7 additional integrations in the last 18 months take the total of couriers to over 20.
Over the past 18 months Volo have released a raft of deep courier integrations that further broaden our automation of the end-to-end ecommerce business process.
Our three latest integrations – Hermes Corporate, Endicia and myHermes – were been released in August, September and October 2014 respectively, to help customers find further efficiencies in the ways they distribute their goods.
Paul Watson, CEO of Volo, commented: “We are well aware that many of our customers choose Volo because of the breadth of what our software can do and our responsiveness to their requests for new things. This is especially true for couriers, and we’re adding courier integrations all the time. In the last 18 months alone we’ve added 7 courier integrations, which brings the total on the platform to over 20.
“It’s not only the quantity of couriers we can integrate that’s important, it’s the quality too. The depth of our integrations gives our customers control of their business, so that they can do everything they need quickly and seamlessly from one system.”
The seven additional integrations over the last 18 months illustrate both the rate of output and the versatility of the courier integrations:
Royal Mail Customer Own Solution (‘COS’) – May 2013
The Royal Mail COS integration allows customers with their own Royal Mail courier solution to easily manage and track regular, recorded and international shipping through their COS. Volo gives customers greater control through the integrated label printing and manifest. There is no need to rely on third party software or the courier to assign barcodes, since they are stored within Volo and tracking numbers are assigned instantly. The integration also supports email and web notifications to buyers.
DPD Online – November 2013
The DPD Online integration is for customers who ship using DPD and the Ship@Ease web server edition. As this is an integration with an online service, no software is needed to be installed on the customer’s computers. Orders are booked onto the live system so there is no need to manifest after label printing. Buyers can receive email and SMS notifications on the status of their delivery.
Interlink Online – November 2013
The Interlink Online integration is for customers who ship using Interlink and the Ship@Ease web server edition. As with DPD Online, SMS and email buyer notifications are supported and the customer doesn’t need to install any software on their desktop. Similarly, label printing is done online and no manifesting is required as live data is entered into the web server and orders are booked in straight away.
Parcelforce Express Link v9 – June 2014
The Parcelforce Express Link integration supports version 9 of Express Link which includes much of the functionality of previous versions. It gives customers access to the full range of domestic and international services. Volo controls the label generation and the manifest. The integration features email and SMS notifications to buyers, allows use by multiple departments and also supports the adding of multiple contracts
Hermes Corporate – August 2014: The Hermes Corporate integration is for merchants and retailers who want to use a fully integrated Hermes module for shipping in excess of 250,000 parcels a year. This saves the expense and hassle of using a third party shipping aggregator. The integration allows the tracking of parcels separately within a single multi-parcel consignment.
Endicia – September 2014
A new integration of the US-based courier Endicia provides for shipping within and out of the US using Endicia through the Volo platform. Endicia provides electronic postage solutions for the United States Postal Service (‘USPS’). This integration is a faster and more comprehensive solution that does not require any add-ons like Dazzle. It is part of our expanding suite of fully integrated US couriers and aggregators for our US clients and clients who ship from and within the US.
myHermes – October 2014
myHermes is a direct API (‘Application Programming Interface’, much more efficient than sending spreadsheet files or files by File Transfer Protocol – ‘FTP’) integration for customers want to send more than 150 parcels a week quickly and efficiently through myHermes. At the time of writing, no other platform integrates myHermes directly using APIs, which translates to an easier, quicker process for customers.
Paul Lever, Director of consumer tech merchant Cheapest Electrical, commented on Volo courier integration: “From the outset it changed the way we worked, and the benefits to my staff who are in the system all day every day were instant … The courier labels are all integrated too. They just press a button and the label is done. This is a huge time saver for us. The labels alone would take one person a full day to get printed and now these are all done in less than an hour … In my experience, other marketplace platforms don’t do as much as Volo.”
