Selling online through your Shopify web store presents many difficulties. A lot can go wrong throughout the time it takes to attract a new customer, convert them into a buyer, and then shipping their order.
Where many Shopify owners go wrong is in their ability to ship items timely and accurately. Dealing with angry customers over lost orders or having to refund customers is a headache. You need one of Shopify’s shipping apps to automate how you manage shipping.
In this post, we’ll compare what we think are the top 5 Shopify shipping apps.
The Difficulty of Shipping
Growing sellers can attest to how shipping becomes more difficult to manage as your order influx increases. Keeping track of orders, shipping labels, and return labels becomes too time-consuming. As you continue to do it manually by yourself, you’re prone to make costly human mistakes like entering in the wrong address.
Unsatisfied customers because of lost orders, lengthy return processes, and high shipping costs leads to a bad reputation. You’ll lose repeat businesses and potential sales.
One of Shopify’s shipping apps can be an easy way to improve how you do business.
How to Compare Shopify Shipping Apps
Maybe you’ve known for a while now that you need an app. But, you just haven’t had the time to sort through all of Shopify’s shipping apps.
We understand that you’re busy and we’ve completed most of the research for you.
When comparing Shopify shipping apps, here’s what you need to consider:
- Compatibility: If it’s in the Shopify app store, it’s compatible with Shopify, of course. However, if you’re looking to also integrate your Amazon or eBay orders for example, you’ll want to make sure the app is also compatible with those marketplaces.
- Functionality: Make a list of all the things you want the app to do for you. See how each app stacks up to your list of must-have capabilities.
- Price: Some apps are free and some cost you monthly. See that what functionality you’re getting from the app is worth the cost.
- Support: When something goes wrong, you need to fix it right away. You’ll want a company that can help you right away.
- Reviews: Shopify’s community leaves honest reviews about how great or not the app is working for them. Take note of these and don’t just rely on your gut feeling.
- Free Trial: Free trials are a great way to see if the app is a good fit your business model.
Top 5 Shopify Shipping Apps
Here’s a quick glance at the 5 shipping apps we compared:
| Price | Prints Shipping Labels | Inventory Management | Free Trial | Reviews | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ordoro | Starts at Free | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | 5/5 |
| ShipStation | Starts at $25/mo | ✓ | ✘ | ✓ | 5/5 |
| Shippo | $0.05 per shipping label | ✓ | ✘ | ✘ | 5/5 |
| ShippingEasy | Starts at Free | ✓ | ✘ | ✓ | 5/5 |
| AfterShip | $0.10 - $0.01per monthly shipments | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | 5/5 |
Ordoro
Ordoro provides a centralized location where you can manage your orders from your shopping carts and marketplaces. Shopify merchants can easily process orders and print labels for both individual and batch shipping. Ordoro can manage drop shipped orders and updates your inventory quantities.
Ordoro integrates with multiple carriers so that you can receive cheaper commercial rates. Their Rate Check also lets your check shipping rates across all your shippers so that you can always pick the best one.
Ordoro provides an intuitive platform for merchants looking to get an end-to-end shipping solution. Their various ranging pricing plans from free to $299/month also make it easy for merchants to find the right plan for their business.
ShipStation
Shipstation automates your shipping processes through their cloud-based solution. Shipstation automatically imports your orders from your Shopify store and your marketplaces. The order’s status and tracking information is then sent to your stores and customers.
Merchants are able to print shipping labels and packing slips together in batch. Shipstation also allows you to generate and send a return shipping label to your customers. Through this app, you can manage all your carriers in a centralized location so that you can compare rates.
Shipstation’s pricing is based on the number of shipments, selling channels, and users that you have. Their plans starts at $25/month and include free USPS Postage accounts.
Shippo
Shippo is one of the official 10 Most Popular Free Shopify Apps in the Shopify App Store. They have secured this spot by making printing shipping labels for your Shopify store fast and easy. With their app, you can print shipping labels, get carrier rates, track packages, notify customers, and submit refunds. Merchants also have access to lower USPS and international rates.
