ShipStation Integration
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- Luminous and ShipStation: A Powerful Partnership
- A Perfect Fit with ShipStation
- Channels Mapped the ShipStation Way
- Syncing Multiple ShipStation Accounts
- Why Luminous Enhances ShipStation
- Get the Most Out of Your ShipStation Integration with Luminous
Luminous and ShipStation: A Powerful Partnership
Luminous integrates deeply with ShipStation, giving ecommerce companies a smooth way to manage their inventory and fulfillment processes without having to overhaul their existing systems. For businesses already relying on ShipStation to pull in orders, print labels, and manage basic fulfillment, Luminous fits right on top, adding more functionality.
A Perfect Fit with ShipStation
Implementing a new inventory management system (IMS) or warehouse management system (WMS) can often be challenging, especially when it requires ripping out existing tools like ShipStation. Luminous takes a different approach, sitting on top of ShipStation rather than replacing it. This allows businesses to keep their familiar workflows while gaining access to more features through Luminous.
Our goal with the integration was simple: make it so you can operate ShipStation almost like it's part of Luminous. The Luminous interface is very similar to ShipStation's, and it pulls in the weights, packages, services and sizes you've preset in ShipStation. Whether you need to print a label for a single order or batch print labels in bulk, Luminous does both through ShipStation’s API.
Channels Mapped the ShipStation Way
Luminous pulls in all of the channels you've set up in ShipStation and maps each one to a channel in Luminous, so your data keeps the same ShipStation segmentation. When a wholesale order originates in Luminous, it can be pushed to the correct store in ShipStation.
Syncing Multiple ShipStation Accounts
One of the lesser-known capabilities of Luminous is its ability to sync with multiple ShipStation accounts. It’s common for ecommerce businesses to end up with several accounts—sometimes as many as 10. Luminous can aggregate these accounts into a single system, allowing you to manage all your orders and print shipping labels without needing to switch between accounts.
Why Luminous Enhances ShipStation
Here are the main reasons brands add Luminous on top of ShipStation:
- Lot Tracking Capabilities: The number one reason people churn off ShipStation for inventory management is that it doesn't do lot tracking. Luminous fills this gap with simple, effective lot tracking, so you can track specific batches of products.
- Pick and Pack Solutions: ShipStation is lacking when it comes to pick and pack workflows. Luminous provides pick and pack solutions that work in tandem with ShipStation, while still letting you print labels through ShipStation at any point in the process.
- Wholesale Order Management: While ShipStation handles orders from ecommerce platforms like Shopify, it can't really handle the logic of wholesale order creation or invoicing. In Luminous, you create the wholesale order and invoice. Luminous then automatically pushes the order to the correct channel in ShipStation, where labels are printed as usual, and pushes the invoice to QuickBooks. See how the QuickBooks integration works.
- Reporting and Analytics: If you're looking for deeper data and reporting than ShipStation offers, Luminous gives you custom reports and analytics, serving as more of a system of record and a single source of truth.
Get the Most Out of Your ShipStation Integration with Luminous
If you’re already using ShipStation and need lot tracking, pick and pack workflows, wholesale order management, or better reporting, Luminous could be a great addition to your setup. Book a free demo today to see how Luminous can enhance your inventory management without disrupting your existing processes.
Video transcript
Why We Integrate So Deeply With ShipStation
Luminous integrates really deeply with ShipStation, and I'll show you how that works right now. We integrate with ShipStation so deeply because most e-commerce companies with a warehouse are already using it. They're using it to pull in all of their orders, manage some sort of basic fulfillment flow, print shipping labels and get their products out the door.
So when implementing an inventory management system or a warehouse management system, it's always best if that system — your IMS, your WMS — can sit on top of the existing tech you're already using. What makes an implementation really difficult is when you have to rip out your existing tech, like ShipStation, and replace it with new tech.
Instead, Luminous works like a perfectly fitting hoodie. That's how Luminous fits right on top of ShipStation.
Operate ShipStation From Luminous
The goal of the Luminous and ShipStation integration was for you to be able to operate ShipStation almost like it's part of Luminous. If you look at our UI here, it's actually very similar to what ShipStation offers.
Right now, I have this one order selected, and I can print the shipping label right here. This is simply pinging the ShipStation API. As you can see, even the weight, packages, services and sizes that are preset through the ShipStation API, we're already pulling in.
You can do this on an individual order basis, or you can do it in bulk. So if you prefer to batch print your labels at any point in the pick and pack or shipping process, Luminous allows that.
Channels Mapped the ShipStation Way
As you can also see in our channel integrations, we reference and segment channel data the same way ShipStation does. In fact, as you can see in one of these channels, we pull in all of the ShipStation channels you have set up, and we map them to a channel in Luminous. This makes sure all of your data coming into Luminous has the same ShipStation segmentation. And if there's a wholesale order that originates in Luminous, we can push it to the correct store in ShipStation.
Multiple ShipStation Accounts
Some less-known things about ShipStation and Luminous: Luminous can actually sync up with multiple ShipStation accounts. It's actually very common for e-commerce companies to end up with three, four, five, maybe 10 different ShipStation accounts. This happens for a variety of reasons. The reason is unimportant.
Just know that Luminous can sync up with multiple ShipStation accounts. Whether you have one, two, three or 10, we can still aggregate all of it effectively into one system, and you can still print your shipping labels from Luminous, triggering the API of the 10 different ShipStation accounts.
Reason 1: Lot Tracking
Here are the three main reasons why Luminous actually enhances your usage of ShipStation. The number one reason people churn off of ShipStation for their inventory management is that ShipStation doesn't do lot tracking. Luminous does, and we do it in a really simple way.
“Bravo!”
Reason 2: An Actual Pick and Pack Flow
Number two: an actual pick and pack flow. ShipStation is lacking when it comes to pick and pack solutions. Luminous has pick and pack solutions that work in tandem with ShipStation, and we can still ping the ShipStation API to print your labels at any point in the process.
Reason 3: Wholesale Order Management
Number three: wholesale order management. A lot of times, people churn off of ShipStation because, other than pulling in an order from Shopify or the different channels, ShipStation can't really do anything behind the logic of wholesale order creation or invoicing, and it doesn't really sync up with QuickBooks very well. Luminous does.
In this wholesale use case, what our users commonly do is generate the wholesale order and the invoice outside of ShipStation, in Luminous. We automatically generate an order and push it to the correct channel in ShipStation, where you can print your shipping labels and do what normally gets done. We'll also generate an invoice and push it to QuickBooks.
Bonus: Reporting and Analytics
Number four — and this is a bonus one, I know I said three — is reporting and analytics. In Luminous, you have access to much deeper, richer data with custom reports and analytics. It's more of a system of record, more of an actual single source of truth.
If you need one of those four things and you're already on ShipStation, come contact us today. Luminous would be a great fit for you.