The Shipping Containers feature in ShipHero is a tool designed to streamline the outbound shipping process by allowing warehouse staff to quickly and accurately sort packed orders into specific containers—like bins, carts, or gaylords—before carrier pickup.
This feature essentially creates a logical grouping of packages based on the carrier and shipping method, providing better control and visibility for the final steps of fulfillment.
Watch this video for a quick overview of Shipping Containers in action:
Key Benefits
- Accuracy: It prevents packages from being mistakenly loaded onto the wrong carrier's truck.
- Efficiency: It simplifies the end-of-day process for both warehouse staff and carrier drivers by having orders pre-sorted and ready for pickup.
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Better Customer Experience: By default, shipment notifications are sent to the store platform when a label is generated. However, with shipping containers you have the option to delay notifications to the store platforms until the container is marked as shipped, which provides more accurate expectations for the start of transit.
Please note: To take advantage of the delayed notification you must send a request to the Support team to enable it for your account; if you wish to return to the default behavior, you will need to request the delay shipment notification setting be disabled.
- Traceability: It provides a secondary record that a package was not only labeled but physically scanned and loaded for pickup.
In this article we cover:
Shipping Container Page Overview
The Shipping Container page lists all the Shipping containers created for your account.
On this page you can create new shipping containers, search by the container ID and filter the list by carrier and shipping method. Bulk actions include print labels, Marking as shipped, delete and duplicate.
The columns on this page include: Created Date, Container ID, Carrier & method, Shipped Date, Shipping Container note, Number of Packages scanned into the container and Container Status.
Shipping Container Statuses
- In Progress: The container is still being worked on or awaiting carrier pick-up.
- Shipped: Your shipping container is picked up from the carrier, and the container is manually marked as 'shipped'.
Viewing the Details of a Shipping Container
To view the details of a shipping container select the hyperlinked container ID. On the Shipping container details page, you can Mark the container as shipped or use the more actions drop down to quickly reprint the container label or delete the container. Orders scanned into the container will be listed and show individual order tracking numbers associated to them. To open an order click the blue Order ID link.
How to Create a Shipping Container
This section explains how to create new shipping container labels as well as how to generate additional labels that may be required later in the day should you require more after the initial generation.
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Go to the Shipping > Shipping Containers page and select Create Shipping Containers.
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Choose the Carrier and Shipping Methods that will be assigned to each container. You can create multiple containers for the same carrier if you need to separate the shipping methods for example, UPS Ground and UPS Express shipping options, or you can consolidate all the carrier's shipping methods into a single container.
Need multiple containers for the same shipping method? Increase the quantity of labels required in the quantity column?
Once all your Shipping Containers are configured click Create & print label.