UPS/Miva Shipping, Scale integration

[habreu]

The boss spoke to UPS and made and offer including some money for their Customer Technology Program. There is a pile of vendors and not something I know a lot about so I figured I'd pick your brains.

All we want is to be able to have one way communication from Miva to a printer/scale so that we can pull up and order, weigh the package, get the shipping, and print a label. If the system sent tracking info to the customer that would be great but the number of sales is low enough that we could manually send out the tracking.


I'm trying to sort out the minimal setup we need for this. Any advice appreciated. We aren't looking to switch services - looks like he got a very good deal with UPS so all I am looking at is understanding the hardware and connection to Miva. Thanks.

[wmgilligan]

I hate to promote my own stuff - but this is perfection.... www.OrangeManager.com .... connect to Miva, connect to UPS, connect to your printer.... and pricing based on your sales - starts at free.

[GDesigns]

We also have a client that want's to be able to connect the scale - maybe do a survey, I am sure this feature would help a lot of merchants, if available

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

How would the transfer work? Do the scales typically have a way to do an HTTP connection? Can they be tied to a computer that does? Oh, and what's the purpose of the connection. Are you sending data back to miva on something like the actual price of shipping? Tracking Info?

[habreu]

In our case it matters our shipping is accomplished via some upcharges so we have a uniform shipping across the country.

I'm going to test out Orange Manager but basically we want to put a computer in the warehose so the guys can look up an order, pull shipping data from our Fedex, UPS or USPS accounts (even though we will use our own upcharge generated shipping so the 'live' prices won't be entered into Miva but how we ship might differ if for example our upcharge calculated price is more than UPS option 1 and Fedex is cheaper or better we might send it that way) then the guys will want to weight the products and print a label and put tracking data into Miva.

That's what I understand from the warehouse - right now we have a couple of scales and they go in and out of the office to print and update and we just want to streamline a bit as there is a lot of inefficiency. We don't process a lot of orders as far as number of orders, but we are a little company that has a complicated production process -the guys cut and bend large torsion springs, assemble locks and latches, we manufacture a specialized brush, we mix and pack some of our own cleaning/scrubbing solutions for painters, we mix paint and and there are a few other things that are labor intensive so if they could stay right there and simplify/automate/expedite a few things it would shave off a little time and frustration.

[s1b]

I am looking into this topic now - SCALE INTEGRATION with either UPS or FedEx. Any updates on this topic from 2019? Anyone find a solution?

[habreu]

I am not using this but I see Miva added Worldship integration which should connect to the scale. Maybe someone using this can pipe in. https://apps.miva.com/miva-worldship-integration.html

[wmgilligan]

Just for the record - Orange Manager no longer exists. Back in late 2019 we completely pivoted to OrangeMailer.co - The Virtual Post Office.

We do not have a scale integration - which to my knowledge requires software on the local pc - which we do not want do do. We are 100% cloud based.
We are not really built for anything but small e-commerce as our focus is the small office / home office / consumer market.

[s1b]

Thanks! I am in talks with Unishipper (broker/rep for UPS.) They are offering a free subscription to ShipStation and better rates than what I am currently receiving with FedEx. And they boast better rates than what I would get by going direct to UPS. I am researching the company now to see if I want to take this step. I want to make sure this is not some bait and switch deal where I will be disputing invoices.

I am fine with my current process which is strictly using Miva/FedEx to process shipments. But if I can make my process simpler, less time consuming, save on costs - then I will make some changes. It looks like I need to add the UPS worldship app to my research list before making any changes or commitments.

Is anyone using an integrated scale with ShipStation or UPS Worldship? OR any other apps I should be checking out?

[William Davis]

We use ShipWorks (USPS) with scale integration for over 15 years, works great.

[s1b]

We use ShipWorks (USPS) with scale integration for over 15 years, works great.

Hi William - which scale(s) do you have for ShipWorks?

[William Davis]

Hi William - which scale(s) do you have for ShipWorks?

I've been using the same scale for about 15 years, its an Endicia ES 2200 Postal Scale.