AfterShip launches webhook for users to collect information about different delivery events as they happen in near real-time. By providing a URL and select the events, AfterShip will send the data you request to the URL whenever the events take place (e.g. out for delivery or delivered).

To configure AfterShip webhook, visit “Notifications” then “Webhook”, enter a valid URL. Similar to notification settings, users can select when to receive the updates: In transit, out for delivery, delivered, failed delivery attempt or/and exception.

Some users leverage on AfterShip webhook to update the latest delivery status back to the shopping cart system, and also send out notifications from their side instead of passing through AfterShip.

If you have question regarding the webhook, please contact andrew [at] aftership.com

AfterShip automatically detect the courier of each shipment based on its tracking number format. While AfterShip supports over 70 couriers, the same tracking number format may clash with multiple couriers. In this case, you will want to tell AfterShip which courier you’re actually using, i.e. set a courier priority for your AfterShip account.

You can now select your preferred couriers for tracking at your AfterShip account (“Account” > “Courier Priority”). Check the field “Enabled” for the couriers you wish to use, and drag the courier you use to the top if you want to give it a higher priority. So that for the case of tracking number format matches two or multiple carriers, AfterShip knows which courier it should choose for your account. See below the screen shot. If you still have any questions, email me at andrew@aftership.com

The question comes into my mind when we ask ourselves how important should an online store allow customers to track within the site. How frequent do people track a shipment? UPS suggests 2.42 times per shipment based on their 2012 fact sheet.

Daily delivery volume = 16.3 million packages &  documents
Online tracking Average = 39.5 million daily tracking requests

Let’s do some simple Maths. Assume your online store:

• Monthly sales =  5,000 orders / shipments  from 5,000 customers
• Monthly Tracking volume = 12,100 times (2.42 per order)

If your store provides an easy way for customer to track a shipment within your website, you can turn tracking shipment into an opportunity to make customers return for cross-selling. i.e. 12,1000 extra visits per month.

AfterShip API helps online store to show delivery status within store, customers do not even need to input a tracking number! Alternatively, we also launched a FREE tracking widget g.tt for online shop with basic technical support.

Demo store – Go to “Order History” after login
demo.aftership.com
login: demo@aftership.com
pwd: demo

For any questions, please contact me at andrew@aftership.com

Do you know that some carriers require users to input both tracking number and area code (or postalcode) for tracking a shipment? We believe this is to avoid duplicate records in their tracking system and also strengthen the privacy protection of the tracking number. When you track such shipment in AfterShip, you can enter the tracking number followed by “:” and area code (XXXXXXXXXXXXX:YYYY). Read more for more examples.

Examples:

NACEX Spain Tracking: http://g.tt/nacex-spain/10219058:2844
PostNL Tracking: http://g.tt/postnl/3SRPPB1644664:4900HA
Hermes Tracking: http://g.tt/hermes-europe/8761197663602372:B303EX
Yodel Tracking: http://g.tt/yodel/JD0002239022101914:NE232XR

Note: g.tt is a FREE tracking widget that allows you to insert in your website.

Thanks to our new team member WenLong who just joined 2 months ago, AfterShip added 27 new couriers in the past 2 months – AfterShip now supports tracking for 56 couriers! We expect the list hit 100 couriers soon  AfterShip standardizes the format and user interface when tracking a shipment regardless which carrier you use. The AfterShip API allows developer to connect to tracking system of all our supported carries – try it free now! Full list of supported couriers.

27 new couriers added:

• Sweden Posten
• DPD UK
• Argentina OCA E-Pak
• DHL Netherlands
• DHL Poland
• International Seur
• OPEK
• Parcel Force
• Portugal Seur
• Purolator
• Russian Post
• Saudi Post
• Siodemka
• Spanish Seur
• Star Track Australia
• TAQBIN Hong Kong
• TAQBIN Singapore
• Mexico Multipack
• Mexico Senda Express
• Mexico Redpack
• YRC
• Interlink Express
• Hermes
• Yodel
• City Link
• NACEX Spain
• GLS

How great it is for customers to receive a SMS notification about delivery updates? SMS notification is perfect for sending out important notifications like “out for delivery” and “failed delivery attempt” to ensure customers receive the shipment. What’s more? AfterShip now supports users to have a custom phone number to send out SMS notifications (by default, the SMS notifications will come from the same AfterShip’s US phone numbers). A few bigger merchants have already started this service. If you are interested in this new feature, please contact me at andrew@aftership.com for a quotation.

