5 ms·

Buy Stamps from Your Command Line

79 points by jstreebin 14y ago

toomuchtodo 14y ago
Jarrett, Just got the email from your blog post. What's the preferred method of printing first class labels/postage generated via your API?
- jstreebin 14y ago
  I haven't looked much at label printers for that size -- I usually just print on paper and tape on. You doing a lot of these?
  - toomuchtodo 14y ago
    Not yet, just took a look again at your site because of the email campaign. I do have some prospective users though; I plan on exploring more tonight.
  - jstreebin 14y ago
    Cool, if you reply to the email I'll let you know what I find wrt label printers (can't find your email)
- jonknee 14y ago
  DYMO printers are pretty standard and come in different sizes. The 4XL would certainly fit this use case: http://www.amazon.com/DYMO-LabelWriter-4XL-Label-Printer/dp/B002M1LGJ4/ http://www.amazon.com/DYMO-LabelWriter-4XL-Label-Printer/dp/...
  - jstreebin 14y ago
    Oh nice, I didn't realize those work for these size labels as well.
  - toomuchtodo 14y ago
    Thank you sir!
    - jonknee 14y ago
      An aside that may be useful, DYMO has a somewhat supported JS library to print labels from a browser. I implemented it with an inventory system to print shelf labels, but I don't see why it couldn't be used here.
  - memset 14y ago
    ULine also has a decent selection: http://www.uline.com/Cls_26/Barcode-Labels-and-Printers http://www.uline.com/Cls_26/Barcode-Labels-and-Printers
- memset 14y ago
  For more details on this - usually labels are created in a file format called EPL [1] (or EPL2, or ZPL). This is a format specifically for label printers, and the specification makes it easy ("easy") to command a printer to print, say, barcodes in almost any style without having to create some sort of graphic. 4x6" is pretty common. UPS and Fedex's APIs allow you to specify a label size as input, and they return a base64-encoded EPL file as output. You can then take that file and send it to your printer. This works fairly well with CUPS, which is how I've automated our shipping (just make sure you use `lpr -o raw` so that it treats that EPL file as raw input. Otherwise, the printer sometimes prints the label as an ASCII file.) I'm unsure about the USPS api - but I would argue that most high-volume shippers do not use the USPS, due to lower-quality detailed tracking info. When you print out the shipping label on paper and tape it to the box, you are using the courier's api's "GIF" or "PDF" feature, where it returns the label in one of those formats. This is great, but in my experience, it is pretty hard getting them to print properly on your label printer. Finally - and not a lot of people know this - UPS and Fedex will give you a label printer, and labels, for free! If you have high volume (unsure of the threshold) then you should call to negotiate your rate and have them bring you hardware (and set up your computer) for shipping. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eltron_Programming_Language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eltron_Programming_Language
niftylettuce 14y ago
You can also use `$ npm install -g easypostjs && easypost --help` -- this will let you print postage via CLI with inputs, see https://github.com/EasyPost/easypost-node#easypostjs- https://github.com/EasyPost/easypost-node#easypostjs-
- jstreebin 14y ago
  Indeed, much easier than cURLing Thanks for the awesome work, Nick!
meritt 14y ago
As a side-effect can your service be used for address normalization?
- jstreebin 14y ago
  verification? yes check it out here https://geteasypost.com/docs https://geteasypost.com/docs
  - meritt 14y ago
    Great. Your service is doing more than simple verification. Verification by its nature would result in a boolean. Your service is suggesting a better address (which is what I'd call normalization). e.g. curl https://www.geteasypost.com/api/address/verify \ -u cueqNZUb3ldeWTNX7MU3Mel8UXtaAMUi: \ -d 'address[street1]=388 Townshende Ave' \ -d 'address[street2]=Unit 20' \ -d 'address[city]=San Francisco' \ -d 'address[state]=CA' \ -d 'address[zip]=94107' yields: {"address":{"street1":"388 TOWNSEND ST APT 20","city":"SAN FRANCISCO","state":"CA","zip":"94107"}} Anyhow, semantics aside, are you going to make it fuzzier or this is based entirely on USPS' api?
    - jstreebin 14y ago
      What do you mean by fuzzier? We're doing it carrier-based, so that the corresponding postage works. What are you needing this for?
      - meritt 14y ago
        "388 Townsend San Fran" Would yield the same as above. Addresses are inherently dirty data and there aren't any decent/affordable/legal services that offer this. You can use Google Maps Geocoder or Yahoo Placefinder but both have fairly strict quotas and are only intended (legally speaking) for use with their mapping products. USPS/FedEx/UPS are also restricted unless you're shipping with them. Edit - Yahoo is actually letting people pay very respectable rates for their PlaceFinder service now. This is great: http://developer.yahoo.com/boss/geo/ http://developer.yahoo.com/boss/geo/
zdw 14y ago
So, where's the Bank or Credit Union that has an interface like this?
- toomuchtodo 14y ago
