E‑commerce shipping software: how to choose the right one

Quick answer: shipping software links your store to your carriers. It pulls in orders, generates labels in bulk and sends tracking back to the store. To choose one, start with who owns the rates: some tools resell shipping at their prices, others connect to your own carrier accounts. Then check customs, the EU exceptions, the billing model, and test with real orders before you commit.

Almost every store starts the same way. An order comes in, you open the carrier's portal, copy the address, generate the label, download it, then go back to the store to paste the tracking number. As long as orders fit on your fingers, it works.

Then volume grows. A second carrier comes in for heavy parcels, an order heads to Switzerland with customs paperwork, another to the Canary Islands, and the morning disappears between tabs. You start looking for shipping software, and find that the tools neither do the same things nor charge the same way.

This guide sets out the criteria that matter for a store shipping from Europe, and the questions to ask before you commit.

What does shipping software do?

The software sits between your store and your carriers, and saves you the back and forth between them.

At a minimum, it should:

• Pull in orders from your store automatically, with the address and contents, without exporting files.
• Show carrier rates on every order, before you choose, where the carrier allows it: some don't share their rates.
• Generate labels in bulk: the day's orders in a single action.
• Send the tracking number back to the store and mark the order as fulfilled.
• Prepare customs documents when a parcel leaves the EU VAT area.

It doesn't replace your invoicing software, which remains the source of your sales invoices. Nor does it take over your customs obligations: it sends documents, and you remain the declarant.

Who owns the rates on your labels?

Depending on the tool, the tool itself or you. This criterion rarely shows on a pricing page, and after a year it weighs the most.

The tool resells shipping. No carrier account to open: you ship the same day, at the rates the tool negotiated for all its customers. It's a fast way to start. The trade-off is that the price is theirs: the reseller earns on the gap between what it pays the carrier and what it bills you, and you never see that gap.

The tool connects to your accounts. You need an account with each carrier you use, and the software works with your contract rates. ParcelRush works this way. The trade-off is opening an account before you start, and the rates then belong to you.

Reselling spares you opening an account at launch. Your own contracts save money once volume settles, and since an account opens quickly, there's no reason to wait.

Opening an account is simpler than it sounds. A business account usually requires no minimum volume, as our guide to opening a carrier business account explains. You can then ask for a discount, with no guarantee of getting one.

A question to ask every tool: are the rates on screen the ones you'll be billed? The answer also depends on the carrier. Some share your contract rates, others only their public rates, and others no rates at all. Ask carrier by carrier, then compare with your first invoice.

If you already work with several carriers, our article on multi-carrier shipping with negotiated rates explains how to combine them without diluting your discounts.

Which criteria matter when you ship from Europe?

Your carriers, and pickup points

List the carriers you use, or plan to open, and check they all connect with your own credentials. ParcelRush connects DHL, UPS, FedEx, DPD, CTT and Colissimo, on the same screen. Then look at the services supported, carrier by carrier: home delivery, express, international, pickup, returns.

Pickup points deserve a question of their own, especially on Shopify. No public app can show pickup points in its checkout: Shopify keeps that for custom apps on Shopify Plus stores. On Shopify, your customer can only choose a pickup point at checkout through Shopify Shipping, where it's available, whatever shipping software you use. With ParcelRush, your orders ship to the door, for example with Colissimo or with DPD Predict, home delivery with a time slot announced by DPD. If most of your orders go to pickup points, put this criterion first.

Your store, connected both ways

Orders arrive in the software on their own; the tracking number and status go back to the store, which notifies your customer with its own shipping email.

Ask how the connection works. In ParcelRush, Shopify connects from the App Store or with your store address, and WooCommerce with API keys generated in WooCommerce's advanced settings. On WooCommerce, an option also shows your negotiated rates directly at checkout, so customers pay your carrier's real price. Squarespace is integrated too. On another platform, orders can be imported by CSV or created by hand: enough to start, though no match for a real connection. If you're still choosing a platform, our WooCommerce, Shopify and Wix comparison looks at each one from the shipping side.

Running several stores? Check they fit in a single account. In ParcelRush, the number of stores is unlimited.

