Shipping & Fulfillment
Turn a placed order into a booked, labeled, tracked shipment without maintaining your own carrier accounts. TimberCloud's shipping tools handle smart packaging, live rate shopping, in-app booking with labels, and automatic tracking — all from the order itself. This page is your starting point and the map to everything else in this section.
Availability: Shipping — called Carrier Services — is included on every paid plan (Commerce and up). The Free plan is inquiry-only and has no shipping, pricing, or payments. See Subscriptions & Plans.
What "Carrier Services" is
Carrier Services is TimberCloud's built-in shipping network. You don't connect your own FedEx, UPS, USPS, or LTL freight accounts and you don't enter carrier API keys — TimberCloud manages those relationships centrally. You shop live rates, book a shipment, and print a label right inside the order.
The same tools also cover shops that fulfill themselves — local delivery, customer pickup, or shipping on your own carrier account. Those workflows skip booking and use tracking-number monitoring, packing slips, and delivery confirmation instead. See Self-fulfillment and Tracking numbers.
Before you ship: two prerequisites
Rate shopping is only as accurate as the data behind it. Set these up first.
| Prerequisite | Where | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Accurate product dimensions, weights & freight class | Catalog → product → Shipping Options | The packaging engine sizes boxes and pallets from these numbers. Wrong dimensions mean wrong rates — and carrier re-bills after delivery. |
| A fulfillment origin address + a card on file | Settings → Company → Locations; your shop's billing card | Rates are quoted from your origin address. Booking charges YOUR card (carrier cost + your markup), not the customer's. |
Important: The shipping label is a shop expense, billed to your card at booking as a "shipping" platform charge. Your customer pays for their order separately. Keep a valid card on file or booking will fail.
Optionally, set a company-wide packaging mode (leave it on Auto) and a shipping markup before you start. Markup lives inside the Delivery Option info modal — not a "Shipping" settings tab (there isn't one). See Configuration.
The happy path
Here is the full flow for a shop that ships through the carrier network.
- Open the order you want to ship.
- Set the order's Delivery Option to Carrier Services.
- Click Shop Rates to open the Carrier Services modal.
- Review the auto-generated packages — the smart packaging engine has already grouped your items into the fewest sensible boxes and pallets. Edit them if needed.
- Tick any shipping options you need (liftgate, residential, appointment, and so on).
- Click Get Rates to fetch live carrier rates side by side, each with your markup already applied.
- Pick the rate you want. It saves to the order.
- When you're ready to ship, click Book Shipment. TimberCloud books with the carrier, charges your card, and returns a tracking number and a printable label / BOL PDF.
From there, tracking runs on its own and the order advances to Delivered automatically once every package arrives.
How the pieces fit together
ORDER → SMART PACKAGING → RATE SHOPPING → BOOKING → AUTOMATIC TRACKING
(boxes & pallets) (markup applied) (label + BOL) (order → Delivered)
| Step | What happens | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| Smart packaging | Products are grouped into the fewest sensible boxes and pallets from their dimensions, weights, and freight class. | Packaging |
| Rate shopping | Live rates are fetched across the parcel + LTL freight network; your markup is baked into the prices shown. | Rates |
| Booking | Books with the carrier, charges your card, returns a tracking number and a label/BOL PDF. | Booking & labels |
| Tracking | The network polls every ~15 minutes; the order auto-advances to Delivered when all packages arrive. | Tracking |
Shipping modes at a glance
When you shop rates, you choose how the shipment travels. Auto is recommended.
| Mode | What it does | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Auto | Routes to LTL freight when any package is a pallet or the total weight exceeds 150 lbs; otherwise ships small parcel. | Most orders |
| Small Parcel | Box-based parcel shipping (UPS, FedEx, USPS-style services). | Light shipments |
| LTL Freight | Palletized less-than-truckload freight. | Heavy or pallet shipments |
Watching your shipments
Every active shipment rolls up on the Shipping dashboard — a standalone Shipping (truck) menu item, or Shop → Shipping for Production users — with Pending Shipment, Deliveries, and Late Shipments tabs. See The Shipping dashboard.
If you fulfill it yourself
Not every order goes through the carrier network. For local delivery, pickup, or your own FedEx/UPS/freight account:
- Use Add Tracking Number on the order's Shipping tab so TimberCloud still monitors the shipment and auto-marks it Delivered. See Tracking numbers.
- Print a Packing Slip or Avery labels, then mark local/pickup orders delivered from the Deliveries tab. See Self-fulfillment.
Next Steps
- Smart Packaging — how items are grouped into boxes and pallets
- Rate Shopping — comparing carrier rates and adding accessorials
- Booking & Labels — booking a shipment and printing the label
- Tracking — automatic delivery tracking and order completion
- The Shipping Dashboard — your fulfillment cockpit
- Configuration — packaging, markup, and location settings