Shipping Labels Integration Guide for Retailers & Suppliers
Transparency & Other Guides
This is a combined retailer/supplier guide intentionally so both parties transparently understand each other's integration requirements and responsibilities as success in e-commerce transactions is a two-party dance.
Overview
This guide explains how a partner, a retailer or supplier, would use Rithum's Dsco platform, and optionally Rithum's Dsco Platform API, to generate Shipping Labels to ship their orders.
Terms
Below are terms used throughout this guide.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Dsco platform support team | The Dsco platform support team can be reached at support-dsco@rithum.com. |
The Flow
A retailer places an order with a supplier, and the supplier acknowledged the order and is ready to ship. The supplier navigates to the shipment editor in Dsco and indicates they want to create a shipping label through the shipping label feature in Dsco rather than attach an existing tracking number to the shipment. The supplier is shown a form in which they provide missing details, among others the package dimensions, desired carrier and service level, and the warehouse they will ship the order from. Upon completing the form, the Dsco platform generates a shipping label using the credentials of the carrier account owned by either the retailer or supplier participating in the transaction and connected to Dsco as part of Shipping Labels onboarding. Upon successful generation of the shipping label, the order is reported as shipped and the supplier can download the shipping label and packing slip from the Dsco UI to print and attach to the package sent from their warehouse. The complete flow is as follows, and assumes both the retailer- and supplier accounts have onboarded to Dsco successfully and are ready for use.
- Retailer -> Supplier
The retailer initiates a connection with the supplier to allow both parties to do business and provide goods to an end consumer. - Supplier -> Dsco
The supplier completes the connection onboarding process that involves setting up a warehouse and fulfilling test orders among others. - Retailer -> Dsco
The retailer verifies the supplier has completed all onboarding steps and activates the connection. - Retailer -> Dsco
The retailer authorizes the supplier to leverage Dsco's shipping label feature with the help of their Client Success Manager/Program Manager or the Dsco onboarding team. - Retailer/Supplier -> Dsco
Either the retailer or supplier connects their carrier account to the Dsco platform to ensure the shipping label request can be forwarded to the carrier on their behalf and they are billed the cost of the shipment by the carrier. - Retailer -> Supplier
The retailer creates an order to be fulfilled by the supplier. - Supplier -> Dsco
The supplier leverages the Dsco UI as described in this section's introduction to successfully generate a shipping label and ship the retailer's order.
(Optional) Dsco Platform API integration
Any retailer and supplier wishing to create stand-alone Shipping Labels can leverage the Shipping Labels part of the Dsco Platform API to do so.
In this case, the supplier would not leverage the Dsco UI to generate a shipping label when needed, but steps (1) through (5) still need to be performed to authorize the supplier for Shipping Labels and ensure the shipping label request can be forwarded to the carrier on behalf of the retailer or supplier to whom the cost of the shipment by the carrier are billed.
Onboarding
As summarized in the previous section, there are onboarding steps both the retailer and supplier need to take to leverage Dsco's shipping label feature - these steps are documented in this section.
Dsco account setup and retailer/supplier connection
This documentation assumes that suppliers are already familiar with the process of setting up their Dsco account and establishing a connection between a retailer and supplier - this is a concern that the Dsco platform support team can assist in. Therefore, the steps (1) through (3) in the previous section are assumed to be familiar and are not covered in more depth.
Configuring the Shipping Labels feature
Configuring the Shipping Labels feature involves both the connected retailer and supplier and is done partly through the Dsco UI, and partly with the help of the Dsco platform support team.
[Retailer] Enabling the Delivery Solutions product
Not all retailers have the Delivery Solutions product enabled - the retailer can enable the product by working with their Client Success Manager or the Sales team.
[Retailer] Authorizing the connected supplier to use the Dsco Shipping Labels feature
Suppliers needs to be authorized by the retailer to generate Shipping Labels for an order placed by the retailer and fulfilled by the supplier. The retailer can collaborate with their Client Success Manager/Program Manager or the Dsco onboarding team to do so.
[Retailer/Supplier] Connecting the carrier account
Either the retailer or supplier needs to connect their carrier account to the Dsco platform to ensure the shipping label request can be forwarded to the carrier on their behalf and they are billed the cost of the shipment by the carrier.
This process of connecting the carrier account currently involves a manual step by the Dsco platform support team to generate a link that redirects to the carrier's website to authenticate with the carrier account that is to be used for generating Shipping Labels. Therefore, the party responsible for the connection is required to reach out and provide
- the carrier account number (e.g. the billing account number for
UPS); - the owner of the carrier account, which can be either the retailer, supplier, or one of the supplier's warehouses.
The Dsco platform support team will respond to the support request with the onboarding link and any other instructions for the party to successfully connect their carrier account and take the next steps.
Features
The Shipping Labels feature available to Dsco platform users with access to the Delivery Suite product exposes the following functionality that can be customized to the needs of the retailer and supplier collaborating in the fulfillment of orders.
Warehouse address override
The warehouse address override is applied to all suppliers connected to a retailer if configured for the retailer. The override can be configured by specifying one or more parts of the warehouse address from which an order is shipped. The configured values are always used when generating a shipping label for any order fulfilled for the retailer, instead of the values otherwise retrieved from the address of the warehouse.
The warehouse address override can be configured with the help of the Dsco platform support team.
Available carriers and service levels
Currently, the Shipping Labels feature allows customers to generate Shipping Labels for the carrier UPS and supports a subset of the ship methods offered by UPS.
The ship methods that are currently supported are listed in a Postman collection available for download below. Each request of the collection uses a different ship method - the collection can be used to get an idea of what valid request payloads look like for each supported ship method.
- Click here to download the Postman collection to get started.
- Click here to download a template of the Postman environment to configure the collection for use.
Available packaging types
Currently, the Shipping Labels feature allows customers to generate Shipping Labels for the carrier UPS and supports a subset of packaging types offered by UPS.
The packaging types that are currently supported are listed in a Postman collection available for download below. Each request of the collection uses a different packaging type - the collection can be used to get an idea of what valid request payloads look like for each supported packaging type.
- Click here to download the Postman collection to get started.
- Click here to download a template of the Postman environment to configure the collection for use.
Fine-grained carrier account credentials
As mentioned here, the Shipping Labels feature supports the association of carrier account credentials to retailers, suppliers, and also supplier's warehouses. This fine-grained control of which carrier account is used when a shipping label is created gives customers lots of flexibility to manage how the cost of the shipment by the carrier is billed.
The Dsco platform support team can advise customers how to best connect their carrier accounts while onboarding to the Shipping Labels feature depending on their billing strategy.