Shipping label purchase

Scanpacker can buy shipping labels from multiple carriers as part of the packing workflow. You check the order, choose a service, and Scanpacker buys the label, prints it, and creates the Shopify fulfillment with the tracking number.

Labels are bought through a shipping platform, which connects Scanpacker to your carriers. Which carriers and services you can use depends on your account with that platform.

This feature is included on some plans only. See the pricing page for details.

Buy and print a shipping label Video · 2 min

Shipping platforms

Each platform has its own guide, covering how to connect it and anything that works differently from the steps on this page.

Platform Where it’s used Carriers
EasyPost Worldwide, mostly the US USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, and 100+ others
Shippo Worldwide, mostly the US USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, and 85+ others
Shopify Shipping US, Canada, UK, and parts of Europe The carriers Shopify offers in your country, paid on your Shopify bill
ShipStation (beta) US, Canada, UK, Australia ShipStation’s own USPS, UPS, and FedEx rates, and your own carrier accounts
Sendcloud (beta) Europe DHL, DPD, PostNL, GLS, Colissimo, and others
Shipmate (beta) UK and Ireland The UK and Ireland carriers on your Shipmate account
Shippit (beta) Australia and New Zealand The carriers enabled in your Shippit account
Starshipit (beta) New Zealand and Australia The carriers connected to your Starshipit account
Monta (beta) Netherlands and Europe The carriers Monta has approved for your account
Ship&co (beta) Japan Yamato, Sagawa, Japan Post, and international carriers

Beta platforms are new. If you’d like to use one, email support@scanpacker.com and we’ll help you get set up.

If you’d rather keep buying labels in Shopify admin, see Buy shipping labels in Shopify. For other ways of working, see After checking an order.

Setting up

1. Connect a shipping platform

Create an account with your platform, then in Scanpacker:

  1. Go to Settings → Shipping Labels.
  2. Choose your platform.
  3. Enter your API key or other credentials from that account. Your platform’s guide says where to find them.
  4. Click Save Changes.

The Shipping Labels settings page with the shipping platform options

2. Connect your carriers

Log in to your platform account and connect your carrier accounts (USPS, UPS, FedEx and so on) there. Scanpacker uses whatever your platform account has access to.

3. Let carriers and services appear

With most platforms, carriers and services aren’t synced upfront. Scanpacker adds them as you use them. (ShipStation, Monta, Ship&co, and Shopify Shipping load them as soon as you save.)

  • Carriers appear in Settings → Carriers once you request quotes or buy a label. You can disable any you don’t use.
  • Carrier services (such as “USPS Priority Mail”) appear in Settings → Carrier Services once Scanpacker has seen rates for them.

If you’ve just connected your platform and the lists are empty, that’s expected — fetch some rates and they’ll fill in.

4. Choose default services

In Settings → Carrier Services, set a preferred service for domestic and for international shipments. Preferred services are offered first on the ship page, so most orders need no choosing at all.

The Carrier Services settings page listing discovered services with preferred domestic and international dropdowns

5. Optional: parcel templates and customs defaults

Parcel templates save your standard box sizes. In Settings → Parcel Templates, add a template with a name, its dimensions, and optionally the weight of the empty box. You can then pick it by name when shipping.

Customs defaults apply to international shipments with EasyPost and Shippo. On the Settings → Shipping Labels page, under International Shipping, enter a default customs signer and EEL/PFC code.

Buying a label

Set the parcel size and weight

At the top of the ship page you’ll see the carrier service, parcel size and weight.

The Carrier Service section at the top of the Ship page showing the selected service, parcel size and weight

  • Dimensions — choose a saved template or enter your own.
  • Weight — enter it, or use Recalculate weight to work it out from your product weights plus the packaging weight of the template.

Changing the size or weight clears any rates you’d already fetched, so you’ll need to fetch them again.

Choose a service

Open the carrier service dropdown. Your preferred services are listed first, showing a recent quote if there is one. To see live prices, choose Fetch live rates….

The carrier service dropdown open, showing preferred services and the Fetch live rates option

Rates take a few seconds to come back, with prices and delivery estimates where the carrier provides them. Click one to lock it in.

The fetched shipping rates modal listing quoted services with prices and delivery estimates

Create the fulfillment

Click Create fulfillment. Scanpacker buys the label, records the tracking number, creates the Shopify fulfillment, and prints the label and any customs forms if you’ve set up automated printing.

You can skip the quoting step: choose one of your preferred services without fetching rates, then click Create fulfillment, and Scanpacker will try to buy the label in a single step. It’s quicker, but you won’t see the price first, and not every carrier supports it. If it doesn’t work you’ll be asked to fetch rates instead.

International shipments

Scanpacker sends customs information with the shipment, made up of:

  • Item names, quantities and values from the order
  • HS tariff codes and country of origin from the product variant in Shopify
  • Your default customs signer and EEL/PFC code (EasyPost and Shippo only)

Your shipping platform generates whatever customs paperwork the destination needs, and it prints alongside the label.

To keep declarations accurate, set the customs fields on your products in Shopify: Products → edit a variant → Inventory → Country/Region of origin and HS code.

Orders with multiple fulfillment groups

If an order has more than one fulfillment group — items shipping from different locations, for example — each group gets its own parcel and its own label. You check, size and label each one separately.

Purchased labels

Labels you’ve bought for an order are listed on its ship page with the carrier, service, tracking number and purchase time. From there you can print a label again at any time: click Print to send the label, its shipping forms, or both to your printers. Every label you print shows up in Print History alongside your other documents, so you can see what was printed and where.

If you bought a label but didn’t go on to create the fulfillment, it’s marked as unused, and its tracking number is filled in for you next time you fulfill that order.

Trying it out first

Scanpacker has a demo platform for testing the workflow without a real account or real money. In Settings → Shipping Labels, choose Demo platform. You’ll get made-up carriers, quotes and labels — useful for training staff or checking your printer setup before going live.

When something goes wrong

Each platform’s guide lists the messages that platform gives and what to do about them. These come up with any platform:

“Please re-rate the shipment.” The delivery address changed after you fetched rates, so the quote no longer applies. Fetch rates again.

A rate is no longer available. Quotes expire, and they’re cleared when the parcel size, weight or address changes. Fetch rates again.

The purchase failed. The message will say why. The usual causes are an empty balance or unpaid invoice with your shipping platform, an address the carrier won’t accept, a service that doesn’t cover the destination, or a temporary problem at the shipping platform.

The calculated weight looks wrong. Check the variant weights in Shopify and the packaging weight on your parcel template, or type the weight in by hand.