We would like to communicate the upcoming changes and news about our order integrations. In this update, we will provide an overview of order channel integration changes and how they will affect your business from January 2023.
Shopify changed subscriptions
As of January 1st, 2023, stores on Starter and Basic plans (globally), will no longer be able to request access to the Carrier Service API. The option to request access by transitioning to annual billing or by paying an additional monthly fee for these plan types will be removed by Shopify.
Stores on Advanced and Shopify Plus plans will continue to have access to Carrier Service API.
Stores on Shopify plans can continue to request access by contacting Shopify Support.
Stores on Starter or Basic plans that were previously granted access are not impacted by this change.
Should however, your Webshipper rates no longer be visible in the checkout after the 1st of January and you are on a Starter or Basic plan, then you will need to contact Shopify Support for access to Third-party Carrier Rates.
For more details, see Shopify’s announcement here:
The Amazon integration is currently under maintenance and will be relaunched by the end of January 2023. We expect the integration to be fully relaunched and ready for new connections by the end of January.
Current integrations are not affected and can continue business as usual.
New update available for WooCommerce
We have just updated our WooCommerce plugin to match the latest requirements for WordPress. Therefore, we advise all customers to update their Webshipper Automated Shipping Plugin in WooCommerce to the latest version.
If you have other plugins connected to your shop that may impact the way you handle shipping, please always make sure to run a full backup before doing any updates.
If you in help with Webshipper and WooCommerce, please read more here:
Are you about to choose a platform within e-commerce? Get to know more about the platform Shopify and what to be aware of if you wish to integrate with the platform. There could be a perfect match between your webshop and Shopify?
In the summer of 2021, Webshipper was acquisitioned by nShift and therefore joined forces with other similar products in the market. Together we started building one combined server for all carrier integrations. Collecting all carrier integrations in one place has increased efficiency and greatly improved carrier stability across all products.
How it works
As we progress, more and more legacy integrations are replaced with newer and more efficient integrations from the carrier server. Today Webshipper offers a wide variety of integrations from the carrier server.
Why is this important?
Because as of January 1st 2023 some of our carrier integrations are being replaced with a similar one connected to the carrier server rather than just the Webshipper database. They may look identical, but the data behind it is far better.
What do I need to do?
You will need to create a new carrier in Webshipper with the replaced integration and setup all the details required for that specific carrier.
How do I do that?
Simply go to Connect > carrier > find it in the list and enter in your credentials for the carrier agreement and save it when finished.
What about my shipping methods and rates?
Don’t worry, these can easily be updated without much effort. Please follow this guide to see how you can update your shipping rates to match the new carrier.
You will not be able to book any shipments with the mentioned carriers after the 1st of January unless you make the change required.
Will the carrier id change?
Yes. As it is a new carrier, it will have a new id in the system, so if you have built something to connect to a specific carrier either Via API or via Webshipper workflows, they will also need to be updated.
Why the change on these carriers?
These are the carrier integrations that we are informed of, which will make a crucial change to the way they structure their API and/or their system internally. As we become aware of other carrier integrations that also require a change, we will of course, also replace these in time.
Are you about to choose a platform within e-commerce? Get to know more about the platform Shopify and what to be aware of if you wish to integrate with the platform. There could be a perfect match between your webshop and Shopify?
Are you a webshop owner, then you are probably aware of the endless choices within the world of e-commerce-platforms. A true jungle, which might seem difficult to navigate in at times. Are you on the urge of establishing your first webshop, the choice may seem even more confusing. To make it a bit more easy for you to choose a platform we give you, in collaboration with Kiranan Luxmy, CEO & Founder of the e-commerce-bureau Grafikr, an insight of the ecommerce-platform Shopify. You will have an insight into its functions and what you should be aware of if you choose to integrate with Shopify.
The choice between an open source or closed source-platform
Before you choose an e-commerce-platform, you should consider whether a closed source-platform or an open source-platform is the right choice for you. With a closed source-platform you will not have access to the e-commerce source code but limited access to the source code regarding the webshop. The software is financed and owned by the copyright holder, which means that only the people with permission can modify and release software for the system. On the contrary, you have, with an open source-system, access to the source code and thereby the possibility of changing and releasing software for the system. Shopify is a closed source-platform where you will not have access to the source code. The platform is standardized, and Shopify controls what software is developed for the system. This may sound like a downside, but if you are not a high-skilled programmer or a tech-specialist, Shopify’s stanardization is a high advantage. The platform should be considered as a plug and play-solution consisting of an intuitive system which offers a wide range of functions which are easy to use. Here you will have a solution with pre-designed themes, where you as a user have the opportunity of integrating elements such as logo, pictures and colour and thereby customizing the site to your own needs. In order to clarify whether Shopify is the right choice for you, we recommend testing different sorts of platforms in order to determine whether you are compatible with a platform such as WooCommerce or Shopify. A good idea would be to set up a trial and try out different sorts of themes.
