Get Hooked: Smart Webhooks with EasyPost

by Marco Raye

While recently waiting for a delivery of an online order, did you receive any automated messages via email or SMS regarding the delivery status of your order? That friendly feature often of some of your favorite brand experiences often involves what’s referred to as a “webhook.” At the most basic level, webhooks receive information regarding shipping, tracking, etc when an event on our end is triggered and something happens and support automated behavior(s). It’s a fast and easy way to implement event reactions, maintain transparency, and keep your customers engaged through one of the most challenging phases of the buying cycle: delivery. This article drills into what webhooks are and how EasyPost leverages its utility to help your business seamlessly sell to growing online demand sources.

What are Webhooks?

Webhooks (also known as an HTML push API) allow you to handle real-time events and initiate automated actions on-the-fly. A webhook (endpoint) is set up to accept information sent to it via an http call. It doesn't ensure anything has happened but just receives information if an occurrence takes place.

Some of the most common examples of webhooks are used and deployed by applications that handle and initiate events and notifications related to text messages, emails, code changes, payment initiation, web changes, and much more. Think of it as a promise or a handshake.

Benefits of Webhooks

Webhooks are of enormous benefit to businesses in virtually every industry. Here are just a few of the power benefits of webhooks:

• Instant, Real-Time Notifications
• Automated
• Flexible & Open Architecture
• Integrates Event Streams
• Bug Tracking
• Simple & Scalable

Since your webhooks are automated, your application doesn’t have to make period calls to your API. The most obvious benefit is that it makes integrations virtually instantaneous. With the flexibility of its open architecture, it feels a little like magic. The universality and scalability of webhooks mean that it opens up new and evolving possibilities for communication.

Leveraging the Power of Webhooks to Help Your Business Grow

As you integrate our webhooks functionality into your online store, you can extend the power of EasyPost to make your services faster, more transparent, and more reliable. You can update the client via email when key status changes in the delivery take place. Or you can send SMS messages when the shipment status has changed to “Out for delivery.” Your customers have come to rely on the level of service that you provide. This is just one more example of how, with EasyPost, you can go above and beyond to provide the best possible service and support to your growing customer base.

How Do Webhooks For Tracking Work with EasyPost?

It’s simple and extremely developer-friendly. EasyPost initiates a series of background tasks for tracking, batches, or any time an object is updated within your system. To keep you updated about the current status of those events, EasyPost launches webhooks as push notifications or callbacks. The best part is that it’s easy to implement the webhook notification functionality to your account. You can add your webhook URL to your account page. You’ll begin to see status updates when the status changes, which is essential to supply chain management.

While the webhook processing will vary depending on the specifics of your application, you can test the process by creating a Test Tracker or purchase a Test Shipment. Whenever you purchase a shipment via EasyPost, we begin to track the package immediately. We also immediately send you the tracking details for your order, so that you can track the status of the shipment as well. Even so, we will continue to send tracking updates to keep you updated about a change in the status.

Get Hooked: Contact EasyPost Today

After reading this article, do you have questions about our Tracking API, EasyPost webhooks, or any of our other next-generation logistics solutions? Don’t hesitate to reach out to our Logistics Experts if you have any questions or difficulty getting started. Together let’s make selling on the internet easier again.