  Simple is almost ready to launch it's API: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/simple-api https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/simple-ap... And Dwolla already has one: https://www.dwolla.com/developers https://www.dwolla.com/developers
  - krasin 14y ago
    By "almost ready to launch" you mean "they abandoned that idea 2 years ago"? At least, your link suggests that (last post in the group dated by 2011)
    - toomuchtodo 14y ago
      I'll have to get more info. I interface with their support team frequently, have a Simple account, and use it on a daily basis. "Abandoned" wouldn't be the info I've heard.
btown 14y ago
This is absolutely awesome. I'd love to see EasyPost integrate/replicate Microsoft Office's mail merge functionality for commonly used label templates. For instance, you could `GET api/labels/ids=id1,id2,id3&template_provider=avery&template=15664&format=pdf` and you would get a pre-filled PDF with 3 labels that would print directly to an Avery 15664 label sheet out of an inkjet printer. If EasyPost doesn't do this, we'd probably end up replicating this in-house, but since every self-fulfilling online retailer (a) needs to do this, and (b) would probably just buy these label sheets from the local Staples, it just makes sense for you guys to offer it as well.
- jstreebin 14y ago
  Thanks, we've looked at rotating images and combining them in pdf but haven't pushed any of this yet. If you drop me a note to j at easypost dot co I'd love to find out more and let you know what we're working on
- icelancer 14y ago
  Absolutely. This is the missing link in any shopping cart that I've tried out. We don't do huge volume (maybe $100,000/year for 2013), but this is a continual source of annoyance for me - that there is simply no good, automated way to deal with this. Paying a 5% surcharge is absolutely reasonable if someone can just use the USPS APIs and wrap it into an automated postage plugin where my orders get posted to their API and I simply just print out the PDFs that come out. Or something like that. We're not even close to that right now and it's silly!
icelancer 14y ago
Oh wow, this is awesome. Integration with WooCommerce and/or other shopping carts would be amazing.
Xymak1y 14y ago
Very nice website.
- jstreebin 14y ago
  Thanks!
memset 14y ago
This is neat! Can you also support negotiated rates by using our account's credentials? Also - shameless plug - I myself am working on an actually-usable python UPS library (with a real quickstart and example code and everything!) It is surprising how weak open-source library support is for this kind of thing, which is tedious, but not alltogether insurmountable. https://github.com/classicspecs/ClassicUPS https://github.com/classicspecs/ClassicUPS
- jstreebin 14y ago
  You can! Nice work!
quellhorst 14y ago
I would like for the API documentation to have more examples of shipping with flat rate boxes or different shipping options. Right now I find myself having to guess or look into the source code before printing certain labels.
- jstreebin 14y ago
  Agreed, we need to better lay out the shipping options. What types of labels are you printing? Feel free to email me and I can give you the correct calls
JaggedJax 14y ago
I like the simplicity, but from my experience with warehouses no one is willing to take a 5 cent increase in postage costs, let alone a 5% (or less) increase. Is the rate you're basing the ~5% on commercial base, commercial plus, GEPS? There are other consolidators that will offer those prices (Express1 for example). And while they are more work to integrate, the long term savings can be enormous.
- jstreebin 14y ago
  You're right. We started with % of spend because it was easiest. We've had plans for a while now and will push them soon. These have competitive rates for volume shippers. In need of something like this?
  - JaggedJax 14y ago
    We use the Endicia and Express1 API's in our software currently (Mainly because Express1 will share a bit of our client's revenue with us). We are definitely still in the marketplace for UPS, FedEx, etc solutions though. Haven't gotten around to their API's yet, and I don't know if there are good consolidator rates for them.
    - jstreebin 14y ago
      Great, we'd love to talk. Feel free to drop me an email at j at easypost dot co (I can't find your email)
fbpcm 14y ago
Do you support Media Mail - https://www.usps.com/ship/media-mail.htm https://www.usps.com/ship/media-mail.htm ?
- jstreebin 14y ago
  We do! You can see it in the rates calls, and then select it with MediaMail for service https://geteasypost.com/docs https://geteasypost.com/docs
shalmanese 14y ago
We're currently spending about $2000 on shipping a month and evaluating moving to either easypost or https://www.postmaster.io/ https://www.postmaster.io/ (away from Endicia). Both are small, agile, responsive companies and have a bunch of awesome features. Feel free to email me at hang@getjuniper.com if you want to hear about our experiences.
alexvr 14y ago
Wait till my grandma gets word of this...
plusbryan 14y ago
Do you support international rates? I looked into Postmaster.io but they don't seem to yet.
- jstreebin 14y ago
  We do! We're live with USPS International. Shoot us an email to international at easypost dot co for access

