Sometimes you may have orders in ChannelShipper that you will despatch with a courier other than Royal Mail, or by courier services that create their own labels, such as Amazon Prime orders.
If your order has imported from an eCommerce marketplace, we you can provide us with the carrier name, shipping method, and tracking number, and we will update the orders in your eCommerce store with those details.
By marking an order as 'Despatched by other courier', ChannelShipper will exclude it from your dashboard figures. This also prevents the order from downloading in again if deleted from ChannelShipper.
Marking as despatched by other courier manually
To begin, go to your Orders page, and select an order in 'New' status that you wish to mark as despatched by another courier. If the order has already had postage applied, you will need to reset it back to 'New' status.
Click the order to expand the order information. To mark as 'Despatched by other courier', click the 'other actions' drop down box and press 'Go'.
A dialogue box will ask you to add some additional information. The following are all optional fields.
Carrier name: Choose the carrier form the list provided
Shipping method: Type the method chosen, such as 'UK Next Day Delivery'
Tracking Number: Type the tracking number you were provided by the other courier. ChannelShipper cannot produce these for you at present. if your integration settings allow shipping updates, we will pass this tracking number to your eCommerce marketplace.
Your order will now be in 'Despatched by other courier' status.
Please note, once your order is marked as despatched by another courier, you will not be able to apply postage to the order, generate a label for the order, or mark it as despatched.
You will be able to delete the order, or restore it back to 'New' status using the 'other actions' drop down box.
Marking as despatched by other courier via shipping rules
For some customers, all orders from a specific store, or orders with a specific in store postage method will always be shipped by another courier. You can create a shipping rule to handle these orders automatically.
First, you will need to create your shipping rule. If you are not already familiar with shipping rules, please find our guide here: How to create shipping rules.
When creating or editing a shipping rule, navigate to the 'Postage details to apply' section and check the box marked 'Mark as despatched by other courier', then click the 'Next' button and then the 'Save' button on the next window.
All orders which conform to this shipping rule will now be instantly marked as 'Despatched by other courier'.
Marking as despatched by other courier via API
If you have set up a ChannelShipper API integration, you can update your orders with the PUT - set order status command.
https://api.channelshipper.com/#operation/UpdateOrdersStatusAsync
Explanation of fields:
orderidentifier: The order number in ChannelShipper, example 1234
orderreference: The order number in your eCommerce store or order management system, example eBay123456
status: set to despatchedByOtherCourier
trackingnumber: The number provided to you by the courier. Please note ChannelShipper is not able to obtain this number automatically at present.
despatchdate: The date and time you marked the order as despatched. Please note that some platforms have different requirements on the date format. Many will not accept a date that is later than the despatched date set in their systems.
shippingcarrier: The name of the carrier. Please note that some eCommerce platforms have specific requirements on the format you must provide. Check your available carriers.
shippingservice: the name of the shipping service or method provided to you by the courier. Please note ChannelShipper is not able to obtain this number automatically at present.
Exporting despatched by other courier order data
If you need an export of the orders you have marked as despatched by other courier, you can do this from the Orders page.
Click the small blue 'Export eligible' button as circled in below:
And you will be presented with a popup asking you to specify a date range for the despatched by other courier status orders you would like to export. This is set to 30 days as default, up to a maximum of 62 days.
A spreadsheet containing details on all orders from the time frame will download.
How to generate labels for Despatched by other Courier Orders
You can also generate universal labels for all Despatched by Other Courier labels, so that Royal Mail and non Royal Mail orders can be processed together.
For more information on how to enable this feature, please see: How to create universal labels