A world of functions
Before making your choice, you should outline which functions that are necessary in order for your webshop to fulfill the needs of your customers. There are a wide range of functions which can be used to develop your webshop and in the following section, we focus on some of the functions that new Shopify users often ask about:
Online vs. offline sale of products
Marketing
Drop-shipping
Payment solutions
Online vs. offline sales of products
With Shopify you have the opportunity of selling your products offline as well as online through omnichannel and thereby sell your products across each other. With the online channel you have the possibility of selling your products as from a regular webshop. In that way, your customers have the possibility of collecting the products personally. Thereby, you have the opportunity of adding different kinds of delivery methods to your needs. Are you about to have your products shipped, this can easily be done with Webshipper.
Marketing
With Shopify, you have the opportunity of setting up advertisements through help from Shopify. If you wish to make use of this function, you should be aware of the fact that it is only your basic needs within advertisement that will be fulfilled, why this is highly recommended if you are not an advanced user in the field of advertisement. If you wish to advertise individually or use a bureau, Shopify can easily integrate and assign products from the platform to, for instance, Facebook in real time in which the prices etc. will be updated live.
Drop-shipping
One of the functions in which several Shopify users often ask about is drop-shipping. A function that lets you sell from the stock of others. Shopify has their own version of drop-shipping in which you have the possibility of adding products to your shop with products and pictures. With drop-shipping you have the opportunity of choosing a combination by drop-shipping a product type and afterwards creating your own stock. Thereby, you have the opportunity of testing the popularity of your product type before putting all of your energy into selling the concerned products.
Payment solutions
An essential part of your webshop is payment such as MobilePay. Primarily, Shopify offers their own payment system, Shopify Payments, as an integrated and intuitive part of the platform. However, Shopify does not offer any local payment methods such as MobilePay. However, you can make use of a solution such as Quickpay which gives you the opportunity of using MobilePay. A highly recommended payment method since this is the one mostly used in Denmark. Moreover, Webshipper offers a dynamic checkout-solution.
Why choose Shopify?
If you wish to create a site with a lot of content such as landing pages and a blog, Shopify is not the platform to choose. Plus, Shopify is not your choice of platform if you wish to sell highly varied products. However, Shopify is, without a doubt, one of the most relevant platforms if you are a beginner within the field of webshop platforms as it is highly intuitive and standardised, especially for you who is not a tech-master. Therefore, you should choose Shopify if you want to have an intuitive closed source-solution which is easy to use and does not require high tech-abilities.
Are you about to choose a platform within e-commerce? Get to know more about the platform Shopify and what to be aware of if you wish to integrate with the platform. There could be a perfect match between your webshop and Shopify?
For some, T-shirts may seem basic and trivial but for four friends Anthon Louis, Frederik Pitter, Mathias Klitgaard and Frederik Skovgaard-Holm, T-shirts equals an endless pursuit of perfection. A pursuit that began in 2016 as a start-up project with the company Bare En T-shirt but quickly developed into an all-important passion. The project became known to everyone when the four friends participated in the 6th season of the Danish version of the tv-show Dragons Den, and secured an investment worth the amount of 1 mio. kr. for 25% of the company, shared between the two lions Jacob Risgaard and Christian Arnstedt.
With volume comes challenges which we use Webshipper to solve, both regarding shipments and returns which we are extremely happy to make use of. So are our customers.
Integrate with Shopify as Bare En T-shirt and have access to a wide range of possibilities such as paperless customs, automatic printing of shipping labels and much more!
2. Customized shipping labels
With Webshipper you have the opportunity of customizing your shipping labels with your own design and expression
Make use of Webshippers return portal as Bare En T-shirt and give your customers the opportunity of returning their products easily. Your customers have the opportunity of reporting the cause of return plus refunding method after which a mail will be forwarded.
Webshipper with Shopify - The perfect match
The motivation and ambitions were massive when the four friends decided to make the dream of the perfect T-shirt come true. From the beginning, they were determined on using a webshop in order to avoid unnecessary costs and to be as competitive as possible. In spite of their lack of experience, Mathias and Frederik decided to take the plunge and use Shopify, since the platform integrated fast and easily with Webshipper which, today, makes the foundation of Bare En T-shirts webshop.
