RocketShipIt

It all started when I was helping my parents’ small business generate accurate shipping rates for their website. They were constantly frustrated that the shipping rates were always either too low or way too high. At the time, they were relying on what is called table rates or zone rates. Zone rates group areas of a region together and offer a table of rates to help estimate the shipping cost of a package.

The first problem with zone rates is that they require you to adjust the fuel surcharge on a regular basis. At that time fuel prices were surging. In normal periods one might adjust the fuel prices twice a year but these updates were coming in weekly. Another problem was that carriers started charging more for delivery to rural addresses. In Montana for example, it would often cost us more to ship a package 100 miles away than sending a package across the country.

We also needed a simple way to print shipping labels from orders placed through the website. Most carriers have an application for printing labels but they are extremely large, sluggish, and have poor support for integrating into remote databases.