Purolator

What it is

Purolator is a Canadian courier and freight company focused on time-sensitive parcel delivery across Canada, with cross-border service to the United States. It is majority-owned by Canada Post and is based in Mississauga, Ontario. It runs its own ground and air network across the country, with service to both business and residential addresses. Business customers ship with an account that carries their negotiated rates and pickup schedule.

Purolator offers developer web services for estimating rates, creating shipments and labels, scheduling pickups and tracking. Linked to a business system, it lets staff ship from the order screen and keep the tracking number on the customer's record. Shipments can be tracked by PIN, the tracking number Purolator assigns to each package. Those details can be shown to staff or sent on to the customer.

How I use it

• One of the four carriers I integrate with, alongside Canada Post, UPS, FedEx.
• 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.

Purolator is the right carrier for next-day courier service between Canadian business addresses, which is common in parts and equipment work. Having it connected next to the other carriers means staff can pick the best option per shipment without juggling websites.

Questions