing this badly right now. We used to just pick up packing lists from the printer and start working on them without needing to perform any extra steps or look for them. As it stands now we need to look for new orders and manually print orders. This also requires we keep track of which ones were already printed to avoid multiple printouts for each order. This is a super useful feature, and I really think you should make it a top priority. Thanks!

  • October 9, 2014
Please add this feature! I've had to create an ugly workaround by creating a custom order email and an automation rule that automatically emails each order to my printer, but the custom email doesn't have all the right information on it (no variants, no receipt information).

  • February 2, 2015
Please add this feature! I am currently looking into using Autohotkey to automate printing orders off the shipstation website, but having the ability to automatically print the orders and the shipping labels built into shipstation would be amazing!

  • May 8, 2015
This is a features that we would really love to see happen! To Gymdoll's point we also have to print two different slips for every order and once you print one you have to go back to the print tab and do another and this is very time consuming!

An Automated rule when a new order is imported, a packing silp is printed to your default shipstation connect printer. This way when i get home from work i know what orders i need to fill and can begin packing them without having to get on a website. Just grab the slips from the printer and go.

  • June 17, 2015
I agree with Trent. Ideally, I would like two packing slips printed every time an order is imported into print station.

  • June 22, 2015
This would be awesome to have and save so much time!!

  • July 31, 2015
I'm adding my vote for this feature, with a modification to select whichever printer one wishes to use (we use Shipstation Connect). Thanks!

  • August 30, 2015
Not sure why this isn't already an option, but automatic printing seems pretty standard. I would like to see automatic printing of labels and packing slips upon batch completion (instead of having to click the "Print Packing Slips" and "Print Labels" buttons).

  • September 21, 2015
I have a small home business on the side. I only use USPS. My Workflow: First, i combine orders from same customers then I check to make sure all orders (with multiple items) have correct weights. I still don't fully trust my automation rules but it is 98% accurate. Then I make sure the customer requested shipping method matches the current method. I then print labels, packing slips and pick list for every batch. I do 3 batches a day. Side note: One thing I hate is having to click the green "Create Labels" button on the popup that pops up after i click "Create Labels" on the right sidebar. I dont need this "confirmation" I then proceed to print my labels. When i started using shipstation, i was printing the label and packing slip in one 8x11 label page. It was convenient but i was wasting a label for every order (500+ orders a month) because we do not send packing slips with orders. So i purchased a new printer with 2 trays; one with label paper and one with regular paper but it did not work well because if label paper tray ran out of labels, it would automatically print a shipping label on regular paper tray (tried changing this behavior but unsuccessful). So now i use 2 printers; one for shipping labels @ 2 per sheet and one for packing slips also 2 per sheet and also used for pick list. I am happy with the setup. I use google cloud print only. i print shipping labels from work for my wife to pack. I even use cloud print at home. Shipstation connect almost never works. Printers are always offline or not detected by shipstation connect so i stopped using it. My suggestions regarding this auto printing idea: I would love for the software to auto print. It would help when im too busy at work to print labels for my wife to pack. I would help a lot to be able to at least print simple, single orders automatically and leave more complex, multiple orders to a human. I would also like to be able to only auto print orders where the customer chooses First Class shipping method because sometimes when they choose priority i still ship it as first class for various reasons.

  • October 23, 2015
It would be nice to have an automation rule that prints a packing slip ONLY when the # of items bought exceeds the lines on a label (3 domestic / 5 International).......So I do forget to pack the extra items. Right now I have to flag those with a tag color to let myself know to handle them manually.

  • October 23, 2015
Thank you for all the info, everyone! Going off of @David's comment, how would you handle orders that needed combining if there was the ability to automatically print your labels and packing slips?

  • October 23, 2015
My thought behind the automatic printing would be that the interface would automatically print the labels and packing slips on batch completion (i.e. eliminate the need to press the "Print Labels" and "Print Packing Slips" buttons). So everything that needed to be done as far as combining orders would have already been completed. If instead this feature were to be designed to automatically print labels and packing slips as orders come in, then to mitigate the problem with combining orders, there would have to be some kind of user-specified delay (or time-of-day setting). If the customer doesn't place another order within X minutes/hours, then it's assumed there won't be another order from them.

  • Author
  • October 23, 2015
Just to put in my $0.02, when I originally requested this feature over a year ago, there wasn't really a good way to do it because there was no direct access to printers via a web page. However, now that there's ShipStation Connect and Google Cloud Printer support, this would be pretty simple to accomplish. I routinely print packing slips to our warehouse printer remotely from my phone via the ShipStation app, so it wouldn't be much of a leap to build a rule that could just do that without manual intervention. The reason I'd be looking for it is to print packing slips as soon as an order is downloaded from a marketplace, to let the fulfillment staff know about it and to eliminate extra steps in the process. While it might be nice for some to automatically print labels as well, we wouldn't be looking to do that ourselves. Packing slips would be enough, and greatly appreciated as well.

  • October 23, 2015
I agree with @guntap on BOTH points. Regarding the auto batch printing, after successful batch, I would like SS to automatically send labels to my printer 1 and packing slip and pick list to printer 2, then mark as printed in the checkbox. Currently i sit around and wait for the batch to complete. No point in closing the window because I print labels right after each batch. After its successful, i click print labels, then print packing slips, then print pick list, and finally click the checkbox that says printed. Regarding the auto order printing, Most of my multiple orders are made within minutes. I would set a 1 or 2 hour delay between automatic printing. Also, I do not own a thermal printer yet and i do not print packing slip/invoice in 1 page. Therefore i would want it to auto-print only when there is an even number of orders so i wont waste labels/paper

  • October 27, 2015
I want to automatically print the packing slip for each imported order from all my channels, plus for each manually input order, to a laser printer via ship station connect.