Thanks to the techcrunch story about AfterShip in Jan 2013 - we saw a significant growth of notifications sent in the past month. AfterShip just sent over 500K notifications for thousands of online stores to their customers. Keep your customers informed when the order is shipped, out for delivery, delivered or exception happens! Sign up free and start tracking your shipments and notify your customers.  AfterShip now supports 50 carriers!

Growth of AfterShip’s notification number:
0              1 Mar 2012
40,000  15 May 2012
100,000 12 Jul 2012
200,000 12 Oct 2012
300,000 18 Dec 2012
500,000 19 Feb 2013

Great news! If you are using AfterShip API or CSV upload, you can now add unlimited custom fields to your AfterShip account. With custom fields, you can further personalize the delivery notifications and for reporting purpose. A great example is to add “order description” and “product category” to the shipment. Read more to learn how to add custom fields in AfterShip.

To add custom fields, please follow the following steps:
(1) Create a new custom field (merge tag) at https://www.aftership.com/notifications/customize, e.g. PRODUCT_DESC
(2) Customize notification message by inserting the merge tag of the new custom field, e.g. *|PRODUCT_DESC|*
(3) Pass the custom field information through AfterShip API or through CSV Upload (For CSV upload, simply add a new column in the CSV example and use the new custom field as the header)

Important Note: Please leave no space or use “_” instead when creating a new custom field

RC-Fever.com using AfterShip API to show delivery results at the order page

TechCrunch says “AfterShip Gives Amazon-Style Post-Sale Powers To Any Online Merchant“. With the AfterShip API, an online merchant can now show directly the tracking results of 40+ carriers at the store. Allowing your customers to track delivery status directly at your store instead of the carrier sites means more returned customers and better customer service . Read more how you can benefit from the AfterShip API below.

 (1) Better Customer Service
With AfterShip API, You can easily display delivery results at the order page like Amazon. Your customers no longer require to search for the email and the tracking number for tracking, they can simply visit your store, login and then track for the package! Greatly reduce customer inquires, too!

(2) Same Formats Across Carriers
By integrating one single API, you can save your time and money on integrating multiple tracking systems.  And you use UPS or DHL for delivery, you can show the tracking results in the layout that fits your store design, and provides user a better and consistent user experience.

(3) Increase Page View / Site Visits
Allowing your customers to track at your site means driving the traffic back from the carriers to your store. Based on UPS data, each customer track at least 2 times* of the delivery results, imagine you drive this traffic to your site and show some new promotions to your customers when they visit your site?

*UPS Data: http://www.ups.com/content/hk/en/about/facts/worldwide.html
Daily Delivery Volume: 15.8 million packages and documents
Online Tracking: Average 32.1 million daily tracking requests

We know no ones like spam emails, that’s why AfterShip chooses a credible email service provider Mandrill to help 2000+ users to send out over 400K delivery notifications with a high open rate of 42%. With our white-label service, users can select the email address they prefer to send out notifications, so that your customers know that the emails come from you. In this post, I will share with you what steps we have taken and you can take to avoid your emails being considered as Spam.

  #1 AfterShip uses Mandrill
ManDrill is a transactional email service provider under MailChimp, which got over 20K users within 7 months since launched in 2012. Mandrill automatically adds authentication to all messages sent through their servers, which help avoid spam filters.

#2 Personalized Notification
AfterShip allows user to send out notifications from the email address they choose, and you can customize the HTML email to a more personalized message so that customers do not feel being spammed. Make sure you insert the customer name, put your store name, URL or even logo in the notification.

#3 Remove “On Behalf of” or “via” 
When receiving AfterShip notifications, the wordings “On behalf of ….” or “via…” mandrillapp.com may appear at the sender email address. You can easily remove that by adding DNS records (SPF and DKIM records) to your domain through your hosting provider, domain registrar or DNS provider – this will authorize Mandrill to send on your behalf. To learn more, please read this article from Mandrill.

If you have any concerns about spams when sending out shipping notifications, feel free to contact me at andrew@aftership.com. And if you have other tips to avoid spam filters, drop a comment below and share with our readers.