A Year in the Shipiverse: Shiptheory's First Year

At the beginning of June 2015, we let Shiptheory loose. Several incredible and long time Mad Capsule (The company behind Shiptheory) customers made this possible. As as well as helping the Mad Capsule team test Shiptheory from the inside out, they provided invaluable feedback we we developed that shaped what Shiptheory is today.

The team behind Shiptheory have been creating ecommerce solutions since 2008. We experienced an entire spectrum of workflows. Some incredibly efficient and others a world away from efficient. We've never stopped thinking that things could be better, for everyone. After becoming the leading shipping label automation agency in the UK, Shiptheory was the inevitable next step.

Our mindset remains the same:

Build great automation software, don't get complacent, make things easier.

To build great software, you need to listen to your users. And that is exactly what we did. It's what we still do. Every Shiptheory release is built around direct feedback from existing and potential users. If Shiptheory can make your life easier, let's talk!

As a result, in our first year we've integrated with 16 carriers, 6 channels, built a public shipping API, formed incredible partnerships, grown from our 2 founders to a team of 6 and handled orders amount to valued over £100,000,000.

Most of the new features added to Shiptheory are a direct result of votes from you guys, or a direct commission. Let's take a more detailed looked into what's been added to the Shiptheory universe in our first year...

16 Carrier Integrations

This year, we were lucky enough to be able to work with the following carriers to complete integrations into Shiptheory:

Royal Mail x2 (Both directly via the DMO API & via OBA through NetDespatch)
APC Overnight
Parcelforce
UPS
FedEx
Yodel
Interlink Express & DPD
UK Mail
DHL
Palletways
XDP
Tuffnells Parcel Express
Bring
13ten Parcels
CSM Logistics

Developing a new carrier integration feels good. We intend to continue to add new carrier integrations at the same rate.

6 Channel Integrations

Brightpearl

The team behind Shiptheory has worked closely with Brightpearl for years on a range or both shipping and non shipping projects. Brightpearl was an obvious first integration for us. Brightpearl liked the value Shiptheory added to its platform. Shiptheory is a Brightpearl Gold Partner and comes bundled with Brightpearl as the preferred shipping platform in the UK.

"Shiptheory provides an excellent complement to Brightpearl's multi-channel order and inventory management software. It offers our merchants great carrier coverage, is flexible and represents excellent value for money."

Henry Morland. Chief Product Officer, Brightpearl

Magento & Zoey

Magento is the most widely used open source ecommerce platform around. Magento's core infrastructure has made it easy for third party developers to create an entire economy building extensions, which leaves you with a world of additional functionality not available out of the box.

Almost a year after integrating with Magento, we've also integrated with Zoey. Zoey is a premium ecommerce platform that was built using Magento as it's base. We are happy to be working with Zoey to bring Shiptheory to their customers. You can find out more about Zoey on their website.

Visualsoft

Visualsoft is an award winning ecommerce agency with a repution for creating awesome online experiences. Their bespoke ecommerce platform is at the heart of what they do, and we excited to be a part of it. You can read more about Visualsoft on their website.

Shopify

Shopify, at last count, had over 12,000 ecommerce stores online. With a healthy app marketplace adding additional functionality to the core platform, Shopify is an excellent place to be if you are looking for managed store. If you've seen Shopify before, take a look at their website for more information.

Exact Online

Exact is an ecommerce platform packed with out of the box functionality. Warehousing, Project Management and Accountancy to name just a few. You can read more about Exact on their website.

Public Shipping API

In May, we released our public Shipping API. This opened Shiptheory up the ecommerce community, providing one seamless endpoint for all of our supported carriers. Shiptheory are constantly working with carriers and know first hand the time and effort involved in developing a flexible, robust carrier integration. We've kept this in mind when developing our own API, making sure it's something we'd be happy developing with. (It is.)

A Team of 6

It didn't take long for our team to start growing. As soon as we had an application that you guys liked, we increased our support. Next we brought in more development. The bolstered our partner capability. Most recently, we've built on support further. With our base in Bristol, our team is fully distributed across the globe.

The Next 12 Months

Over the next 12 months we will continue to work with all of you to remove as much work from your day as we can. We are incredibly grateful for those of your that trust us with your business. We have plans for some great features and will continue to add new carriers and channels for as long as you guys are asking for them.

If you think we are doing something wrong, or or something right, get in touch. If there is something we are missing that you need, we want to know about it. Let's keep communicating and keep building Shiptheory to work for you.

Happy Shipping

The Shiptheory Team