DHL eCommerce Guide

Want to use EasyPost to ship with DHL eCommerce? This guide will break down all the necessary steps to make it happen.

This guide will help you use EasyPost to ship with DHL eCommerce. It will cover:

• Setting up your DHL eCommerce account
• Receiving accurate rates
• Generating shipping labels
• Manifesting and Pickup

In EasyPost, you'll frequently see DHL eCommerce referred to as DHL Global Mail. DHL Global Mail changed their name to DHL eCommerce in 2015, but many of our technical resources were not renamed. DHL eCommerce Domestic and International accounts are configured independently in EasyPost, and are designated as either DHLeCommerce for Domestic accounts or DHLGlobalMailInternational for International accounts.

Most of DHL eCommerce's services are available by default, however, Expedited Max and Metro services must be activated for you by DHLeC first, so if you are interested in using either of those, please reach out to your DHLeC representative and then to EasyPost support to have them enabled for you.

Visit DHLeC for more information on their services.

If you haven't generated your first shipping label with EasyPost, we recommend reading our Getting Started Guide to learn how.

Setting Up Your DHL eCommerce Account

EasyPost is an officially approved DHL eCommerce vendor for both domestic and international shipping - if you mention EasyPost when speaking with your DHL eCommerce sales representative they will work directly with us to setup and configure your account.

DHL eCommerce: Shipments within the United States

If you already have a DHL eCommerce account set up, adding it to EasyPost is simple. Choose DHL eCommerce from the list of available carriers on our Carrier Account page and fill in the following details:

• Reference: optional - for use when you have multiple DHL eCommerce accounts
• Description: optional - description linked to reference
• DHL eCommerce account number: your DHL eCommerce Account Number, e.g. 5311234
• DHL eCommerce client username: DHL eCommerce provided web services ID
• DHL eCommerce client secret: DHL eCommerce provided web services password
• DHL eCommerce client id: identifier for accessing web services, e.g. 29123
• Facility code for default distribution center: assigned based on your location, e.g. USORD1
• DHL eCommerce merchant ID (optional): internal customer number for multi-tiered accounts
• DHL eCommerce billing reference (optional): string of characters that can be used to aggregate billing data

DHL eCommerce: Shipments to International Destinations

If you are using DHL eCommerce for shipments with international destinations, choose DHL Global Mail International from the list of available carriers on our Carrier Account page and fill in the following details:

• Reference: optional - for use when you have multiple DHL eCommerce accounts
• Description: optional - description linked to reference
• DHLGMI Account Number: your DHL eCommerce Account Number, e.g. 5311234
• DHLGMI Pickup Number: your Pickup Account Number, e.g. 4521192
• DHLGMI Processing Terminal: assigned based on your location, e.g. ORD
• FTP User ID: your assigned FTP login ID
• FTP Password: your assigned FTP login password
• FTP Account: your assigned FTP directory/path

Receiving Accurate Rates

While DHL eCommerce does not offer real time rates, they will provide you with rate charts for the services you will be utilizing.

For domestic accounts, you can forward your rate chart to support@easypost.com. We'll take care of configuring your account so that you can receive accurate domestic rates.

For international accounts, DHL eCommerce will be the one to provide EasyPost with a rate chart. Please let us know if you have any trouble receiving accurate international rates.

Generating Shipping Labels

Generating shipping labels for DHL eCommerce is exactly the same as generating them for any other carrier with EasyPost. See our Getting Started Guide for help generating your first shipping label.

If you want to take advantage of DHL eCommerce's grouped invoicing feature - which is useful if you ship on behalf of other customers - it's easy to enable. Just include the reference information you want items to be grouped by (for example, a customer number) in the Shipment option called billing_ref. DHL eCommerce can then use this billing_ref information to aggregate billing data.

EasyPost offers native DHL eCommerce labels in PNG and ZPL formats.

Manifests and Pickups

Manifesting is a strict requirement of DHL eCommerce - you must manifest your shipments before they can be picked up and processed. DHL eCommerce manifests are referred to as Driver Summary Manifests (DSM) and should be tendered to your pickup driver along with your shipments.

Generating a manifest with EasyPost is simple:

1. Create an empty Batch object
2. Add shipments you'd like to manifest to the Batch
3. Create a Manifest / ScanForm for the Batch
4. Print out the manifest document for your DHL eCommerce driver

Each shipment may only be included on one Driver Summary Manifest - attempts to manifest a shipment more than once will be ignored. It's important to note this, since it's possible to create partial or incorrect manifests.

For example, if you add shipments 1 and 2 to a manifest, and then attempt to add 2 and 3, the second manifest will only contain shipment 3. You can inspect a Manifest / ScanForm's "tracking_codes" attribute to see which tracking codes were included.

For DHL eCommerce International you can include the request for a pickup along with your manifest by creating an EasyPost Pickup prior to generating your Manifest / ScanForm.