Before making the webshop a reality, several obstacles occurred along the proces. The biggest challenges occurred within two unknown fields: The cloth production and webshop configuration which, in the end, equaled an expensive lesson.
Why Bare En T-shirt chooses Webshipper
Due to the lessons, Bare En T-shirt decided to automate with Webshipper to secure a solid connection between webshop and logistics. With a numerous amount of setting possibilities, Webshipper was the right solution since the system made it possible for Bare En T-shirt to configure the system as required.
With the ambition of scaling to Sweden, plus the rest of Europe, Webshipper was able to keep track and integrate across a wide range of webshops and pass on translations to Swedish without complications.
Trusted by businesses all over Scandinavia and beyond
We know that every business is unique.
Discover how the Webshipper Shipping Platform has helped shops grow.
Shaping New Tomorrow
How Shaping New Tomorrow automated their order flow with Webshipper.
Real life shopping from home – Easy Live Sales & Webshipper in innovative collaboration
Barbara Karen
After the dawn of the Corona pandemic, physical as well as online stores have had to think in new directions to stay alive. With a new way of thinking about sales, consumers have become more accustomed to online shopping and social media.
It has therefore become possible to use social media as channels for sale – a concept that is referred to as “Social Commerce” after both Pinterest’s “Shop the Look”, Instagram’s checkout and several social media that TikTok experiments with purchases through the platforms.
Attentive selling is the new black – again
But what is social commerce? Social selling is basically about marketing and relationship development on social media, which creates a more personal and credible connection between the company and potential customers.
So here is the opportunity to provide a customer experience beyond the usual – a bit like the home party concept of selling Tupperware, like we know from the 80s.
One method of good social selling is done, among other things, by means of live purchases or auctions, which is a relatively new concept reinforced by several closures, where customers sit at home and are passionate about being allowed to shop.
Easy Live Sales has further developed this concept with their popular yes thank you robot “Elisa”, which can be integrated into its Facebook page.
Who is Elisa?
Easy Live Sales consists of a small passionate team that started focusing on the Social Media robot called Elisa full time in 2021 after several Corona lockdowns. Since then, many companies have used the system with great success to handle live sales, chat, order processing and payment.
One of Elisa’s many customers that has embraced the concept during the lockdown is the Helm store. With more than 200 years of experience, Helm delivers quality goods in the form of bags and leather goods from both the store and the webshop.
But the experienced bag retailer is not shy about putting innovative methods into use to stay competitive.
Once the customer has paid, we receive a packing list from the printer, and when we scan it, shipping labels come out. Before, we had to enter the system and check if the payment had gone through and then make a shipping label manually for each order. Now we are talking about 200 orders that were to be packed every Friday after our “Bag Thursday”. The integration between Elisa and Webshipper has removed the manual process in relation to freight handling.”
Nina HelmHead of Marketing, Helm
With hundreds of orders placed for their live sales on Facebook, the leather bag store has had great success in offering a closer shopping experience.
How it works
When a store wants to showcase items through social media, a store employee starts “streaming live” typically on Facebook. With his or her smartphone on a tripod and the camera on, the employee can now welcome potential buyers and show the store’s items one by one.
These items have an associated number, which is presented along with the price.
Often, a sale and promotional items have the greatest attraction value, and therefore viewers are encouraged to strike quickly. However, some stores also display items at normal prices.
The live sale typically lasts one to two hours, and can create significant earnings.
What does the Elisa-robot do?
The smart yes-please robot makes your sales from live streaming on Facebook easy and automated. Once you have made the decision to drive sales from social media with Elisa, you need to create product rules and texts through the Easy Live Sales system, which takes about 20-30 minutes. Now you can start livestreaming on facebook.
Product rules are the automated regulations that the customer writes in the comments field, such as “Blue pants M”. The system will recognize this comment, which is in accordance with a product rule, and the customer will then receive an order link in Facebook Messenger, which must be filled in and paid for before the transaction is completed.
How it looks when Helm livestreams every "Bag-Thursday".
The link can either be a direct link to the webshop or you can use a checkout link from Easy Live Sales.
By choosing Elisa’s checkout module, checkout will take place in the same way as usual when customers buy from the webshop. Here, Webshipper will interact with Elisa and automate all order, customer and delivery information in the store’s backend.
