ShipStation Reviews

Pros

I've used ShipStation, ShippingEasy, ShipWorks, Stamps.com, Ordoro, and SolidCommerce with a few clients. My two favorite are ShipStation and ShippingEasy. They both have different strengths - sweat the small stuff because it really makes a difference if you're shipping 200+ packages a day. It's worth using two or more systems and then picking the best. The time spent is worth the effort.

I use ShipStation for managing the shipping and customer service from my website, Amazon, Walmart, Jet, Ebay, and Etsy. The application is rock solid. Creating manual orders is simple, as is importing orders and combining shipments. I like that I can place orders on hold and setup future shipments. Other vendors like ShippingEasy cannot do this (yet). We get a fair number or orders that have a bad address and we're able to put orders on hold until we hear back from the customer. This shipping rules and kitting options are fairly robust. It is easy to identify return customers (this is something not done well by other platforms). The UI is very buttoned-up. ShipStation also has a superior "Search Customers" function that will search on 3 and 4 part names, city, state... Some of the other vendors fail here. Having good search reduces customer service time.

Cons

There are some things that ShippingEasy does better - e.g. they're a single page application and that means that the interface is super fast. ShipStation is slower as you mover around in the interface. I wish that ShipStation could manage my inventory across marketplaces and I'm in love with how some of the other vendors solicit reviews using marketing/email automation. I hope someday that vendors like ShipStation will also connect to Auth.net or Stripe.com so that we can Auth and Settle New Manual Orders. It takes a bit longer to learn ShipStation but if you're running a larger/complicated business you'll come to appreciate the power that comes with the complexity.

Pros

I like how all shipping services are available and easy to apply. Everything is easy to understand and operate. The software communicates with most selling platforms and keeps updated inventory.

Cons

I would like the pricing to be based on volume not number of platforms.

Pros

NOTHING. THIS SOFTWARE IS RUBBISH. CUSTOMER SUPPORT IS VERY bad

Cons

IS a rubbish app full of tech failures and customer support has no ideea of anything

Pros

It worked well until recently. Made printing labels easy.

Cons

They recently are demanding more money unless you use their carriers, which ShipperHQ doesn't support.

Pros

What I liked the most was how easy it is to set up and get going It has a great UI that's extremely easy to use daily. Automations make daily life easier and rate preview is a godsend. I can go on.....

Cons

The least that I like about this software is that they HAVE the ability to suggest features and updates, however, I don't really see too many of them actually be implemented. Now, that's not saying they don't implement any - but there are some pretty important ones that have a ton of upvotes that tech devs have said would be relatively easy to do, but they don't. Maybe there is something I just don't know...

Alternatives Considered

ShipBob and ShipWorks

Reasons for Choosing ShipStation

EASE

Reasons for Switching to ShipStation

Customer support at first, the ease second and the fact that it's been over 7+ years of me using it and I still to this day love it and wouldn't switch. Thanks Shipstation!

Pros

Ease of use and feature richness. We had tried a couple of other shipping systems for our online shop, and none were as intuitive and user friendly as Shipstation. We were able to get up and running very quickly when we first started, and now, many years later, I've learned much of the the deep functionality that lays beneath the simple surface.

Cons

I had to think a while, but I do with the dashboard reporting was a bit clearer and easier to read. There are a couple of widgets on there that I have still to figure out quite how to read.

Alternatives Considered

Shippo

Reasons for Choosing ShipStation

We needed something more powerful and intuiutive

Switched From

Stamps.com

Reasons for Switching to ShipStation

I preferred the interface

Pros

We like that you can use ShipStation to import and update orders on your shopping cart software with very little effort.

Cons

The cost may be prohibitive for users only using minimal feature set, but still a good value compared to manually hand-jamming data.

Alternatives Considered

ShippingEasy and Endicia

Reasons for Choosing ShipStation

ShipStation offered a better integration with our shopping cart platform.

Switched From

Endicia

Reasons for Switching to ShipStation

Both the user interface and integrations were slightly better with ShipStation.

Pros

It is super easy to implement, it has a lot of features to make your job faster and it has good customer support if you have a bit of patience.

Cons

I don't like that I can not put insurance into auto re charge for more than $100.00

Alternatives Considered

ShippingEasy

Reasons for Choosing ShipStation

Because Shipstation offered better rates and I like their UI more.

