Apply Bulk Action // Customs Declarations

[devin5]

When we ship internationally, we ship a lot of packages that all have the same items. I wish there was a way that we could make a bulk action that applies the same customs declaration (description, quantity, value, HTS code, Origin) to hundreds of packages at once. Currently, the process where you have to enter 1 at a time is so time-consuming it's insane. Even if there is 1 item in the shipment it takes forever. When there are multiple items, forget it. Perhaps this could be included in an order import function and mapped, or perhaps it could be a bulk action that is applied. It seems like making this a bulk action feature would be very easy, and would certainly make the largest impact to our team.  Looking forward to your feedback! 

[feedback]

Thanks for your idea, Devin! While this isn't a bulk option currently (only setting content type and non-delivery options are available as a bulk action for customs), this is a good idea! In the meantime, you might benefit from using Product Defaults to allow ShipStation to automatically set your customs declarations descriptions, value, HTS code, etc. If you've set ShipStation to create product records from imported orders (this is the default setting, so it's likely you have product records already), you just need to open the Product Details and enter the necessary values in the Customs tab (see image). Do this for each of your product records and going forward, ShipStation will automatically fill in the customs declarations with these values so you don't have to do it manually. For more details, review the following help articles... Product Defaults: https://help.shipstation.com/hc/en-us/articles/360029962851-Product-Automation-Defaults ShipStation's International Settings: https://help.shipstation.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035991611-ShipStation-s-International-Settings

[devin5]

Thanks for this quick feedback. Here is some more insight into my situation as well as feedback from playing around with your suggestion. 1. This works well when there is a single product in the shipment and we can upload the SKU of the product with the manual import. We really only do manual order imports, so the automatic product matching when importing from another service doesn't apply to our needs. 2. I am not sure how we would do multi-product shipments this way. I have not tried to enter multiple SKUs in the import file, but can test that. 3. It looks like this only works when you import the order with the SKU. I also tried adding in the item and sku after the order was made and it did not sync the product customs data. I tried checking the box to apply to open orders as well and it didn't appear to be working. 4. A lot of the time, our products vary with the cost, HTS code, origin, etc. We do not have a set product that we are selling and shipping, but a dynamic rotating product set. We could always be updating this database as one approach, or go through each order and change the value of the shipment (if the description and hts are the same, but just a different cost) to reflect the correct cost based on that order batch that day. Either way is not ideal for our specific needs. All in all, I appreciate your suggestion - it will for sure speed up some of our processes, although it is not a complete fix for our exact needs due to the way we use the system with manual order imports, varying customs info across products, etc. Thanks, team - hopefully, we can get the bulk action on the radar for future improvements. Until then, I will keep playing around with this fix.

[kirsten1]

We have this same issue. Hundreds of International orders, each box has 4-5 different customs declarations required based on what's in the box. Currently I spend approximately 3 full days (30 hrs) per batch updating customs info. It is excruciatingly tedious at the best of times. ShipStation, PLEASE prioritize this. We are currently exploring other software options because this becomes more and more unmanageable as we grow

[thomas5]

Yeah — this is silly to not have this. Also cannot upload a CSV file to do customs. So that means the ONLY option ShipStation offers for international customs is to select the order, scroll down to the customs area. Fill in at least three fields. Click out (I guess? Not sure how to save that as I recently had 2/3 of about 100 customs show up blank after having done this work). Then click to the next order — which you can no longer do by keying down in this new build — so you have to manually click on the next order and then repeat… of I don’t know. If you have lots of international orders possibly 100+ times?

[thomas5]

Clearly Ship Station doesn’t care about international shippers. Posted that two years ago. Still not a hint of effort to fix what is obviously a HUGE issue for people with ++ international packages. Not even an option to do this bulk via CSV file. Crazy. If more than 30% of my orders were international, I’d not consider ShipStation as an option. 

[CaraAdmin]

Hey there Thomas5,
Thank you for your comment, I am sorry to hear that we are missing the mark. While international shipments have more involved than domestic shipments, we do have options to optimize your workflow. Here in this article, you can see our features to add customs information on the product level - which will help automate filling in customs declarations. Our team would be more than happy to walk you through setup should this be helpful, otherwise we are grateful for your feedback and strive to offer the best product for domestic and international shipping.
Please feel free to DM us or contact our team at support@shipstation.com
Happy Shipping,
-Cara

[Brown]

Hi CaraAdmin,

Updating the customs information at the product level is NOT a valid solution for this problem.

Shipping charges and other fees billed to the customer at the time of sale are also taxable.  There's nowhere to enter that at the product level and it's a variable amount.  That means we all still have to go through each order to change the item value to the item value + shipping + any other taxable fees.  

Curiously, the customs declarations fields automatically populate with Duties Paid and Postage Paid values in the order detail screen.  However, those values do not automatically factor into the Total Value and they don't appear on the customs forms.  You've locked us out from editing the Total Value field, and it doesn't calculate the correct amount because it ignores other taxable fees.  We're forced to enter our correctly calculated Total Value into the Item Value field on every order to get it right.  Your sellers who don't understand this are going to get hit with big tax bills eventually.