EasyPost Shipping Labels

OVERVIEW

Loop integrates with EasyPost, a third-party service, to provide your customers with automatically generated shipping labels. Once you provide EasyPost with a list of carriers you’d like to use, Loop shops available carriers and service types to provide you the lowest possible shipping cost. 

In this article:

• Billing Setup
• Add Carrier Accounts
• Supported Carriers
• Loop Admin Setup
• Carrier Testing
• FAQ

Setup Walkthrough

Billing Setup

When using one of EasyPost's Carrier Accounts, such as USPS, you will need to upload funds into your EasyPost wallet for those labels to bill from. Please follow the below steps to add your billing information and to initiate your first transfer of funds:

1. Sign up for your EasyPost account using this Loop-specific link—it is crucial that you use this link rather than signing up at EasyPost's main site
2. Select Account Settings and navigate to your Billing tab

3. Connect your bank account to EasyPost by selecting Setup Wallet and then Add a Bank Account

   

   • Adding a bank account is the preferred primary payment method for US customers. If you are not based in the US and do not have a US bank account, you will need to add funds to your EasyPost wallet via a credit card or a wire transfer. It is recommended that you set up a secondary payment method in case your primary payment method fails to charge.
   • Please note that the initial bank account authorization can take up to 7 business days for your funds to post to your EasyPost account.
4. Next, set up your Recharge Threshold and Recharge Amount so funds can be automatically loaded back into your EasyPost wallet when your balance drops below the Recharge Threshold
   • By default the Recharge Amount is set $100 and the Recharge Threshold is set to $0.
   • Please note that automatic recharges can sometimes take a few days to post to your EasyPost wallet, so we recommend you set your Recharge Threshold to an amount high enough to leave additional funds in the account while the recharge is pending. This will ensure shipments don't get held up for insufficient funds.

Add Carrier Accounts

USPS

By using the Loop-specific link to sign up for EasyPost, you will automatically have access to EasyPost's USPS account that is enrolled with Loop-specific negotiated rates. No additional setup is needed to access these rates.

If you have your own USPS account with negotiated rates, we recommend reviewing our rates below to compare. If you would prefer to use your own rates, you can delete the USPS account under the EasyPost Carrier Accounts tab and add your own USPS account under the My Carrier Accounts tab.

USPS Rates

As of July 2023, USPS released an updated rate card to all merchants using the EasyPost USPS carrier account. The updated rate card includes:

• Slightly lower rates for packages under 6 lbs and in Zones 1-4
• Our USPS negotiated rates now save merchants 7-10% more than standard USPS rates (previously 2-10%)
• These USPS negotiated rates apply to Priority Mail service type only.

Other Carriers

1. In EasyPost, navigate to Account Settings and select the Carriers tab
2. Select the Add Carrier button and use the search field to find your carrier
3. Input the required account credentials to connect your carrier to EasyPost
4. Repeat the above steps as necessary with any additional carrier accounts

Supported Carriers

What carriers can Loop generate labels for? 

• USPS
• USPS Scan Based Returns
• USPS Returns
• UPS (UPS WorldShip or CampusShip accounts are not supported)
• UPS EU
• FedEx
• FedEx Smart Post
• DHL Global Mail
• DHL eCommerce
• CanadaPost
• Purolator
• DHL Express
• AustraliaPost - eParcel only
• Royal Mail OBA - Tracked Returns 48
• Interlink Express
• Passport Shipping - Please reach out to your Merchant Success Manager to learn more

Loop Admin Setup

1. In your EasyPost account, navigate to Account Settings and select the API Keys tab
2. Copy the Production API Key
3. Navigate to your Loop admin and go to Settings > Shipping
4. Select Connect Shipping Service and click the Connect button next to EasyPost
5. Paste your EasyPost Production API Key into the EasyPost API Key field on the page and click Connect

6. Once you've connected EasyPost to Loop, you will see all of your available carrier accounts in your Shipping tab

7. Next, navigate to your Return Policy tab to enable your carriers. You can enable carrier accounts to be applied globally across Return Policies (by not selecting any of the carriers as Preferred) or you can associate a specific carrier account to a Return Policy. Please review the Enable Carrier Accounts by Return Policy for the setup steps for these options.

Carrier Testing

The EasyPost Carrier Testing feature lets you see which of your carriers are supported from an origin to destination country using your EasyPost Production API key.