Switched From

ShippingEasy

Reasons for Switching to ShipStation

Because Shipstation offered better rates and I like their UI more.

Pros

Integration is a cinch. YOu really need next to no technical knowledge to set this up on most platforms. Once you create all the rules anyone and I mean anyone can just come in and fulfill all your orders.

Cons

Honestly, I would say that I wish it was free but it is as I like to say WEP - Worth Every Penny, and it doesn't really cost very much.

Pros

What I like most is the ability to print directly onto adhesive labels. It sounds like a small thing, but having to print out labels on a paper, and then cut/fold them, and then place into a label sleeve takes a lot of time and effort when packaging a large number of orders. ShipStation allows me to print and stick in one easy step.

Cons

What I like least is because it is not affiliated with an official carrier service (FedEx, USPS, etc) I have to actually go and drop off the packages. A carrier will not come to my business to pick it up.

Pros

Shipstation has been great for managing our shipments for our smaller businesses! It's very simple to use and integrates with both Shopify and Klaviyo.

Cons

There's not enough robust sorting/filtering features. I'd like to be able to have some of my shipments be filtered into different buckets and Shipstation doesn't have the ability to do this. If you have a complex shipping system Shipstation wouldn't be for you.

Pros

Helping me ship products out the door fast and mistake-free at least cost

Cons

The Shipping Label screen has a lot of helpful detail but causes clutter and much of it can or should be hidden until needed

Pros

Our publishing company utilizes ShipStation to handle inventory and shipping management. The system is extremely comprehensive, offering a robust feature set covering orders, shipments, products, customers, and reports. It's easy to set up multiple stores for different aspects of the business in order to keep the silos separate, and alerts draw your eye to the areas that need attention. ShipStation can also be seamlessly integrated with various e-commerce platforms so that orders are ported directly over and into the shipment queue. Once shipped, we enjoy the tracking features that allow our team to check shipment status whenever customers have inquiries. Additionally, there's an insight section that shows how many customers interacted with a their personal tracking pages, how many shipment notifications have gone out in a given time period, and general sales trends.

Cons

The interface isn't the prettiest, but it gets the job done and doesn't suffer from glitches. Occasionally, we have a little bit of trouble locating a specific option because the system has so many features. Perhaps the organization or visibility of some areas could be improved.

Pros

The best feature of ShipStation is how well it can handle orders from multiple channels (eBay, amazon, website) and ship them without the hassle of going to each channel. It flawlessly imports the orders, creates shipments, verifies addresses, and ships with the preferred method. It also allows you to easily set up rules so you can easily specify how each channel, product, or other various filter is shipped.

Cons

The main feature that I wish this product had is the ability to scan SKU/product ID verification to confirm shipment before shipping. ShipStation does have scan to ship available, where you scan the barcode on the packing slip to bring up the shipment and then ship the item. This is a nice feature, but I would like to to go once step further where you scan the barcode on the packing slip, then you scan the barcode of the SKU/product ID to make sure it was picked properly, then you print the shipping label.

Pros

OMS, carrier, product, inventory and integrations

Cons

Everything. There isn't a single feature in ShipStation they haven't changed in the last two years and made worse. Integrations are broken and the team doesn't work on them. Order Management has become barren of features as they remove things instead of fixing them. You can't trust that a feature you rely on will be maintained. Customer Service group is absolutely worthless and the development team doesn't work on any request. The forums are a joke. Tons of people with tons and tons of people supporting their bug reports, feature requests, etc. and all being completely ignored by ShipStation.

Alternatives Considered

Shippo

Reasons for Switching to ShipStation

Accounting integration

Pros

Shipstation was not the first shipment software I tried but it will definitely be the last. The platform is perfect for busy online retailers. At times, I was shopping 2,000 packages a day and shipstation handled it like a boss.

Cons

At times, it can be difficult to reach the account manager assigned to our account. When customers depend on the shipment estimations we provide, we can’t afford software issues that go unresolved for any length of time.

Pros

Shipstation is a fantastic shipping suite for our business. We use the integrations for Shopify, eBay, and Amazon. Orders are automatically imported and we are able to simple and efficiently manage shipments for UPS and USPS. Rates are automatically displayed, invalid address warning shown, and everything can be managed from a web-based UI with remotely connected printers using Shipstation Connect. We are able to use our UPS business account with the UPS integration for our set rates. Labels and Pack Slip templates are customizable and simple to set up. Our 4x6 Brother QL1000 continuous label printer works perfectly with Shipstation and Shipstation Connect, and we use standard letter paper for pack slips.

