ShipStation + SMS Alert Integrations

ShipStation?

ShipStation is an ecommerce shipping software that helps online merchants to manage their sales orders and shipments. It includes a variety of features including automated shipping labels, order management, and real-time tracking.

B:SMS Alert?

SMS Alert is a mobile messaging platform that aggregates all the messages from multiple carriers (Mobile or Short Code. It allows merchants to send text messages to customers regarding their orders. Merchants can also use SMS Alert as a marketing medium as well. This blog will focus on how SMS Alert can be integrated with ShipStation for merchants’ benefit.

Integration of ShipStation and SMS Alert

Merchants using ShipStation can easily integrate SMS Alert into their business process without any hassle using the Shipping Manager. They can set up automatic SMS alerts for their customers so that they are notified when their package is delivered. While setting up the notifications, merchants will need to specify the carrier IDs and keywords to receive the notifications for the particular carrier ID. Let’s take a look at an example:

As you can see in the above screenshot, ShipStation provides the option to send an SMS message when a shipment is delivered or if there is any issue with the shipment. The “delivery” notification is similar to a confirmation that the package has been delivered. The “incorrect delivery” notification is sent when the package was delivered to the wrong address. Now, let’s see how this can be implemented by our merchant.

The merchant will need to sign up with SMS Alert by filling out the fplowing form. http://smsalert.com/client/signup.aspx and then provide their company name, shipping carrier IDs, specific words to watch for, etc. As seen in the fplowing screenshot, our merchant is able to find all the shipping carriers and keywords to be used for the notifications:

After filling out the form, our merchant will receive an email (as shown in the fplowing screenshot. confirming his account setup with SMS Alert. Now, he has to register with ShipStation by providing his email address and password. After registering with ShipStation, he will be able to integrate it with SMS Alert by selecting “SMS Alert” under Shipping Software:

As seen in the above screenshot, there are two options available for integrating SMS Alert with ShipStation:

• Using Carrier ID. If the merchant already had a list of Carrier IDs, he can use these IDs to integrate SMS Alert with ShipStation. This option comes in handy when the merchant already had a list of Carrier IDs and wants to make sure that he only receives certain alerts for certain carriers. For example, many merchants will only want to receive order confirmation notifications from UPS but not other carriers like USPS.
• Using Keywords. If you do not have any Carrier IDs but want to receive all notifications for all carriers, you can use keywords to integrate SMS Alert with ShipStation. For example, let’s say you want to receive an alert whenever your customer places an order so that you can fplow up with them and make sure their shipment arrives on time. In that case, you can use “order” as your keyword. Once entered, you will receive an email confirming your integration as shown in the fplowing screenshot:

Once confirmed, you will be able to receive all notifications related to your keywords via SMS Alert. You will also receive these notifications on your phone if you enabled SMS Alert 2FA authentication on your account settings (https://smsalert.com/account/auth. However, if you do not check off these boxes during the integration process, you will not receive these notifications on your phone (unless you enable 2FA authentication later on. Let’s take a look at how our merchant might set up SMS alerts based on his keywords:

This way, our merchant can receive all notifications related to his keywords via SMS Alert. This feature has been very helpful for customers who want to receive confirmation on their shipments or want to know if something went wrong with their shipment. In addition, merchants can also schedule these notifications according to their needs! For example, if they want all these notifications at 4 AM every morning when they are asleep, they can simply set up a schedule using “Schedule tab” as shown in the fplowing screenshot:

The process to integrate ShipStation and SMS Alert may seem complicated and intimidating. This is why Appy Pie Connect has come up with a simple, affordable, and quick spution to help you automate your workflows. Click on the button below to begin.