1. In the Loop admin, go to Settings > Shipping > Manage integration under EasyPost
2. Click Carrier Testing button at the top right
3. Fill in the info needed to test the route:
   1. EasyPost API key: the default key that appears is the one that is associated with the shop’s EasyPost integration, but you can replace this with another key if needed
   2. Origin and Destination
      1. Search for the name of a country. If none is found, click Enter address manually.
      2. If you want to use a specific address in a country or are getting errors, you can also edit the prefilled country address by clicking Enter address manually.
   3. If you want to set the shipment as is_return, you can select the Is Return box and this will mark the shipment as a return shipment and it will switch the origin and destination direction.
      1. This is usually not needed to set unless there is a specific reason you want to test a shipment marked as a return.
   4. Click Submit
4. Under Carrier Testing Results you should see the list of carriers and services that have sent rates back for the specified route. If there are no rates returned for the origin and destination combination, then that border crossing is not supported by the carrier accounts you have connected to EasyPost.

FAQ

What happens if a shipping label does not generate for a customer? Temporary carrier issues account for 90% of label failures. In these cases, Loop will display a message to the customer letting them know that they will receive an email when the label successfully generates. Then, Loop will retry every 15 minutes for 24 hours until a label is generated.  For the other 10% of label failures, the customer will see a message stating that the label has failed. Recommended troubleshooting is to check for missing phone number, address discrepancies or special characters in the name or email. In both cases, the return will also have a No label Shipping Status in the Returns section of the Loop Admin where the return can be opened and the label can be manually re-attempted by clicking the Email Shipping Label button under Shipping information.

What happens to expired return labels? If a return with a USPS label expires without label movement, Loop will request a refund on your behalf from EasyPost. If you’d like to cancel a label manually for any reason, you can do so under Shipments in your EasyPost account. If a return with a label from your own carrier expires without label movement, those labels will not need refunding since they are bill-on-scan.

What happens when packages are overweight? It is up to the discretion of the carrier, see details below: 

USPS

USPS will automatically bill your EasyPost for the difference between what was originally paid and the actual cost of the label. 

Whenever there are adjustments from USPS, EasyPost will automatically send a webhook event for each shipment to notify users that adjustments have been made on your account. You can then generate a shipment_invoice report via API which will contain all the adjustments during the timeframe specified. 

Other carriers

Regarding other carriers, customers may have to pay the difference at drop-off. If you would like to be billed for the difference instead, we recommend contacting the carrier directly to evaluate options.  

If you have any questions about how Loop calculates package weight, we recommend reviewing the Weight section of the Shipping Overview article. 

Can additional information be added to barcodes? Yes, depending on what carrier you use and what information you would like to add. 

Supported carriers

• USPS
• FedEx (FedEx Smartpost not supported)

Supported variables

• Order number
• Return ID

If there is a carrier or variable not listed that you are interested in, please reach out to support@loopreturns.com and we will let you know if we are able to support it. 

Can I use a free general domain email address (ex: gmail, yahoo, hotmail) to set up my EasyPost account? Yes, although EasyPost will require that you answer a few brief anti-fraud questions when doing so. Please answer the following questions and email them to support@easypost.com to activate your account. 

1. What city and zip code will you be mostly shipping from?
2. What kind of product are you generally shipping?
3. About how many packages per month do you intend to ship through EasyPost?
4. Can you provide us with the website and phone number for your business?

When do I get charged for labels? 

When using EasyPost's default carrier accounts (i.e., USPS and DHL Express), labels will bill on generation.

When you use your own carrier accounts with your own rates (i.e., FedEx, UPS, CanadaPost, etc.) the labels will bill on scan.

Are there any additional steps for setting up FedEx Smartpost? Yes, if you are setting up FedEx Smartpost, EasyPost will have to manually enable returns on the backend of your account. To do this, please contact support@easypost.com and request this action. 

Once this step is complete, notify your Onboarding Manager or email support@loopreturns.com, as some additional technical steps may be required.

How do I test processing events with labels? 

1. Use the "Test API Key" from your EasyPost account (Account > API Keys > Test API Key)
2. In Loop, go to Settings > General and paste the Test API Key into the EasyPost Key field
3. Go through the returns portal and submit a return for a test order
4. EP will by default send webhooks at random intervals after label creation 
5. EasyPost begins rolling through the statuses 1 minute after label creation and about 15-20 minutes after creation, the label is marked as delivered

Does Loop support UPS Surepost label service? Unfortunately, at this time UPS Surepost does not support return labels.

Can I use the same EasyPost account for multiple Loop instances? Yes, and unless there is a specific reason for keeping them separate, we recommend using the same one.

Does EasyPost offer shipping insurance? To learn more about EasyPost's insurance program, you can reference this article or contact EasyPost directly at support@easypost.com.

Please reach out to support@loopreturns.com with any additional questions.