The process for shipping your new orders thus works in the same way as usual if you use Webshipper in conjunction with Easy Live Sales.
A hit during lockdown – but has come to stay
Although the concept is new to most people, Christian Vester, Sales Manager for Easy Live Sales, believes that the lockdown has given extra impetus to the sails. What might have taken 7 years for consumers to adopt has now only taken 7 months.
Both stores and customers have had to jump in the deep end and try out this new shopping experience.
Also at Webshipper we see a great potential already and estimate that in the future even more of our users will request a solution that creates a presence on social media while all order handling is easy and automated.
Are you about to choose a platform within e-commerce? Get to know more about the platform Shopify and what to be aware of if you wish to integrate with the platform. There could be a perfect match between your webshop and Shopify?
When it comes to fast delivery time, it is important to keep track of the paperwork to deliver your international shipments on time. But how can you ensure fast and efficient customs clearance for your international shipments?
The guide gives you answers on what to do and where to start.
One of the cornerstones of a successful e-commerce business is good and efficient order and shipping process. Unfortunately, the order- and shipping flow can be an overlooked affair that actually affects your conversion rate – and how can that be, you might ask?
Download the guide and get the answer.
Read more about 5 important benefits of Order Management
Eat Grim x Copenhagen Cartel – Towards a sustainable future 🌱
Barbara Karen
Sustainability is a concept that has gained a lot of attention and traction these last few years. Basically sustainability refers to the ability to exist constantly, and especially to the way human civilization can exist non-damaging to the Earth’s biosphere.
We have found two strong businesses that both specialize in selling products with sustainability in mind. Learn how they started their journey towards a more sustainable future, and how your business can adapt to a greener way.
Different products, same goal
Have you ever been at the grocery aisle in the supermarket picking the prettier vegetable over the slightly uglier one – even though you know nothing is wrong with the uglier vegetable?
Veggie box from Eat Grim – not as ugly as you think
That is the paradigm that the company, Eat Grim, is trying to shift. Eat Grim is a rather new company founded in 2018 by Finnish Petra Kaukua and German Carolin Schiemer. They met each other during their master studies in Denmark, where they found to have similar interests in researching sustainable food systems.
Eat Grim gives successfully consumers the option of fresh vegetables delivered at their door on a subscription basis. The purpose of their business is to transform the food that normally would go to waste in the supply chain because of (rather ridiculous) demands to perfect expectations of vegetables. Their key motto is “A kilo sold is a kilo saved”!
Katrine Lee fra Copenhagen Cartel der laver badetøj ud af genbrugsplastik fra fiskenet der er blevet fundet i havet.
Copenhagen Cartel is also a thriving company founded in 2019 by Katrine Lee Larsen, who have lived and worked on the beautiful island of Bali. Unfortunately, as the annual monsoon sweeps over and the ocean currents change from west to east, Bali’s famous beaches are buried with up to 60 tons of plastic waste every day.
To combat the vast plastic waste Copenhagen Cartel produces sustainable swim and leisure wear made from post-consumer plastic waste from the seas. Katrine went on the Danish version of Dragon’s Den to secure an investment from Blazar Capital.
Sustainable business is great, but…
…it can’t be that easy. So what’s the hardest part about running a business with a sustainable focus? As you might imagine, sustainability is not always the cheapest concept to support. Often this is because of extended quality assurance in the production process.
As for Eat Grim the market of subscription “meal” boxes is saturated, but this is not where the competition lies. Competing against the popular supermarket chains is a challenge, especially in managing expectations since customers can’t always expect every vegetable to be available in their box.
The large, delicious Big & Beasty veggie box delivered from Eat Grim
So the thoughts and actions towards growth have been many – small and big – from the start of the business and till today. Especially finding investment opportunities that allow the business to grow are hard to come by. Luckily the vegetable loving business was able to start and grow in a Danish start-up incubator program. This rocketed the popularity in Copenhagen and surrounding areas. Later on, they succeeded in securing an investment from Unconventional Ventures.
On the other hand Copenhagen Cartel had existed for a year and a half before going on the TV-show Dragon’s Den. Katrine luckily made a great impression on the dragons with her sustainable quality swimwear and went on to secure an investment of 700.000 DKK, approximately 81.000 GBP.
As for packaging it has naturally been a large factor in distribution of the vegetable boxes. Starting out Eat Grim was distributing the orders in open wooden crates. Later on Carolin and Petra went on to distribute orders in FSC certified and partly recycled cardboard boxes that could close on top instead. The packaging is easy to recycle and not harmful to the environment.