79 points by jstreebin 14y ago

Jarrett, Just got the email from your blog post. What's the preferred method of printing first class labels/postage generated via your API?

jstreebin 14y ago
I haven't looked much at label printers for that size -- I usually just print on paper and tape on. You doing a lot of these?
- toomuchtodo 14y ago
  Not yet, just took a look again at your site because of the email campaign. I do have some prospective users though; I plan on exploring more tonight.
- jstreebin 14y ago
  Cool, if you reply to the email I'll let you know what I find wrt label printers (can't find your email)
jonknee 14y ago
DYMO printers are pretty standard and come in different sizes. The 4XL would certainly fit this use case: http://www.amazon.com/DYMO-LabelWriter-4XL-Label-Printer/dp/B002M1LGJ4/ http://www.amazon.com/DYMO-LabelWriter-4XL-Label-Printer/dp/...
- jstreebin 14y ago
  Oh nice, I didn't realize those work for these size labels as well.
- toomuchtodo 14y ago
  Thank you sir!
  - jonknee 14y ago
    An aside that may be useful, DYMO has a somewhat supported JS library to print labels from a browser. I implemented it with an inventory system to print shelf labels, but I don't see why it couldn't be used here.
- memset 14y ago
  ULine also has a decent selection: http://www.uline.com/Cls_26/Barcode-Labels-and-Printers http://www.uline.com/Cls_26/Barcode-Labels-and-Printers
memset 14y ago
For more details on this - usually labels are created in a file format called EPL [1] (or EPL2, or ZPL). This is a format specifically for label printers, and the specification makes it easy ("easy") to command a printer to print, say, barcodes in almost any style without having to create some sort of graphic. 4x6" is pretty common. UPS and Fedex's APIs allow you to specify a label size as input, and they return a base64-encoded EPL file as output. You can then take that file and send it to your printer. This works fairly well with CUPS, which is how I've automated our shipping (just make sure you use `lpr -o raw` so that it treats that EPL file as raw input. Otherwise, the printer sometimes prints the label as an ASCII file.) I'm unsure about the USPS api - but I would argue that most high-volume shippers do not use the USPS, due to lower-quality detailed tracking info. When you print out the shipping label on paper and tape it to the box, you are using the courier's api's "GIF" or "PDF" feature, where it returns the label in one of those formats. This is great, but in my experience, it is pretty hard getting them to print properly on your label printer. Finally - and not a lot of people know this - UPS and Fedex will give you a label printer, and labels, for free! If you have high volume (unsure of the threshold) then you should call to negotiate your rate and have them bring you hardware (and set up your computer) for shipping. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eltron_Programming_Language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eltron_Programming_Language

niftylettuce 14y ago

You can also use `$ npm install -g easypostjs && easypost --help` -- this will let you print postage via CLI with inputs, see https://github.com/EasyPost/easypost-node#easypostjs- https://github.com/EasyPost/easypost-node#easypostjs-

jstreebin 14y ago
Indeed, much easier than cURLing Thanks for the awesome work, Nick!

meritt 14y ago

As a side-effect can your service be used for address normalization?

jstreebin 14y ago
verification? yes check it out here https://geteasypost.com/docs https://geteasypost.com/docs
- meritt 14y ago
  Great. Your service is doing more than simple verification. Verification by its nature would result in a boolean. Your service is suggesting a better address (which is what I'd call normalization). e.g. curl https://www.geteasypost.com/api/address/verify \ -u cueqNZUb3ldeWTNX7MU3Mel8UXtaAMUi: \ -d 'address[street1]=388 Townshende Ave' \ -d 'address[street2]=Unit 20' \ -d 'address[city]=San Francisco' \ -d 'address[state]=CA' \ -d 'address[zip]=94107' yields: {"address":{"street1":"388 TOWNSEND ST APT 20","city":"SAN FRANCISCO","state":"CA","zip":"94107"}} Anyhow, semantics aside, are you going to make it fuzzier or this is based entirely on USPS' api?
  - jstreebin 14y ago
    What do you mean by fuzzier? We're doing it carrier-based, so that the corresponding postage works. What are you needing this for?
    - meritt 14y ago
      "388 Townsend San Fran" Would yield the same as above. Addresses are inherently dirty data and there aren't any decent/affordable/legal services that offer this. You can use Google Maps Geocoder or Yahoo Placefinder but both have fairly strict quotas and are only intended (legally speaking) for use with their mapping products. USPS/FedEx/UPS are also restricted unless you're shipping with them. Edit - Yahoo is actually letting people pay very respectable rates for their PlaceFinder service now. This is great: http://developer.yahoo.com/boss/geo/ http://developer.yahoo.com/boss/geo/

zdw 14y ago

So, where's the Bank or Credit Union that has an interface like this?

