Multi Carrier Shipment Tracking API

A shipment tracking API is a technology that allows developers to automate accessing and retrieving up-to-the-minute status updates on packages shipped through carriers in their networks.

A typical API response includes:

• Shipment status: A standardized label, from registration to delivery, including returns to sender
• Tracking events: Every carrier scan, with its status code, location, and timestamp
• Key dates: Ship date, delivery date, and the carrier’s estimated delivery dates
• Carrier tracking link: A URL to share with customers
• Identifiers: The carrier, tracking number, and your own order or shipment reference

Shipium’s multi carrier shipping API sends the response fields to your order management, customer notification, and support tools in a single format across all logistics partners. Transit data also feeds shipping analytics, such as on-time performance by carrier and service method.

Shipium’s delivery tracking API enables straightforward parcel monitoring across various shipping partners. Simply send an API request with the tracking number and carrier information. Our system goes through five steps:

1. Authentication of your request using your unique API credentials
2. A query to the appropriate carrier’s system in real time
3. Retrieval of the most up-to-date tracking data
4. Normalization of the data into a standardized format
5. A response in a consistent JSON structure

Read our tracking API documentation.

The Shipium API integrates with the core systems in your fulfillment stack:

• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to unify logistics, finance, and inventory data
• Order management systems (OMS) to automate and track order fulfillment
• Warehouse management systems (WMS) like Manhattan Associates to enhance inventory control and shipping processes
• Transportation management systems (TMS) for carrier selection and route optimization
• Ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, or WooCommerce
• Carrier networks to enable real-time shipment tracking across different providers

When you implement the Shipium API, our integration team maps your data across these systems, so tracking updates reach every tool your operators already use.

Yes, our parcel tracking API uses ML-powered time-in-transit modeling and carrier performance data to predict estimated delivery dates. This process ensures accurate package tracking and reliable delivery promises to customers.

Learn more about our Delivery Promise solution.

Shipium’s modular platform allows businesses to start with tracking and expand into other capabilities over time. Unlike legacy shipping technology, which can take up to six months to deploy, a typical Shipium API implementation can take as little as two months, with these key steps:

• Requirements gathering to align with your business goals
• Data mapping to integrate with ERP, OMS, WMS, or TMS systems
• API integration using Shipium’s developer-friendly documentation
• Comprehensive testing to ensure accuracy and performance
• Hypercare phase post-launch for support and optimization

Shipium’s platform lets you start with tracking and add other shipping APIs over time. If you’re looking to go beyond tracking, our enterprise parcel management software runs your carrier network, labels, and volume commitments from one platform.

Organizations that can best use Shipium’s parcel tracking API are high-volume shippers working with multiple logistics partners. Use cases vary by business model:

• Ecommerce brands: Share real-time order status with customers on order pages and in notifications
• Third-party logistics providers (3PLs): Monitor shipments for every client account through one tracking feed
• Retailers with omnichannel operations: Follow orders shipped from warehouses and stores in a single view

Shipium’s multi carrier tracking API connects all of an organization’s carriers through one integration and returns each update in the same format.

A multi carrier shipping API compares to direct carrier integrations as one connection for your full carrier network versus a separate build for each carrier.

You can integrate shipping tracking solutions with carrier systems directly, but the development work grows with every carrier you add. Each connection brings its own authentication method, data format, and update schedule, and your developers update it every time the carrier makes a change.

Here’s a breakdown of the differences:

A direct integration can work for a shipper with one or two carriers and no plans to expand. Once your network mixes national, regional, and last-mile providers, a single connection saves more development time with every addition.

Shipium gives you that single connection. We maintain each partner in our Pre-Integrated Carrier Network and apply updates whenever a carrier changes its system, so your developers never have to rebuild a tracking integration.

A shipment tracking API should provide developer resources that take developers from the first request to production, from documentation and authentication to testing tools and status references.

• API documentation: Endpoint references, request examples, and response fields for each API
• Authentication: API key credentials for each request
• Testing tools: A way to send requests, such as Postman, before launch
• Webhooks for tracking: Event notifications that remove the need to poll for status changes
• Bulk endpoints: Batch lookups for high-volume operations
• Status reference: A list of normalized statuses and what each one means

When comparing options for the best shipping API, review the resources before you commit. Clear documentation and testing tools shorten integration and cut support tickets after launch. We list every endpoint in Shipium’s APIs, with guides for API key-based authentication and Postman use.