Cons

The Shipstation android app does not work with Shipstation Connect very well in terms of printers, and there are UI issues with it. On top of that, the Shipstation web-based application does not work well on small browser screens, so it is currently almost impossible and very painstaking to print labels from a phone.

Pros

Remote label printing works well. Does work with non-US based UPS accounts. Web based ... that's about it really.

Cons

Struggles with international shipments. Shipstation does not support multi-currency, so if you have more than one sales currency, you are hosed. Shipstation does not support shipping to any country that needs a special customs declaration (like NAFTA statement on US->Canada shipping) so for many countries, you will need to do a manual UPS shipment. Shipstation uses pounds or GRAMMES ... very few stores ship in grammes, mostly kg, which Shipstation does not support, so imported weights are always wrong. Does not support international returns. No "rule set" for allocating different countries/services to different carrier services ... etc etc You cannot easily see which shipments are attached to an order. Having printed a label in "orders" you cannot then print a packing slip afterwards, you have to do packing slip then label. Cannot easily print a UPS return label on the thermal printer .. can only email or download ... theres a workaround, but it's non-obvious. The multi-currency and customs failings are a pain for us :(

Pros

I liked the fact that this software synced with online sales through places like Amazon and initially seemed to work pretty well.

Cons

A few months ago, Shipstation released a new version and I have had many problems with it. It simply does not work as advertised. Things that were seamless before no longer work. The fact that they have not fixed these issues after a few months is very frustrating. I would not recommend them any longer for shipping.

Pros

It has a fairly easy operating face that makes training simple. Easy and simple shipments rarely if ever, have issues.

Cons

There is nowhere to be able to input a weight of a shipping carton itself to help with calculations of when something will be too heavy to go via a certain shipping services which has led to some overcharging later down the road. There are several features that have been requested through the threads that devs neither respond to, nor seem inclined to implement. To use all the possible features, you have to switch back and forth between the old layout and new layout, and this is not a simple toggle feature.

Pros

easy to use, has many reports, many integrations with other programs and seems like they are working constantly on more.

Cons

no phone calls to customer service
I need to set up the inventory differently and not sure how it can be done.

Pros

Integration with most major platforms and channels - it communicates back and forth between your Shopify, Amazon, eBay, etc. accounts to mark orders shipped and email the customer.
Discounted shipping labels - The subscription pays for itself with how inexpensive the labels are.
Automated tracking emails - create your own template and look the part of other major e-commerce stores.

Cons

Can get a little confusing when dealing with international shipments but their support team is definitely top notch and can help you sort out the issues quickly.

Pros

Easily track and ship orders from multiple channels. Ability to use your own shipping accounts with carriers or use Shipstation's negotiated rates. Filters, tags, notes, automations help streamline our shipping and order processing.

The interface is user friendly and the rare times I've had an issue and had to contact support, my issues were resolved fairly quickly.

Cons

Shipstation recently forced all users to the new interface, which I'm not a fan of. But that's more from having used the software for years. With the move, it changed how some things are processed or handled.

Pros

We ship a lot, and ship station enables us to ship more quickly and more effectively. It also helps us track returns which as a rental business, all of our shipments come back and having all of that in one place is really helpful.

Cons

They've established the software, they focus on vendors who aren't rental companies and ship a lot of smaller packages. Updates are slow coming and it feels like they've said "hey we've done it!!! Let's coast." and don't really do updates anymore. Although if you ship to Zimbabwe on a regular basis they are more than happy to add rickshaw as an option, but won't give you the option to select that it was delivered by someone internally.

Pros

We love how ShipStation integrates with our Stamps.com account. Our favorite features are how they keep track of the packages you ship to each person, the value, and the items. You can keep track of promotional items this way or keep detailed notes. Another of our favorite features is the branded tracking page that your customers will see with the tracking code. It looks great and helps give your site a more polished and professional look.

Cons

The monthly subscription for this is just way too expensive. Even with the amazing features that make a business look awesome and really helps the customers, it's just way too expensive for smaller or starter businesses.