International shipping without manual paperwork

Within the EU, parcels move without customs formalities, from Germany to Spain or Italy. A few territories are the exception: the Canary Islands, and the French overseas departments (Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Réunion, Mayotte) along with Saint-Martin, are part of the EU but outside its VAT area. A parcel to Tenerife or Réunion leaves with a customs declaration.

Outside the EU, in the UK, Switzerland, Norway or the United States, every parcel travels with its documents. To ask of any tool:

• The right documents for the carrier. A postal parcel always travels with a CN23. An express carrier such as DHL or UPS asks for a commercial invoice. Our customs documents checker tells you in seconds what each shipment needs, for free.
• Electronic transmission. ParcelRush sends the documents to the carrier with the label, and flags destinations that still require paper documents.
• The commercial invoice without redoing it. ParcelRush generates a simple invoice from the order, or you import the one from your invoicing software.
• HS codes. A wrong code can hold a parcel at customs, and most tools leave you to look it up and type it in by hand. ParcelRush suggests a code from the product information, and you confirm it, since you are the declarant. You can also save your codes on your products once and for all.

Which day-to-day features should you check?

Labels, rules and tracking save the most time. Questions to ask:

• Several carriers in the same batch? The day's labels should come out in one action, even if half go with DHL and the other half with DPD.
• PDF and ZPL? PDF suits an office printer, ZPL a thermal label printer. Our comparison of ZPL and PDF labels explains when to switch.
• Rules? Decide once that domestic parcels go with DPD and parcels outside the EU with DHL, for example. ParcelRush rules pick the carrier and service by country, weight, order value or parcel size. They're unlimited, with no subscription. An order no rule covers waits in your list, and you choose.
• Checks before the label? A missing phone number or postcode should be flagged before the label is created. In ParcelRush, an incomplete order doesn't ship until it's completed.
• Returns and pickups? The return label should be generated from the dashboard, and the pickup scheduled without opening the carrier's portal. In ParcelRush, a return label takes one click, or goes into every parcel automatically, and pickups can be scheduled with DHL, DPD, FedEx, UPS and CTT.

After dispatch, software that stops at the label leaves you half the work. Check that it brings tracking from all your carriers onto one screen, flags delays and failed deliveries without you hunting for them, and shows what shipping really costs: average cost per parcel, per carrier and per destination. ParcelRush brings tracking from all your carriers together and flags late or stuck parcels so you can act before the customer writes in.

How much does shipping software cost?

The price depends first on the billing model. Depending on the tool, you pay:

• A monthly subscription, often in tiers of labels or features.
• A price per label, with no subscription.
• A margin on shipping, when the tool resells rates. It doesn't appear on any line: it's built into the price of every shipment.

To compare, work out the total cost per order, software and shipping included, for a normal month and a peak month. Also ask: what's included in the base price, is there a limit on labels, stores or rules, and is connecting your own carrier account charged extra? On that last point, the answer varies from one model to another.

ParcelRush is pay as you go, per label: from €0.29 to €0.08 excl. VAT depending on the month's volume, with no subscription and every feature included. At 500 labels in a month, the ParcelRush bill is €93 excl. VAT. Shipping stays billed by your carrier, at your rates, with no margin on our side. The tiers and a simulator are on the pricing page.

How to test shipping software before choosing

Run a week of real orders through it: no feature page replaces that test. Take orders you would have shipped anyway and run them through the software:

At the end of the month, compare the rates shown on screen with each carrier's invoice. Then look at two figures: the time spent on the day's batch, and the real cost per order. They're enough to judge shipping software.

With ParcelRush, your first 10 labels are free, with no credit card and no time limit: enough to run this test.

Where ParcelRush fits

ParcelRush is multi-carrier shipping software. It connects to your DHL, UPS, FedEx, DPD, CTT and Colissimo accounts and to your Shopify, WooCommerce and Squarespace stores, and generates labels and customs documents in bulk from your orders. It's built for stores that have contracts in their own name, or are ready to open them, and that sell at home and abroad.

ParcelRush doesn't resell shipping: your rates stay yours. And the delivery status of every parcel, whatever the carrier, is tracked from ParcelRush, on a single screen.

For everything else, from bulk labels to rate comparison on every order, see everything ParcelRush does.