Order types

The Shippit API is designed to handle a variety of order types, each with its own set of requirements and considerations. Each order type has specific requirements in the API request payload.

For examples of how to construct different order types, see the code examples section.

Domestic orders

The minimum required fields for domestic orders are:

  • Courier service level
  • Receiver name
  • Delivery address, including suburb and postcode
  • Parcel quantity
  • Parcel weight

International orders

International orders have additional requirements compared to domestic orders, including:

  • Customs information: details like tariff codes, country of origin, and customs declaration information
  • Duties and taxes: depending on the destination country and the value of the goods, you might need to include information about duties and taxes
  • Recipient identification: some countries require the recipient’s identification number for customs clearance, such as a passport or national ID number

For more information about creating international orders, see the International orders section.

Cash on delivery

COD services are available for merchants with store addresses in Singapore and Malaysia, for these carriers:

  • Aramex Singapore and Malaysia
  • DHL
  • Ninja Van

To mark an order as being COD, pass these parameters to the Order endpoint:

  • cash_on_delivery_amount: used by the carrier to indicate the amount they need to collect on delivery
  • courier_allocation: specifies which carrier is handling the order. This must be a carrier that supports COD. You can skip this field if you include courier_type.
  • courier_type: specifies the preferred shipping service class for an order. The available options are standard or express. You can skip this field if you include courier_allocation.

Note that when you book a COD order, authority to leave (ATL) requests are ignored. Someone must be present at the delivery address to pay for the delivery.

For more information on COD orders, see the Understanding cash on delivery article on the Shippit Help Centre.

Split orders

You can create orders that contain multiple shipments, with each shipment sent out using different carriers, or from different store or warehouse locations. The main benefit of grouping shipments within a single split order is to streamline communication to package receivers.

Split orders can have up to ten individual orders associated with it, as long as they all have the same recipient address. You can assign each order to a different carrier, using different service levels. You can create orders from different stores that are all associated with a single split order, but the stores must belong to the same company within your Shippit account.

For more information about creating split orders, see the Split orders section.

Return orders

Unlike outbound orders, return orders do not move to the Ready to Ship page. They move directly to the Track page and change their status to Awaiting drop off, for items that need to be dropped off to an Australia Post outlet, or they change to Return requested, for carrier pickups.

Web UI action API call State on completion Where seen in UI
N/A POST order New Order New Orders page
Confirm order GET label Awaiting drop off / Return requested Track page
Cancel order DELETE order Cancelled Not visible

For carrier pickups, a courier attends the recipient’s address and collects the product. The recipient must initiate the return by opening the tracking page and clicking to schedule the pickup. We do not currently provide the ability for a recipient to choose a date or time slot for the pickup, as this is not offered by the carriers.

For dropping off to Australia Post, the recipient must return the product to an Australia Post location.

For more information about creating return orders, see the Returns section.

Tracking orders

In most cases, Shippit books the chosen carrier using the provided information, and supplies tracking information and notifications for the merchant and recipient as the order moves through the network.

However, you can also book and allocate a carrier for consignments outside of the Shippit platform. If you do this, you can still use Shippit to provide tracking information and notifications for the order. This is referred to as a tracking order, and applies if you’re only using Shippit for the tracking and notifications, and not for carrier booking.

You can create a tracking order in the same way as any other, but include the tracking_only attribute. Tracking orders also do not require the additional attributes that Shippit uses to match the the carrier’s internal information to Shippit.

Tracking order attributes:

  • tracking_only: set to true to make the order a tracking order
  • courier_allocation: the name of the courier in charge of the item (required)
  • courier_job_id: the ID assigned by some carriers to the consignment
  • parcel_attributes -> label_number: the label assigned by the carrier system to a parcel, used by Shippit to match the parcel number against the carrier’s parcel number (required)
  • tracking_histories: optional status events that are added to the tracking page for the benefit of the recipient

In a tracking order, you can choose to pass tracking histories for the benefit of the recipient. These are shown to the recipient in the tracking page to inform them of the status of their order. These items have just two fields, a status field and a timestamp in UTC format. These fields are used to indicate events such order_placement and ready_for_pickup.

The status field informs the user of the order state at that point in time and can be either order_placed or ready_for_pickup. The timestamp indicates when the status change happened.

These tracking history entries are recommended:

  • order_placed: set to the time when you received the order on your system
  • ready_for_pickup: set to the time when you book the order on Shippit

If no tracking_histories entries are passed, Shippit generates an initial tracking history for the order, set to ready_for_pickup at the point when Shippit received the API request.

On demand orders

The on demand service level is offered by a range of carriers and services. On-demand carriers offer local delivery services with various delivery options, including delivery within two hours, same day delivery, or next day delivery. Additionally, some carriers provide a service where one driver picks up all orders at a fixed time.

Shipping pallets

Australian occupational health and safety regulations stipulate that anything over 30kg must be lifted with machine assistance, such as a forklift. To stay within these regulations, drivers need to have anything over 30kg put on a pallet or a skid so that they can safely lift the goods on top their vehicle.

If you ship pallets, when you retrieve a quote with the quote endpoint, or create an order with the order endpoint, set the package_type attribute in parcel_attributes to pallet. This registers each of the parcels within the order as a pallet.

You can’t mix different package types within orders. If your order contains pallets, it must contain only pallets, and not have a mix of pallets and packages.

Orders with a package_type set to pallet are sent to a range of carriers that are able to support pallet shipments.