toomuchtodo 14y ago
Simple is almost ready to launch it's API: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/simple-api https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/simple-ap... And Dwolla already has one: https://www.dwolla.com/developers https://www.dwolla.com/developers
- krasin 14y ago
  By "almost ready to launch" you mean "they abandoned that idea 2 years ago"? At least, your link suggests that (last post in the group dated by 2011)
  - toomuchtodo 14y ago
    I'll have to get more info. I interface with their support team frequently, have a Simple account, and use it on a daily basis. "Abandoned" wouldn't be the info I've heard.

btown 14y ago

This is absolutely awesome. I'd love to see EasyPost integrate/replicate Microsoft Office's mail merge functionality for commonly used label templates. For instance, you could `GET api/labels/ids=id1,id2,id3&template_provider=avery&template=15664&format=pdf` and you would get a pre-filled PDF with 3 labels that would print directly to an Avery 15664 label sheet out of an inkjet printer. If EasyPost doesn't do this, we'd probably end up replicating this in-house, but since every self-fulfilling online retailer (a) needs to do this, and (b) would probably just buy these label sheets from the local Staples, it just makes sense for you guys to offer it as well.

jstreebin 14y ago
Thanks, we've looked at rotating images and combining them in pdf but haven't pushed any of this yet. If you drop me a note to j at easypost dot co I'd love to find out more and let you know what we're working on
icelancer 14y ago
Absolutely. This is the missing link in any shopping cart that I've tried out. We don't do huge volume (maybe $100,000/year for 2013), but this is a continual source of annoyance for me - that there is simply no good, automated way to deal with this. Paying a 5% surcharge is absolutely reasonable if someone can just use the USPS APIs and wrap it into an automated postage plugin where my orders get posted to their API and I simply just print out the PDFs that come out. Or something like that. We're not even close to that right now and it's silly!

icelancer 14y ago

Oh wow, this is awesome. Integration with WooCommerce and/or other shopping carts would be amazing.

Xymak1y 14y ago

Very nice website.

jstreebin 14y ago
Thanks!

memset 14y ago

This is neat! Can you also support negotiated rates by using our account's credentials? Also - shameless plug - I myself am working on an actually-usable python UPS library (with a real quickstart and example code and everything!) It is surprising how weak open-source library support is for this kind of thing, which is tedious, but not alltogether insurmountable. https://github.com/classicspecs/ClassicUPS https://github.com/classicspecs/ClassicUPS

jstreebin 14y ago
You can! Nice work!

quellhorst 14y ago

I would like for the API documentation to have more examples of shipping with flat rate boxes or different shipping options. Right now I find myself having to guess or look into the source code before printing certain labels.

jstreebin 14y ago
Agreed, we need to better lay out the shipping options. What types of labels are you printing? Feel free to email me and I can give you the correct calls

JaggedJax 14y ago

I like the simplicity, but from my experience with warehouses no one is willing to take a 5 cent increase in postage costs, let alone a 5% (or less) increase. Is the rate you're basing the ~5% on commercial base, commercial plus, GEPS? There are other consolidators that will offer those prices (Express1 for example). And while they are more work to integrate, the long term savings can be enormous.

jstreebin 14y ago
You're right. We started with % of spend because it was easiest. We've had plans for a while now and will push them soon. These have competitive rates for volume shippers. In need of something like this?
- JaggedJax 14y ago
  We use the Endicia and Express1 API's in our software currently (Mainly because Express1 will share a bit of our client's revenue with us). We are definitely still in the marketplace for UPS, FedEx, etc solutions though. Haven't gotten around to their API's yet, and I don't know if there are good consolidator rates for them.
  - jstreebin 14y ago
    Great, we'd love to talk. Feel free to drop me an email at j at easypost dot co (I can't find your email)

fbpcm 14y ago

Do you support Media Mail - https://www.usps.com/ship/media-mail.htm https://www.usps.com/ship/media-mail.htm ?

jstreebin 14y ago
We do! You can see it in the rates calls, and then select it with MediaMail for service https://geteasypost.com/docs https://geteasypost.com/docs

shalmanese 14y ago

We're currently spending about $2000 on shipping a month and evaluating moving to either easypost or https://www.postmaster.io/ https://www.postmaster.io/ (away from Endicia). Both are small, agile, responsive companies and have a bunch of awesome features. Feel free to email me at hang@getjuniper.com if you want to hear about our experiences.

alexvr 14y ago

Wait till my grandma gets word of this...

plusbryan 14y ago

Do you support international rates? I looked into Postmaster.io but they don't seem to yet.

jstreebin 14y ago
We do! We're live with USPS International. Shoot us an email to international at easypost dot co for access