If you’re shipping thousands of orders a month with ShipStation, selecting the right shipping label has a dramatic effect on your margins. So you’re probably asking yourself, does ShipStation do rate shopping?

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For those not familiar, rate shopping is the process of comparing the rates of different shipping services to each other to select the best one for any given shipment. This assures that you’re always getting the best rate possible no matter what you’re shipping or where you’re shipping to. 

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So, can you rate shop in ShipStation? The short answer is; ShipStation lets you manually rate shop for each order. But ShipStation does not automatically rate for each order. If you’re shipping 100 or less shipments a day, this might not be a big deal because you have the time to handle it. But when you’re shipping hundreds per day, you don’t have time to spend 45+ seconds manually setting up each order.

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This is where ShipStation’s automation rules come into play. ShipStation lets you set up predefined rules to determine what carrier, service level, and package to use for each shipment. This eliminates the time you spend setting up shipments in the ShipStation dashboard. 

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You can learn more about automation rules here. 

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But, automation rules come at a cost. ShipStation automation rules are static, meaning they don’t adapt to real time rates or update as your preferences change.  Therefore, even the best automation rules come at an average expense leakage of $1.07/shipment because they select an overly expensive carrier. 

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If you’re in this position and want your orders to be automatically updated with the lowest cost shipping option, try String.  String integrates directly with ShipStation to update orders with the lowest cost shipping method. 

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String can also be configured to follow your business rules. Let’s say you want to use UPS Ground if it’s within 10% of USPS Ground Advantage, String will incorporate your rules when updating orders with the desired shipping method. 

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You can have String up and running with your ShipStation account in as little as 15 minutes and you’ll receive weekly reports showing you exactly how much money you saved. You also get a 30 day money back guarantee with String so if you don’t save money, you get a full refund. 

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To find out how much money you’ll save with String, visit www.meetstring.com and request a demo. Using your last 30 days of shipping data, you’ll get a report that shows you how much money you’ll save. 

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