ChannelShipper offers all features found in Royal Mail Click & Drop, as well as a variety of additional features. This guide explains the main features and the advantages of upgrading an existing Click & Drop account to ChannelShipper.
You do not need to create a new account to use ChannelShipper. You keep the same logins and all other account data when you upgrade.
At the bottom of the guide, we also explain what stays the same when you upgrade your account.
New features are constantly being developed, and we'd love to hear what other features you'd like to see. For a list of what we're currently working on, please check: Coming soon to ChannelShipper
What features are exclusive to ChannelShipper?
2. View and edit batches in more detail
3. Add your custom packaging sizes and link these to Royal Mail package formats
6. Generate labels by scanning barcodes in our improved 'Scan, print, and pack' page
7. Improved imports from eCommerce stores
9. Order, Batch, and Product Tags
11. Despatched by Other Courier Enhancements
1. ChannelShipper Smart Pack: Automatically calculate weight and apply the most suitable packaging for every order
If you regularly receive and process orders with multiple products, our Smart Pack feature will try to automatically apply the total weight including packaging, and the smallest and most appropriate package format.
You can set this up by:
- Creating your package formats and giving them a 'Size' value
- Assign a 'Size' value to your products
- Choosing the smallest package format for each of your products
- Selecting the maximum number of that product that could fit in the chosen package format
When an order contains too many products to fit into the chosen package format, we will automatically choose the next largest one and apply that to the order.
When combined with Shipping Rules, you'll never need to manually apply postage to another order.
On your Orders page, we have added tooltips and warnings to any order that we weren't able to apply postage or a package format automatically, and to tell you the next steps required.
More information on how this feature works can be found here: ChannelShipper Smart Pack.
2. View and edit batches in more detail
To give you more control over your orders, ChannelShipper has an improved View/Edit batch page that can be accessed by clicking the 'View/Edit' link on each of your batches.
From this page you can:
- Edit recipient address information, reapply contents, or reapply postage for one or more orders
- Generate picking lists
- Generate packing lists
- Generate postage labels and customs documents
3. Add your custom packaging sizes and link these to Royal Mail package formats
If you use a variety of different types and sizes of packaging, ChannelShipper allows you to create all of these, and assign them to your products and shipping rules.
You can give each packaging format a size and a weight value, so we know the true weight of every order including the packaging and the products it contains.
These can be mapped to Royal Mail's packaging formats and saved to your products, so if you have more than one package type which could classify as a Large Letter, you can ensure the smallest and most appropriate one will be assigned.
For more information, please see: How to add custom package types
4. Create picking lists
When you have grouped one or more orders in a batch, ChannelShipper allows you to produce and print a picking list which will display every product that needs to be picked for those orders.
- Add images to your products for quick identification
- Display the quantity required
- Display names, SKUs, and stock locations
- Quantities greater than 1 are highlighted in bold
For more information, please see: How to generate picking and packing lists
5. Create packing lists
When you have grouped one or more of your orders into a batch, ChannelShipper allows you to produce and print a packing list which will display the exact details of each order that needs to be packed.
- Display the correct packaging type and products for each order
- Displays recipient details so the right label can be matched with the right package
- Scan each order's barcode to retrieve the postage label
- Product quantities greater than 1 are highlighted in bold
For more information, please see: How to generate picking and packing lists
6. Generate labels by scanning barcodes in our improved 'Scan, print, and pack' page
We have made improvements to Click & Drop's Scan & Print page including:
- Scan barcodes found on despatch notes, packing lists, or your own documents to generate a postage label and other documents
- Choose whether labels and documents will print automatically when you scan a barcode, or whether you wish to review the order on screen first
- Print labels and documents for single orders, or multiple orders at once
- Re-generate any paperwork or documents
- Review and view all information an order's contents, packaging, and recipient
For more information, please see: How to generate labels with Scan, Print & Pack
7. Improved imports from eCommerce stores
Trigger imports with a button press
Eligible orders from eCommerce marketplaces and webstores will automatically import into ChannelShipper several times per hour. If you know you have orders ready in one of your stores, you can click the 'Import orders' button to trigger an import when it suits you.
You can do the same to trigger ChannelShipper to update the statuses and/or tracking information of orders in your stores.
'Cancelled by customer' order status
To prevent you generating labels that are no longer required, we have an optional setting in each of your integrations that will let us automatically mark your ChannelShipper orders as 'Cancelled by customer' whenever an order is cancelled in your eCommerce stores.
8. Enhanced API functionality
8a. Retrieve labels and other documents via API
ChannelShipper's API offers additional functionality including:
- Retrieve detailed order information
- Reset order statuses
- Mark orders as 'Despatched by other courier'
- Delete orders
For more information, please see: How to import your orders with the ChannelShipper API
9. Order, Batch, and Product Tags
If you need to add key information that can be displayed to all members of your operation, ChannelShipper allows up to 5 tags to be added to every order, batch and product. Examples could be key information for packing staff such as 'Fragile', 'Hazardous', 'Multipack Only', or 'Customisable'.
When you add tags to specific products, the information will be displayed alongside every order that contains that product.
Tags can be viewed at various points on screen, and on our printed picking and packing lists.
10. Sales Dashboard
To provide you with better information about your business, we've added a new dashboard to show you:
- Number of orders and total revenue over the last 7 or 30 days, and a comparison to the period before.
- Information on the number of orders in each status, and the average time to fulfil those orders
- Your top integrations by orders imported
- Your best selling products
11. Despatched by Other Courier Enhancements
In preparation for multi-courier support, we have enhanced our functionality to mark orders as despatched by other courier.
You can now specify a carrier name, shipping method, and tracking number, and we will use this to update your orders in ChannelShipper, and pass these details back to the orders in your eCommerce marketplaces or webstores.
What stays the same when you upgrade?
When you upgrade your account, we will automatically keep all of the important data and settings from your Click & Drop account, including:
- All existing registered users
- Any integrations you have already connected
- Your label format settings
- Any trading names or company addresses
- All of your previous order, batch, and manifest data
- All of your existing products
- All existing address book entries
- All existing shipping services and shipping rules