How to Integrate USPS Shipping APIs with your Application?

November 17, 2022

Data transfer between different application systems is made easier by an API (Application Processing Interface), which is a middleware system. The United States Postal Service developed a set of web tools that e-commerce companies may use to automate their shipping procedures, and one of those products is the USPS Shipping APIs.

A smooth checkout process is the first step in providing online buyers with a smooth customer journey. Customers want regular tracking information for their purchases. Therefore, it is essential to offer the best post-purchase service as an eCommerce business.

If you give your clients the means to have a simple and hassle-free buying experience, they’ll be more likely to make another purchase from you in the future and also recommend your business to others.

One strategy to get recurring business from online buyers is by using USPS shipping APIs with your application. This article will demonstrate the best methods to integrate UPS shipping APIs with your application. Let’s get right to it.

Table of Contents

Overview of the USPS Shipping APIs

With a huge majority of all deliveries in the U.S. passing through USPS, it’s a go-to shipping service for all eCommerce businesses. It should come as no surprise that many eCommerce stores depend critically on the integration of USPS eCommerce shipping given the weekend delivery services and generally inexpensive pricing for USPS shipments.

Ecommerce website applications can access essential USPS data for free thanks to the USPS Web Tools API library. Through USPS Web Tools, you may look up live shipping costs, track shipments, arrange for shipment pickup, and a lot more.

The free USPS APIs can be used by any business, regardless of its size, to supply a number of services through these solutions! Additionally, USPS regularly updates its web tools to meet the shifting needs of the market. These are a few of the web tools:

API for International And Domestic Postage – Provides assistance in quickly and easily calculating postage costs for both domestic and international shipments.

Address Verification API – By amending, auto-suggesting, and updating street names, abbreviations, inaccurate details, and postal codes, this USPS web tool enables you to validate your delivery addresses.

API for a tracking service – Handle returns, tracking and confirming emails, shipping documents, and online documentation for returns using the package tracking API that is also a part of this website service.

Service Standard And Commitment API – This tool is provided by USPS to help you determine the expected and guaranteed delivery timeline for your deliveries.

Key Advantages of USPS WooCommerce Integration

For your distribution network to run more efficiently and cost-effectively, shipping must be extremely simplified and streamlined. What is the best way to accomplish that using the USPS Shipping API?

We’ll go through how the USPS Shipping API offers useful features that your e-commerce company may use to ensure speedy and efficient deliveries.

The Shipping API services provided by the USPS Web Tools shipping facility are detailed below:

Estimate delivery costs: With the help of this tool, users can figure out the cost of domestic and international shipping.
Address verification: To reduce the number of unsuccessful delivery, you can use this tool to automatically verify addresses as people enter them.
Estimated Delivery Dates: In order to know when your shipment is scheduled to be delivered, this tool shows customers the estimated arrival dates.
Generate shipping labels: This tool creates shipping labels to make the shipping and packaging process more efficient.
Track Shipments: To fulfill the growing needs of your e-commerce business, USPS offers a variety of tracking APIs that precisely and instantly track shipments. The three services offered by the USPS Shipping APIs are as follows: tracking, follow-up, and confirmation email, shipping documentation, and trackable evidence of shipment.

Method 1. Integrate USPS Shipping APIs Directly

It only takes a few simple steps to integrate USPS Web Tools into your eCommerce website. You will receive an email including your allotted Web Tools User ID after registering for a USPS Web Tool account.

Accessibility to shipping rate calculators, address validation systems, pickup optimization, and service standards are all available with the USPS user ID. Here is a step-by-step procedure for enabling USPS Web Tools on your eCommerce website:

Sign up and create an account

Before using USPS web tools, you must create an online account. You will be prompted to enter your name, shipping location, email, website link, and other necessary details. Don’t forget to accept the terms and conditions before beginning as well.

Confirmation email

Your user ID and password, which will provide you access to the tools, will be issued to you through mail once you have completed the registration process.

Obtain production access by contacting USPS

You’ll receive a toll-free number in the confirmation email that you may use to call to obtain production access. You can access the production servers after this step. You can now start using USPS web tools. With the help of USPS Web Tools, your customers may access useful shipping data and tools for complete transparency.

API Documentation

The Step-by-Step Instructions for all USPS Web Tools and the API User Guides provided by USPS are specifically advised for developers integrating Web Tools into a custom application.

Method 2. Integration via ReachShip Multi-Carrier Shipping API

This method is much more customizable as you can pick and choose the different API integrations you want. The ReachShip API Docs will present you with a well-guided list of APIs that you can choose from.

To add USPS Shipping using ReachShip Multi-Carrier Shipping APIs:

Create an account using USPS Stamps. The process of doing so is quite similar to creating an account for USPS.
Once you create an account, configure it and obtain all the necessary credentials such as Account Name, Password, Production Access, etc.

The next step is to create a ReachShip Account by navigating to the signup page.
After signing up, navigate to the ReachShip Dashboard > Settings
Under Shipping Settings, select USPS from the Filter By Carrier Name drop-down menu. Here you will be asked to enter your USPS Stamps account name, username, and password.

UPS shipping APIs | Stamps API Credentials

After entering all the credentials, click Validate and Save Settings. Doing so will link your USPS account with ReachShip.
Next, navigate to Settings > API and click ‘Create Credentials’ under SandBox Mode. This will generate your Client ID and Client Secret.

The generated Client ID and Client Secret can be used to generate your API access token.

Once your Access token is generated, you can use it to integrate the necessary APIs from the ReachShip API docs manually. Find out how to use the access token to call other ReachShip APIs by going through the ReachShip Multi-Carrier Shipping API Documentation Page.

Method 3. Using ReachShip’s Integration Solutions

We are developing solutions to integrate with various platforms using ReachShip Multi-Carrier Shipping APIs. ReachShip Integrations will enable you to obtain real-time shipping rates, estimated delivery dates, bulk label printing, live shipment tracking, and a lot more. It will directly integrate with leading shipping carriers such as UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL, Australia Post, and many more that are to be added soon.

ReachShip integration solutions will enable you to directly integrate USPS Shipping APIs without having any coding experience and these services will enable you to add multi-carrier shipping to your store without having to use or understand the API developer documentation.

To Wrap Up

Adding USPS services to your application and offering your customers terrific shipping alternatives is made simple when you have the correct integration tools. By offering a wide range of APIs for various shipping functions, USPS makes it simple to launch and administer an eCommerce store. Therefore, with its powerful functionality and wide range of integrations, it will undoubtedly provide everything you need to advance your business.

We hope that this article has provided you with a thorough understanding of how to quickly and easily integrate USPS shipping APIs with your application. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have about the USPS shipping API integration in the comment section below.

Miron Golani

All Author Posts

How to Integrate USPS Shipping APIs with your Application?

Overview of the USPS Shipping APIs

Key Advantages of USPS WooCommerce Integration