Table of Contents
Shipping API Solutions for Efficient International Deliveries
Introduction
As an eCommerce business owner, seeing your business grow internationally is an achievement. It represents the hard work you have put in for product selection, creating marketing strategies, and providing a top-notch shopping experience. APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) have been instrumental in this process.
While this excitement helps you move forward, the thing that keeps you awake at night is international shipping. Maintaining each country's customs regulations, dealing with fluctuating shipping rates, and sending cross-border shipments to customers on time are no small feats.
That’s why you need to opt for the best shipping API integrations that help you manage domestic and international shipments. Global shipping APIs ensure you perform all these tasks with ease. In this article, we are going to discuss why you need to opt for international shipping APIs and give you a list of top international shipping APIs that you can consider trying.
Let’s get into it.
Why Shipping APIs Are Essential for International Deliveries?
To give you a heads-up, a shipping API is mainly a collection of communication protocols that help systems share information with each other. As per a recent study by Fortune Business Insights, the Global API management market size is expected to reach $34.17 billion by 2034. Transportation and logistics sectors account for a significant share of this market.
Rest APIs contribute greatly to the shipping capabilities of global carriers and freight forwarders. Shipping APIs work to help e commerce platforms manage their logistics operations in ways that improve customer experience. Let’s take a look at why shipping APIs are getting such significant popularity.
1. Access to International Carriers
Global shipping APIs come pre-integrated with domestic and international shipping providers. It offers access to carriers’ shipping options, rates and helps you connect with them with a single click. As a result, you can choose the best logistics partners according to your shipping needs. It becomes even more convenient if you frequently deal with the sheer volume of international orders and have partnered with multiple carriers.
Also, by integrating with shipping APIs, you can centralize the shipping data on the go. This further eliminates the need for visiting carriers’ portals from time to time and saves you time. An added bonus: APIs integrated with international carriers let you remove the manual processes involved in order creation and printing shipping labels.
2. Cross-border Shipment Tracking
Cross-border shipments usually involve multiple handoffs between carriers, customs challenges, and language barriers. In fact, every carrier has its own system to display shipping information to the ecommerce store. These make it difficult for businesses to monitor cross-border orders and track shipments over long distances. Shipping APIs consolidate the tracking data across carriers and display it on a standardized interface, making it easier for merchants to monitor global shipments.
The tracking functionality works from the time of shipment creation via barcodes added when creating shipping labels. And APIs help provide the same level of real time tracking as offered for domestic shipments. Plus, most shipping APIs offer visibility during customs clearance and translate the tracking information into shippers’ local language. Consequently, you can stay updated regarding every step of the shipping process and take action immediately if you find any issues.
3. Automated Customs Documentation
If you’re new to international delivery, customs clearance can be a tough nut to crack. The process often involves complex paperwork, varying regulations that differ from country to country, and intensive inspection of goods.
With a shipping API, you can ease and automate much of the customs documentation procedure. For example, it automatically generates and pre-fills customs documents, including commercial invoices, packing lists, customs declaration forms, and more. At the same time, it helps ensure that this documentation is compliant with the respective country’s customs requirements.
In most cases, shipping APIs calculate the payable duties and help in customs submission through EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). Automating this process allows you to track and compare rates, so you can reduce costs for customs clearances and save money by choosing the most cost effective shipping options.
4. Optimization for International Shipping Rates
International shipping is one of the most expensive aspects of the global supply chain. As per the study, global logistics costs are set to increase by $13 trillion by 2026.
If you opt for a shipping API, you can compare rates across carriers and pick the most optimal option for your business. In addition, it helps you calculate accurate shipping costs, considering various factors like currency fluctuations, region-specific fees, and so on. With the help of the shipping API, you can also display the shipping rate on the checkout page to maintain transparency between you and your customers.
Besides, a shipping API helps in shipping invoice reconciliation and keeps you updated with fluctuations regarding shipping charges.
Top 6 Shipping APIs for Effortless International Shipping
Here’s a list of the top 6 leading global shipping APIs that will help you optimize your international deliveries on all fronts:
1. ClickPost API
ClickPost is an AI-first logistics intelligence platform. It comes pre-integrated with 450+ carrier providers worldwide and offers a single-click integration for them. It provides a bunch of shipping solutions like carrier allocation, EDD prediction, international order creation, cross-border shipment tracking, failed delivery management, cross-border returns handling, and more.
Global brands including Acer, Adidas, Decathlon, and Puma rely on ClickPost to optimize their shipping operations and have already achieved the desired results. Integrating ClickPost’s APIs with your tech stack is extremely easy. These APIs mainly follow the JSON format.
Key Features of ClickPost
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ML-based carrier allocation system
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Automated order creation
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Centralized tracking
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On-time customer alerts
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SLA Breaches prediction
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Fake & Failed delivery management
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Returns management
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Branding options
Streamline your shipping experience with ClickPost

2. Shippo API
Shippo is a multi-carrier shipping software by nature. It offers a unified API that is connected with 85+ carriers. Shippo’s API is built around REST principles and supports JSON format for both API requests and responses. It offers a free plan for its API where you’ll be able to generate 30 labels per month.
Key Features of Shippo
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Label generation
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Address validation
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Real-time shipment tracking
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Rate shopping across carriers
3. ShipEngine API
Through ShipEngine’s international shipping API, you can create outbound and inbound shipping labels across 100+ carriers. For cross-border shipping, ShipEngine helps in generating customs documents, trade forms, commercial invoices, and CN23s.
ShipEngine’s shipping API is focused on reducing international shipping delays. It immediately transfers data like tariff information and origin country to the carrier.
Key Features of ShipEngine
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Label creation
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Shipping cost calculation
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Address validation
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Shipment tracking
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Handling customs documentation
4. AfterShip API
AfterShip’s shipping API supports JSON format for all standard HTTP methods: GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. As of now, AfterShip is connected with over 1000+ courier partners and offers a bunch of features like order creation, rate calculation, tracking, and address validation. AfterShip’s APIs have a 99.99% uptime rate. This means that you can pull off any task without any glitches.
Key Features of AfterShip
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Simplified order tracking
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Integrations with 1000+ carriers
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Shipping rate calculation
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Address validation
5. EasyPost API
EasyPost API is basically a RESTful API that is integrated with carriers like UPS, USPS, FedEx, and DHL. Plus, the EasyPost API is customizable to fit individual business needs. It has a 99.99% uptime guarantee and provides pre-built libraries in popular languages, like Python, PHP, Ruby, Node.js, etc.
Key Features of EasyPost
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Bulk label creation
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Customs declaration
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Order manifestation
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Return label creation
6. Sendcloud API
Sendcloud offers a multi-carrier shipping API that is connected with 100+ logistics providers across the globe. It’s also a RESTful API that you can connect with your eCommerce systems, WMS, and ERP solutions. At the same time, it’s reliable, easy to use, and well-documented.
Key Features of Sendcloud
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Automated order processing
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Access to dynamic shipping rates
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Display of delivery options on the checkout page
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Order tracking
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Returns management
Conclusion
Managing international orders, while maintaining customer expectations is a challenge in itself. Without a shipping API, handling this challenge becomes twice as hard. A global shipping API eliminates time-consuming repetitive tasks, making the process faster and more efficient. Plus, it also takes care of customers’ expectations by sending them timely delivery alerts and simplifying returns for them.
In simple terms, an international shipping API is the secret sauce for smoother, faster, and optimized cross-border deliveries.