I agree this would be a great function. 

Teresa, I have bolded your questions and written my responses as how I would imagine the functionality of this feature to work.

In regards to your specific request, would you expect these shipping supplies to be added as products in your existing ShippingEasy product catalog with their own SKUs? Or, how would you want to track these supplies in ShippingEasy? 

Currently we go to Inventory > Products to access our current product catalog. For this function, I would like to see an Inventory > Supplies section created. This section would basically mimic the product interface but instead of "SKU" something like "Box ID." as to not get confused with products. Would also like the suppliers and create PO section work with the supplies as well. When creating PO would select the type of PO "Supplies" or "Product Purchase." And would also be able to "receive" these supplies into inventory.

Also it woul be great if you could please provide some examples of the types of supplies that you'd like to track. Do you use multiple different types of shipping boxes and envelops? Or were there other materials you were hoping to track?

This should only pertain to boxes/envelopes, items that basically end up with a shipping label on them. I don't see there being an easy way to track tape, bubble wrap, kraft paper, etc unless the user would manually decrease this quantity each time, but that almost sounds like creating more work instead of automating.

I would add items such as:

Bubble Mailer - #0

Bubble Mailer - #00

USPS Small Flat Rate Box

etc.

With these items added in, it could benefit in multiple ways.

1. Shipping rules could be assigned to specify which carton to use. ie. "If product A, then ship in Bubble Mailer - #0." Which would make higher volume shippers much more efficient because not only is the shipping method predetermiend but exactly what to package the item in as well.

2. Once this package has been committed to the order, it will get reduced from inventory.

3. Low stock threshold would notify when to reorder supplies, preventing the user from ever running out.

4. When shipping rule is added to use this carton, the carton weight would be added to the total order as well to make accurate shipping label.

Thanks!

Hi Nick, 

Thank you for this additional feedback and information. In regards to the shipping rules you suggested at the end of your post, we are already able to implement some of these requests. Specifically, you can use our shipping rules to assign package types and "add to" weights to your orders. If you would like to reach out to our Customer Success team - you can contact them via the links in the upper left corner of our application - they should be able to assist with getting these rules set up on your account.

In the meantime we are still looking into the rest of this request and will update the thread with additional information as it becomes available.

Tessa Hadobas [Product Manager] 

Tessa,

Thanks for your response!

Yes, I am aware of the shipping rules, I guess I was just on a roll in terms of the shipping supplies functionality, haha.

Main Points:

1. Once this package has been committed to the order, it will get reduced from inventory.

2. Low stock threshold would notify when to reorder supplies, preventing the user from ever running out.

3. Ability to create PO's for supplies.

Hi Nick, 

Understood, thanks for the confirmation. I have added a request to our inventory queue to add inventory tracking for shipping supplies. 

In the meantime, I will direct any customers with similar requests to comment or follow on this post as well. Feedback helps us to learn how many customers are interested in each feature and prioritize what we should work on next. I will update this thread again once this work has been prioritized.

Tessa Hadobas [Product Manager]