Shippo can be a great solution for a more novice looking to print shipping labels for their Shopify store only. Take note that Shippo currently does not integrate with other marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.
ShippingEasy
ShippingEasy simplifies your shipping processes. The app automatically downloads your orders from your Shopify store. Real-time tracking info is then pushed back to your stores. Branded shipment confirmation details can be sent to your customers with full tracking. Then, print labels you need.
Merchants can use IF, THEN type statements to create rules to assign carriers and categories. Shipstation also gives you access to competitive USPS rates.
ShippingEasy bases pricing plans off of number of shipments and sales channels. If you’re looking for an affordable plan, ShippingEasy has it.
AfterShip
Website | App Download | Pricing
AfterShip is a little different from the rest of the shipping apps. Their app specifically lets you track all your shipments in one place.
They support 200+ couriers and let you filter your shipments by dates, statuses, couriers, and destinations. This offers you a way to monitor whether or not your shipments are delivered on-time and when there are not. You can so display the tracking results on your Shopify website where customers can input their tracking numbers.
With a premium account, you can also use AfterShip to notify customers when their orders are in transit, out for delivery, delivered, or whether there are exceptions.
AfterShip’s app could be a great addition for managing your business, while providing better services to your customers.
What to Do Next: Pick the Best Shopify Shipping App for Your Business
All in all, most of these shipping apps are very similar in their capabilities. Some stand out like Ordoro with their more robust capabilities like inventory management. Otherwise, your choice will probably come down to price as the main factor. Make sure that you read reviews of each app in the Shopify App Store to see how the app is working for other Shopify merchants.
Each business is different. To pick the best shipping app, you’ll have to consider what your shipping needs are today and what your plans are for growth.
In the meantime, check out these other nChannel articles that specifically help Shopify sellers:
Great list of useful plugins!
there also a great shopify app ” Customer Care Via Facebook ” i think its worth checking
Customer Care Via Facebook
Gabby
There’s also a great shipping and inventory management software from Teapplix. Teapplix is super easy to set up and use, I signed up for the trial and was printing orders in less than 30 minutes from signing up. The support is there as well, they answer their phone and emails very promptly, I even asked if they minded that I keep calling because i had many questions the first week, they said call all you want, that’s what we are here for. We currently print over 100 labels a day and Teapplix is making it a breeze! Our ebay and amazon tracking/upload percentage shot straight to 100% after using Teapplix for only 1 week. They have a free trial.
Great Article ! If I may recommend something here – please take a look at easy-exit-popup & age verifire. I will be more than happy to read your feedback!
https://apps.shopify.com/age-verifier
https://apps.shopify.com/easy-exit-popup
That’s quite useful list Jillian.
However, if someone looking for a shipping app for their Shopify store to ship products in India specifically, then I would recommend this, try once.
https://apps.shopify.com/shiprocket
Try this parcel shipping tracking app at Shopify (https://www.trackingmore.com/apps-shopify.html) developed by TrackingMore team.
Yes, the article I was looking for. Your article gives me another approach on the subject. I hope to read more articles from you.
usps tracking
There’s also a great shipping and inventory management software from Teapplix. Teapplix is super easy to set up and use http://uscustomerserviceno.com/ I signed up for the trial and was printing orders in less than 30 minutes from signing up.
Great list and an awesome comparison.
I was wondering if you could add GlobalShipped ( https://apps.shopify.com/globalshipped)
GlobalShipped ,is a Shopify App, which enables US-based Shopify Merchants, to provide International Shipping on their stores.
This comes at absolutely no cost to merchants and they would just need to ship domestically to us and we will forward it to their customers in over 120 countries.
Previously, all merchants had to manually work along with shipping courier services to dispatch parcels outside of US. However, GlobalShipped app adds an international shipping option on their product/checkout pages.
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