ChannelEngine: last-mile delivery and shipping labels
About this article
This article describes how to configure and make use of the last-mile delivery feature on ChannelEngine.
Table of contents
Introduction
Last-mile delivery is the transportation of goods from a warehouse/distribution center to the final delivery destination — the customer. Some marketplaces, such as Shopee, Lazada, Miravia, and Zalando, offer last-mile delivery services, alongside fulfillment by marketplace services. The last-mile delivery service focuses solely on the delivery aspect of the logistics process, excluding picking and packing of the goods.
To make use of the last-mile delivery, you need to set up this feature on ChannelEngine. This includes providing a shipping method, setting up carrier mapping, and retrieving the shipping label assigned to the order by the marketplace.
Last-mile delivery
To set up the last-mile delivery feature on ChannelEngine, follow the process below.
Setup
Shipping method
Go to Settings, Shipping method and enter a shipping method. The Shipping method should correspond to the name of the marketplace. E.g.: on Miravia, the shipping method is ‘Miravia’.
Marketplace configuration
- Go to the Setup page of your marketplace and select Delivery by [marketplace name]/Last-mile delivery from the Fulfillment type dropdown menu.
- In the Advanced settings section, enable the following settings:
- Realtime shipment export - requests the shipping label once ChannelEngine receives the trigger from your system.
-
Pack order after import - updates the order status to Packing on the marketplace.
- If enabled, ChannelEngine updates the order status to Packing immediately after importing the order. In response from the marketplace, ChannelEngine receives the packing ID, which dictates how many shipping labels can be used.
- If disabled, ChannelEngine updates the order status to Packing only after the shipping label is requested by your system. If you create two shipments, two shipping labels are generated by the marketplace.
Carrier mapping
- Go to the Mappings page and click the Carrier mappings tab.
- It is important that ChannelEngine exports the exact name of the marketplace (i.e.: Lazada) to request the shipping documents, otherwise, the request fails. Add the Method name under the Your shipping method column, and the Marketplace name under the Channel column.
Shipping label
Via the Merchant API
Before you get started, make sure the following endpoints are implemented via ChannelEngine’s API:
GET/v2/orders/new
PUT/v2/orders/acknowledgement
- If you are able to deliver the order, request its shipping label from the marketplace. To do this, call
POST/v2/shipments
with nothing but the carrier method name (i.e.: the shipping method from the process described above) in it – not even a tracking code. - ChannelEngine requests shipping labels for orders in real time. These labels are generated based on the response from the marketplace, and stored on ChannelEngine’s servers. To request your label in PDF, call
GET/v2/orders/{merchantshipmentno}/shippinglabel
. - You can then see the Package ID appear in the Extra information section of the Order details page, indicating that the label has been requested.
- Once the picking and packing are done, update the tracking code field with the note 'ready' via
PUT/v2/shipments/{merchantshipmentno}
. - When received, the order status on the marketplace changes to Ready to ship. On ChannelEngine, it changes to Closed instead of Pending.
To compare the order flow with and without last-mile delivery, check out the flowchart Merchant API data flow: last-mile delivery.
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