Is Shippo comparable to easypost? What are the differences/benefits? Seems like Shippo is more for small businesses and offers a richer interface for managing things without having to first integrate the API? Easypost seems more directed at developers, but they also seems like they are hiring a lot of ux people so I would assume they are building their own management interfaces aswell. Just wondering if both serve the same use cases. I will be looking at integrating something like this into a product primarily for shipping label creation and I am curious how the two services differ.
Sawyer from EasyPost here. Yes, we're generally upstream of Shippo - we power a bunch of their competitors in the app / shipping UI space. We focus more on developer APIs and all of the tools and performance considerations that come with that.
Our UI developers are focused mainly on analytics for the platform - we're happy to leave the click n' ship piece to Shipstation, ShipRush, Shippo, etc.
Our product is the API and we’re very much focusing on letting developers build on top of it. Comparing shipping APIs is like an iceberg, you need to look below the water to see the difference.
Let's start with the technical stuff.
1. We've actively taken the route of having deep, certified carrier integrations with each of the shipping providers we support. For instance, we are an USPS ePostage partner, being one of the only 3 companies with a direct connection with the USPS (http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y16/m03/i17/s02). This means that we don't rely on any other APIs to generate USPS rates, labels etc. ensuring that our uptime is more stable (https://status.goshippo.com/) and less dependent on other systems.
2. We've built out an internal engine that generates shipping rates (and soon, labels) locally. This means that even if carrier APIs go down, you can
generate rates through Shippo.
3. Being partners with carriers and forming good relationships means that we are able to get our customers better support with them. For instance, we're able to help connect customers to local USPS and DHL reps to help them better manage real-life ops. From a developer perspective, issues that we bring up are also expedited because we know who to go to.
4. We aggregate shipping volume across our platform to help negotiate for discounts with carriers. When you start with Shippo, you don't need an account to start shipping, we set you up with master accounts immediately (but of course, you can plug your own in).
The big picture stuff.
Our goal is to be there from a business' first order, all the way to being directly connected to their system and warehouses as they grow. This means working with both business/ops people and developers.
1. For SMBs/business/ops people, they can use our interface, which is built directly on top of the API, to access all the awesome things. They can manually upload orders, CSVs or use our shipping app on platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, etc.
2. For developers, all shipments created through the API automatically are synced to the dashboard. You won't need to build your own interface from scratch. Anyone can start manage shipping right away.
We want to make shipping easy for everyone - no matter what size your business is, or who you are at a company. Building an API to make this happen is the best way to do it at this day-and-age, but we believe that it's important to also make the power that the API provides accessible to everyone.
