Custom Shipping Extensions Development via API for Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce, and X-cart

Item: Whidegroup
Author: Mark Viloria

Visit Website

5

platforms

160

hrs per extension

300+

active clients

The Overview

ShipHawk is a leading platform for eсommerce logistics optimization and transportation automation. It serves a wide range of clients, including retailers, B2B and B2C eсommerce businesses, manufacturers, and distributors. The platform connects these users with major US shipping leaders (FedEx, UPS, USPS), as well as with approximately 200 smaller parcel, freight, blanket wrap, and white glove carrier services.
Launched in 2012, today the startup is providing thousands of businesses with an easy and fast real-time comparison of parameters, pricing and other conditions essential for choosing the best shipping/transportation solution, especially for cumbersome or custom sized items.

Understanding that one of the main pain points of most ecommerce businesses is a shipping issue, ShipHawk decided to develop specialized integrations for the most popular ecommerce platforms to make the solution easy to be reached by ecommerce business owners. With this need, ShipHawk reached out to us to develop custom shipping extensions for Magento 1, Magento 2, Shopify, WooCommerce and X-cart.

The Challenge

Researching the specifics and pain points of the shipping and transportation business, we found several major bottlenecks we had to contend with. The main challenge was the need to develop a shipping cost estimation logic, taking into account the following factors:

1.
Depending on the product characteristics, the shipping cost can be calculated
in different ways, on the basis of their linear dimensions or volumetric weight.
So, for example, the shipping cost for extra-long or heavy goods should be calculated differently.
2.
Sometimes, the products listed in the same online store can be stored in different warehouses. As a result, when ordering several products, the shipping cost for
each of them should be calculated separately. These could often be completely different parcels with different costs and delivery time.
3.
Standard shipping modules (UPS, USPS, FedEx) only calculate the shipping costs. Further parcel processing (initiation of the delivery on the side of a transportation company, dispatch confirmation, etc) is carried out by managers and online store administrators manually or by using third-party software. We had to make sure that all these processes, from the receipt of the delivery request to
shipping label generation, are processed by the modules automatically or after the order confirmation.

The Solution

The custom shipping extensions development for ShipHawk was carried out in two stages.

At the first stage, we developed a complex solution for Magento 1, Shopify, and WooCommerce. Here, the most time-consuming part of the work was adding product dimension attributes and logic for parcel size calculation to enable more precise ecommerce shipping automation and cost estimation.

After a while, it became obvious that in the case of complex-shaped items, it was cumbersome for ecommerce managers to submit needed product parameters manually for the calculation of the shipping cost of every new order. That’s why, in the second stage, we developed other modules. They were aimed at the downloading of all new orders from an ecommerce admin panel to the ShipHawk’s side, and then returning the order dispatch confirmations and subsequent tracking information back to the CMS.

MAGENTO EXTENSIONS

Magento 1 and Magento 2 modules development process was followed by no difficulties. Despite the complexity of the platforms’ architecture, these ecommerce engines provide all the tools for shipping provider integration via third-party APIs and creation of custom functionality for advanced logistics automation.
SHOPIFY APP

However, due to peculiarities of the Shopify architecture, to develop a fully functional Shopify app for ShipHawk, we had to work on the following functionality:

Automatic transfer of orders from Shopify to ShipHawk for more convenient order/shipping
management on ShipHawk’s side.

The logic of transferring real-time shipping quotes from multiple shipping providers to merchants – enabling a multi-carrier shipping solution directly within Shopify.
WOOCOMMERCE PLUGIN

To make the WooCommerce plugin fully meet ShipHawk’s requirements, we also needed to:

Develop a controller that could receive incoming notifications from ShipHawk

Write actions for the WooCommerce admin panel that make it possible to send white-glove delivery/product shipping requests directly from the “order details” page.
X-CART EXTENSION

Due to the X-Cart’s simple architecture, the development of a custom shipping extension also did not cause any difficulties.

PreviousNext

1 2 3 4

The Result

Now, with the released Shiphawk extensions, Magento 1, Magento 2, Shopify,
WooCommerce, and X-Cart storefronts can:

Connect with hundreds of delivery carriers and shipping providers
Set shipping policies at shipment or product level
Import product info with a single click
Easily sync orders, simplifying their fulfillment
Automate all processes, from booking up to delivery
Access automated shipping label generation and documentation, etc.

As a result, thousands of ecommerce merchants have a solution
that provides full ecommerce shipping automation. This solution
effectively eliminates operational overhead, increases cart conversions,
decreases costs, and significantly improves post-purchase customer experience!

ShipHawk Ranks No. 192

2018 Inc. 500

ShipHawk CEO, Jeremy Bodenhamer, named one of the 2018 Pros to Know

SDCE 2018 Pros to Know

ShipHawk Ranks No. 8

2017 Deloitte Fast 500

ShipHawk Wins Green Supply Chain Award

SDCE 2017 Green Supply Chain Awards

Top 50 Shipping Websites & Blogs For Shipping Industry Professionals

Feedspot 2016

2016 Hot Companies for Small Package Solutions

Parcel Logistics Leaders 2016

20 Most Promising Ecommerce Solution Providers

CIO Review 2016

Mark Viloria ShipHawk

Product Manager

Even such a tricky task like the realization of a custom logic for shipping costs estimation didn’t put Whidegroup in a tough spot. As a result, all five extensions were delivered on time and without deviations from the initially estimated cost. "