Veggie box courier bike
Regarding delivery Eat Grim actually utilizes bike couriers to distribute their veggie meal boxes to their customers in inner city Copenhagen, and climate compensated delivery for the rest of their deliveries.
This eco-friendly method of delivery is accordingly to Eat Grim more expensive than the traditional fleet of trucks. It is a higher monthly expense, but this means easier and more accessible distribution in the city.
Also Copenhagen Cartel sees the importance of not only a sustainable product but naturally also a green supply chain. The production and manufacturing is limited to European partners which also helps limit the transportation of products to a minimum. Sustainability is also a keyword in packaging by utilizing conscious FSC-certified cardboard shipping envelopes.
The greatest successes
Well, the businesses clearly had some obstacles to tackle and overcome like most businesses. Luckily the concepts have been in high demand, so let us hear about the wins.
When asked about the greatest successes Eat Grim are proud to have expanded their business to Aarhus with a large warehouse that makes logistics easy. Now the veggie business can count 30 greens-loving and ambitious employees.
Diving deeper down the veggie-loving duo actually spent the first half year of their business driving their many orders around in a van. This became extremely tiring and hard to plan logistically. This caused them to cleverly invest in their first logistics company, which quickly eliminated a big pain in Carolin’s and Petra’s schedule, and helped them focus on other urgent areas of the business.
As mentioned the customers have been eager to explore this new alternative to the vegetables sourced at the supermarket. Now a whopping 26% of their customers come from referrals, which can be a profitable way to introduce the concept to new possibly long-term customers.
Girls in Copenhagen Cartel swim wear
Also Copenhagen Cartel has experienced great accomplishments: Only three days after her product launch Katrine was contacted by Copenhagen Fashion Week. Her brand has since appeared twice on the catwalk to represent Denmark and sustainable fashion at Paris Fashion Week.
Also achieving a considerable investment when appearing on Dragon’s Den helped Katrine focus on her brand full time and hire a competent COO.
Ambitions levels are sky high!
Even though a business with sustainability in focus is not an easy or cheap concept, these businesses have had a taste of success that has only led to a stronger urge. Luckily, there is an increasing interest and need for a more sustainable living as our population keeps growing.
The veggie lovers working at Eat Grim
Both companies view the future as very bright because of this increased focus on quality products. Eat Grim has great plans to conquer the country of Sweden and other European markets, where a sustainable living is in high demand. Expansion is also a hot topic for Copenhagen Cartel that are more keen on opening a physical store in the center of Copenhagen in May 2021 as an addition to the webshop.
We are very excited to follow these two inspiring businesses on their further journey towards a greener living.
Are you about to choose a platform within e-commerce? Get to know more about the platform Shopify and what to be aware of if you wish to integrate with the platform. There could be a perfect match between your webshop and Shopify?
Trend: Home deliveries are peaking during Covid-19
Barbara Karen
Covid-19 has gradually created new routines for our new everyday life – this also regards consumer purposes. A statistics analysis published by PostNord regarding consumption habits in Europe in 2020 has been published, and it turns out that the pandemic has given the carriers plenty to do.
Face masks, keep a distance of 6 feet, and only a certain number of customers allowed in the store – these are some of the precautions we need to keep in mind when we venture out into the world now. As it turns out Europeans who order goods online, choose to have the packages delivered to their door at home or to the workplace instead of delivery to pick-up points.
As many as 86% of consumers in the United Kingdom choose to have the packages delivered, compared to 3% who picked up their parcels in a locker or distribution point. Home deliveries are also peaking in Scandinavia; 47% in Sweden, 49% in Denmark, and 64% in Norway.
This is a significant change, but not surprising. Covid-19 and its lockdown has meant that many people are at home much more, and at the same time home deliveries provide a better opportunity to keep their distance to others.
A good reason to have the goods delivered at home is of course to reduce the risk of infection and the contact chain, but often the saved time and trip down to the parcel shop is a big reason for choosing home delivery.
Delivered foods are very popular goods in certain countries – and the Corona-virus plays a huge role. In Spain, as many as 30% have said they shopped online for groceries because of the pandemic, followed by France (22%), the UK (20%), and Italy (20%). The common denominator for these countries is that they were hit relatively hard by the pandemic.
The trend has thus given the carriers plenty on their plate, and made online stores busy as bees. Time will tell whether consumers will also stick to home deliveries in a safer time after Corona.
