This guide will have all the information you need to know when working with HipShipper and answer the 'basic' and 'how to' questions.
How to connect my eBay store to HipShipper?
What is the Hipshipper order life cycle?
Need help? How to contact the support team
How does it work?
After signing up and creating your HipShipper account, the next step is to connect your eBay store to your HipShipper account.
After the store is connected your eBay listings will now have a list of international destination to which the item can be shipped, and from which a buyer can place an order.
Since eBay identifies the buyer when they log in, it will automatically show the buyer the relevant price for shipping the item to their country.
When the buyer then makes the purchase, the payment will include both the price of the item as well as the price for the shipping.
An order will then also be placed with HipShipper (should occur automatically) and you ship the purchased item to a designated address which is provided in the HipShipper order.
After shipping to item to HipShipper, you will need to update the order with the tracking number so we may identify the package once it arrives, and pay us the fee that the buyer paid you for the shipping, an international tracking number will then be produced and updated to your eBay order, so the buyer will see that the item was shipped.
Once the item arrives at our international shipping center, it will be processed and then shipped to it's destination.
How are orders created?
If you are selling on eBay and have connected your eBay store with you HipShipper account as instructed in this guide, when an international buyer places an order on your eBay store, an order will automatically be created on your HipShipper account.
However, sometimes, you will also want to submit an order with HipShipper manually.
If you are selling on other platforms, since the integration with those platforms is still not at the level of the eBay integration, you will need to place your international order with HipShipper manually.
This can be done very simply:
In the 'International Orders' page you will find the 'Add Manual Order' button.
After clicking that button, the 'Submit new order' form will open.
Start by selecting your store and the destination country:
Once selected, click 'Next'.
Now, fill in the buyer's details
Once done, click 'Next'.
Now fill in the item details
You easily let the system fill in the item details if you paste the item's 'ASIN' (Amazon) or 'SKU/UPC' (eBay) and click 'Load Info'.
If you cannot find the ASIN, UPC or ASIN, you can insert the item details manually, make sure you pay close attention to the item's weight.
Once done, click 'Next'.
Choose the delivery method ('Standard' or 'Expedited').
If you wish to add another item to this order, use the 'Add Another Item' option.
Once done, click 'Create Order' to place the order.
Go see the order in the 'International Orders' page.
Click on the green order number to get to the 'Order details'
There you will be able to see the Hipshipper international shipping center's address:
Now, place the order with the supplier, simply copy and paste the details from the Hipshipper order to the supplier order line-by-line.
Order created - now what?
Now that the order was submitted in HipShipper, and you also placed the order with the supplier and shipped it to the HipShipper international shipping center, you wait for the supplier to ship the item and provide you with the tracking number.
The order will remain in 'Pending' status until the tracking number is updated and will close after 30 days if the tracking is not provided.
This tracking number should be inserted into the HipShipper order as soon as possible.
Important notes:
1. It is important to provide the tracking as soon as possible, preferably before the item reaches our international shipping center to prevent unnecessary delays and 'Hold' statuses.
2. Always use the exact same tracking information that is on the package itself, so if, for example, this package is shipped from Amazon and has a 'TBA' tracking, and you use BlueCare to "translate" those tracking, you need to use the original TBA tracking.
3. This tracking number is our way of identifying the package, so if a package arrived to the shipping canter and we cannot identify it and find it's respective order, it will be placed on a shelf and discarded after 30 days.
4. If you do not add the tracking number to the order, it will automatically time out and close (cancelled).
Orders that have been timed out cannot be reactivated.
How to track my package?
When an international order is created and processed, an international tracking number ('Intl Tracking') will appear in the order details.
This number is also a link, and clicking this link will open carrier's web page showing the tracking information.
If the package was shipped using USPS, the USPS tracker page will open
If the package was shipped using DHL, the DHL tracker page will open, and so on.
But, it doesn't always work as we would expect it.
Using the tracker - How to really track my package
So the first thing you need to do is find out who the carrier is.
To do that, click on the 'Sale #' link
And switch to the 'Order Activity' tab, where we can see when the shipping label was created and who the carrier is.
In this case the carrier is 'AsendiaUSA', so we need to track the package using the 'AsendiaUSA' tracker.
This is the Asendia tracker link:
https://a1.asendiausa.com/tracking/?trackingnumber=
Very important:
Some countries change the tracking to a local one when the package is in their postal services' care, this is called the 'last mile' tracking, the 'Asendia' tracker also shows you the 'last mile tracking'.
If you notice that the 'Asendia' tracker no longer gets updates, you may need to use the 'last mile tracking' instead and look it up using the destination country's postal services' website.
Here is an example:
As you can see, the original tracking number is 'LW217485670US'
The destination is the United Kingdoms
And the new 'Tracking Number' shows the 'Last mile tracking' .
We google the destination country with the words 'post tracking', so 'UK post tracking' - this will give us the UK postal services' website: https://www.royalmail.com/
Now we take the last mile tracking, and paste it in the search field to get the result:
In this particular case, the item is being held at customs in the UK, so this is the information we will pass on to the buyer if asked about the whereabouts of the package.
*Sometimes, the destination country's postal services' website is not available to you or it is no updated.
In which case, you should use any tracker you can find to track the item, here are a few examples:
https://www.17track.net/en
https://tracking.skypostal.com/single-tracking.aspx
https://www.parcelmonitor.com/track-global/
https://www.trackingmore.com/en.html
Need help? How to contact the support team
Contacting the support team can be done by submitting a ticket or by chat.
However, there is a correct way to do that:
If the subject relates to an existing order, find the order to which you will be referring, click the 'Sale #' link to view the order details, switch to the 'Support' tab and from there you can submit the ticket, the order details will automatically be recorded into the ticket and this will save everyone a lot of time trying to find the order.
If the subject relates to an action in your account, go to the 'Support' page in your HipShipper account and use the 'Open support ticket' button to create a ticket.
When the subject is a general or a technical question, feel free to use the chat window.
