Running an eCommerce business means juggling countless tasks, from order processing to inventory management. ShipStation helps streamline your eComm operations, allowing you to manage all your orders in one place and ship them out efficiently. But even with ShipStation’s robust feature set, there's still more you can do to optimize your business as it scales.

By integrating ShipStation with other tools in your tech stack through Zapier's automated workflows—known as Zaps—you can eliminate manual data entry, reduce errors, and ship orders out faster. Here are four ways to automate ShipStation to make your eCommerce operations even more seamless.

Table of contents

• Connect to your spreadsheets

• Sync with invoicing and accounting tools

• Use webhooks with ShipStation

• Send real-time order notifications 

Connect ShipStation with spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are a common tool for keeping track of orders and shipments, but manually updating them can be time-consuming and prone to errors. By automating this process with Zapier, you can keep your spreadsheets up to date without missing an order.

Add ShipStation orders to a spreadsheet

Using Zaps, you can automatically add new rows and records to your spreadsheet tool of choice, such as Google Sheets or Airtable. Maintain an accurate database, keep a real-time view of where all your orders are at, and make data-driven decisions efficiently with the right information at your command.

For example, when you create a new order or ship an order in ShipStation, Zapier can automatically add a new row to a designated Google spreadsheet. This makes it easier to manage logistics and communicate with customers about their order status. 

You can also keep tabs on inventory levels by having Zapier automatically log each shipped item or track product demand by recording every item ordered.

Create ShipStation orders from spreadsheets

Many businesses use spreadsheets as a central hub for managing sales from various platforms such as eCommerce websites, social media marketplaces, and physical stores. If this sounds like you, Zapier can automatically create ShipStation orders for each spreadsheet line, centralizing and streamlining your shipping operations.

Other businesses might receive large amounts of orders at once, such as during promotional sales events or holidays, and not want to manually create each ShipStation order. In this case, you could bulk upload your order data into a spreadsheet and let Zapier do the rest.

Sync with invoicing and accounting tools

Managing your finances, accounting, and billing can be a full-time job in itself. By connecting ShipStation to your invoicing software, you can automate order creation and expense tracking, reducing the risk of errors and saving valuable time.

Use Zapier to automatically convert new invoices into ShipStation orders, eliminating any back-and-forth between tools. Shorten your order fulfillment times by automatically creating orders from completed payments. Or export your shipping costs directly to a tool like QuickBooks Online as tracked expenses every time you ship an order through ShipStation.

By automating these connections, you can keep your financial and shipping data in perfect sync.

Leverage webhooks to supercharge your custom workflows

Webhooks act as automated messages sent from one app to another when a particular event occurs. They enable real-time data transfer, and, for advanced users, they provide a powerful and flexible way to integrate ShipStation with virtually any other application. Webhooks allow you to create highly customized workflows that cater to your specific business needs, unlocking a new level of efficiency.

Imagine you have a custom-built eCommerce platform. By setting up a webhook that catches order data whenever a purchase is made, you can automatically create an order in ShipStation. Use webhooks to funnel all orders, regardless of their origin, seamlessly into your shipping operation workflow.

Send real-time order notifications

By automating notifications based on ShipStation events, you can loop everyone in—from your team members to your customers. Use these automated notifications to keep your operations running smoothly and customers informed and happy.

Notify team members

Slack pings make the business world go ‘round, and you can use Zapier to automate them. When an order is created or shipped, Zapier can send a channel message to let your team know what’s up. This keeps your team agile and ready to process orders quickly, maintaining momentum. 

You can even thread relevant information underneath these automated Slack messages, providing useful context for other team members (such as special handling instructions).

Communicate with customers

Customers want to receive timely updates about their orders as they happen in real time. They want to know that you’ve processed their order, and especially want to know when you’ve shipped it. 

You can use Zapier to automatically email customers these updates, building trust and increasing customer satisfaction. This also reduces the burden on your customer support team, eliminating the need to manually send these emails.

Make sure your customers feel valued and informed with automatic order updates.

Fulfill orders faster with automation

Use Zapier to connect ShipStation to all your tools, so you can focus on delivering outstanding customer experiences and scaling your business rather than getting bogged down by manual data entry. 

If you want to get really fancy, use a multi-step zap to string together multiple actions in a single workflow. Or use filters to tailor your automations to be even more precise. For example, you could create a Zap that only sends a Slack message to your team when an order exceeds a certain value, so that high-priority orders receive more immediate attention.

And that's just the start of what you can do with ShipStation and Zapier. What will you automate first?