What it is
Canada Post is Canada's national postal service, a federal Crown corporation that delivers mail and parcels to every address in the country. For businesses it offers parcel services such as Regular Parcel, Expedited Parcel, Xpresspost and Priority, plus small business discounts and pickup. Commercial customers can sign a contract for negotiated rates and account billing.
Its developer program provides web services for getting shipping rates, creating labels, scheduling pickups and tracking parcels. That lets an online store or business system quote shipping and print a label without anyone retyping an address into the Canada Post website. Rates depend on weight, dimensions, service and destination postal code, so getting them from the API is more reliable than a fixed table.
How I use it
- One of the four carriers I integrate with, alongside UPS, FedEx, Purolator.
- Integrations cover the general shipping work: rates, labels and tracking for parts and equipment shipments.
- Wired under my standing integration rules: sandbox first, keys kept out of code, and timeouts and retries for when the carrier's service is slow or down.
- Part of the work at the seams, where a system meets the carriers that ship a business's parts and equipment.
Canada Post is the right carrier when a parcel has to reach anywhere in Canada, including rural and remote addresses. Connecting it to the system that holds the order means rates, labels and tracking come from the same record, which is where most shipping mistakes are avoided.
Questions
Can Shawn Mervin connect Canada Post shipping to a business system?
Yes. Canada Post is one of the carriers I integrate with, so rates, labels and tracking can come from the same record as the order.
Why integrate a carrier instead of using its website?
It stops addresses being retyped, puts the tracking number on the order automatically and lets staff compare rates in one place.