Shipping API Reliability and the Power of Uptime During Peak Season
by EasyPost
As the holiday season approaches, retailers and ecommerce businesses are gearing up for a surge in orders. However, this increase in activity can also put a strain on shipping APIs, potentially leading to slow response times and downtime - and in turn, disappointed customers and lost revenue.
That's why businesses must prioritize shipping API reliability during peak season. A reliable shipping API ensures smooth communication between your business and shipping carriers, leading to on-time deliveries and satisfied customers.
What is uptime?
Uptime is a measure of a system's continuous operation, specifically the amount of time that a system is functional and available. In terms of shipping APIs, uptime refers to how often the API is able to process requests without experiencing any downtime or interruptions.
For example, a shipping API with 99% uptime means it was only unavailable 1% of the time. But when it comes to peak shipping season, even a minor downtime can significantly impact businesses and customers.
What does it mean for a shipping API to be reliable?
A reliable API delivers accurate and consistent information and processes requests without downtime or interruptions. In the context of shipping, very simply, a reliable shipping API means you can always ship something when you need to.
A reliable shipping API can make the difference between happy customers and churned customers or annual year-over-year revenue growth versus revenue decline. To ensure uptime during periods of high demand, businesses should prioritize choosing a shipping API with a proven track record of reliability. Beyond uptime, when looking for a reliable shipping API you'll want to consider factors such as incident reporting, transparency, carrier offering, and established trust from enterprise brands.
Uptime
Uptime is critical to shipping API reliability and should always be a top consideration when choosing a provider. Keep an eye out for providers with a proven track-record of high uptime, as well as those with a proven track record of reliable performance during peak times.
Many shipping APIs offer a status page where users can review current and historical uptime incidents in detail, allowing businesses to evaluate past performance and address any potential issues in real-time.
Incident Reporting
Incident reporting is a crucial component to factor in when evaluating shipping API reliability. This refers to the usefulness and consistency of information shared by API providers about incidents.
Effective incident reporting from your shipping API will clearly outline any real-time outages and scheduled maintenance and provide updates on progress toward resolution. Real-time notifications and reporting of incidents save businesses the precious time required to identify and diagnose issues when they happen and allow them to take action to improve their customer experience. Additionally, detailing scheduled maintenance well in advance allows businesses to anticipate and plan for any service disruptions.
Transparency
Transparency of key measurable KPIs related to API reliability should be considered when evaluating overall reliability.
A reliable API provider should be looking to publish their current and historical uptime and response time metrics to prove to potential vendors they are reliable. When evaluating the transparency of an API provider, look for reporting on an exhaustive list of the core business services, not just a singular generalized uptime status. Additionally, it is critical to validate long-term historical uptime, so if this is not made available by an API provider, that is another potential red flag.
Carrier offering
In addition to uptime and transparency, businesses should consider carrier offerings when choosing a shipping API.
With a diverse range of carriers in their network, a shipping API can provide more alternatives for you to fall back on if your primary carrier is down. Additionally, in cases where providers can offer shipping services natively, this can boost reliability and should be considered.
Enterprise trust
Finally, confidence from enterprise companies can also be a valuable indicator of a shipping API's reliability.
Reliability is critical for enterprise-sized companies, and they invest significant resources into the scrutiny and evaluation of their API provider. If you don't have the resources or time to conduct an extensive assessment on reliability, look at the brands and logos they list to ensure they can meet the reliability standards of larger enterprise companies.
Shipping API reliability during peak season
For ecommerce businesses to meet the demands of customers and maintain successful operations, a reliable shipping API is vital. A reliable shipping API can make all the difference in meeting customer expectations, creating an efficient logistics operation, and ultimately saving on shipping.
Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is at the heart of a successful ecommerce business, and investing in a reliable shipping API is an important step toward meeting those needs, especially in the peak season. If your shipping services are down, you may not only lose business during the outage, you may lose your customers.
Logistics efficiency
No one wants to deal with delayed shipments or missed deliveries, especially during peak season. By investing in a reliable shipping API, you can reap the benefits and maximize your logistics operation. A reliable shipping API means less potential for errors and disruptions in order fulfillment and more on-time deliveries.
Savings on shipping
In addition to improved customer satisfaction and logistics efficiency, a reliable shipping API can also lead to savings on shipping. Accurate and timely order fulfillment can lower the chances of needing to pay more for mistakes in the fulfillment process. A diverse range of carrier options also enables businesses to compare rates and choose the most cost-effective option for each order.
Peak season reliability with EasyPost
EasyPost has a proven track record of uptime and reliability, consistently achieving 99.9% uptime year-round, even during peak season. You can visit the EasyPost status page to look at current and historical uptime data.
Our diverse network of over 100 domestic, international, regional, and same-day carriers enables shippers to choose from a variety of delivery options, ensuring efficient order fulfillment even during periods of high demand.
Industry leaders also trust EasyPost - we are proud to be chosen as a vendor for USPS's PC Postage program. As a result, there are only three PC Postage providers worldwide, enabling EasyPost users to access USPS Commercial Plus Pricing for free and print USPS labels even when their servers are down.
How to get started
Getting started with EasyPost is easy. Simply sign up for a free account and you can use our shipping API to print labels, track your packages, verify addresses, and take advantage of our exclusive rates. To learn more about EasyPost's features and benefits, visit our website or contact our team of shipping experts for personalized support.