Black Friday and Cyber Monday put your business and shipping operations to the test. If a shopper can’t tell when an order will arrive, they may open another tab and shop somewhere else. For every sale that goes through, there are labels to buy, boxes to pack, and invoices to sort out. With Adobe forecasting $47.5B in U.S. online sales for Cyber Week alone, small misses add up fast.
We partnered with our top shippers to build a better way, the peak playbook. Here’s how they did it, with a step-by-step walkthrough you can watch to set it up in your business.
The peak playbook
- On the product page1Shoppers see a real delivery dateEstimate
- Buying the label2Every label is the cheapest one that keeps the dateEstimate
- At the pack station3The right label prints from one scanPick and pack
- After the sale4Your AI agent handles your shippingShippo MCP
- In November5You catch surcharges while you can still fix themIntelligence
Job 1 · Estimate
Show shoppers a real delivery date
Shoppers decide fast. If they can’t tell when an order will arrive, many won’t wait around to find out.
Meet Marlow & Finch
Customer
Marlow & Finch, an online clothing retailer
The problem
Product pages said “ships in 3 to 7 business days.” Shoppers buying a gift couldn’t tell if it would arrive in time, so some left at checkout to look elsewhere. The ones who stayed filled the support inbox with “will it get here by Friday?”
What it cost
Sales lost at the last step, and a support team answering the same question all day.
Illustrative example
Here’s what’s at stake. 75% of shoppers say seeing an estimated delivery date on the product page or in the cart positively influences their decision to buy. (source: thegoods.com)
The new way
An accurate delivery date, on the product page and at checkout
Shippo Estimate shows shoppers the date their order will arrive before they buy.
- No more second-guessing on the product page or at checkout
- More informed shoppers, more completed checkouts
See how to set it up
Get the step-by-step walkthrough in our peak playbook session.
Watch now
Job 2 · Estimate
Buy the cheapest label that keeps the date
Peak makes every shipping decision feel urgent, and urgency has a way of turning into one default for everything.
Meet Juniper Row
Customer
Juniper Row, an online home goods retailer
The problem
Comparing shipping options on every order took too long once peak hit, so the team defaulted to the same service for almost everything. Bulky items and light items all went out the same way.
What it cost
Paying more than they needed to on label after label, with no easy way to see it.
Illustrative example
“Shipping gets expensive fast during peak, and manually comparing service levels on every order takes time you don’t have. Even a careful comparison only shows you each carrier’s stated transit time, not whether a package will actually arrive sooner. That’s the gap Estimate closes.” Ben Miller, Staff Product Manager, Shippo
The new way
Every label is the cheapest one that still keeps the date
With Estimate, Shippo compares your options on every order and buys the cheapest label that still arrives on the date you showed the shopper.
- The date you promised stays the same
- No comparing by hand
- Set up in an afternoon
See how to set it up
Get the step-by-step walkthrough in our peak playbook session.
Watch now
Job 3 · Pick and pack
Print the right label from one scan
Packing fast is hard to do without mistakes, especially when you bring in seasonal help.
Meet Tidewater Outfitters
Customer
Tidewater Outfitters, an online outdoor gear retailer
The problem
Every packer looked up each order by number or customer name to print the matching label. With seasonal temps packing at peak, it was easy to grab the wrong one.
What it cost
Slower packing times, overtime to catch up, mix-ups between labels and boxes, and reships.
Illustrative example
The new way
Scan the item. The right label prints.
Store orders land in Shippo ready to pack. Nobody picks the box, enters a weight, or chooses the carrier by hand.
- One scan pulls up the order and prints the label
- Fewer mis-ships, fewer support tickets
See how to set it up
Get the step-by-step walkthrough in our peak playbook session.
Watch now
Job 4 · Shippo MCP
Let your AI agent handle it
Some of the busiest work during peak happens between tools: a board here, a shipping app there, and a team waiting on a message to know what to do next.
Meet Wobble Works Toys
The setup
Wobble Works Toys, a toy brand, tracks replacement part requests on a monday.com board.
The problem
Every request meant checking the board, hopping into Shippo to validate the address and buy the label, then going back to the board to add the tracking number and labels to print. The warehouse team had to remember to check the board before they could fulfill.
The change
Now it’s all connected and automated through the Shippo MCP.
Based on a real Shippo customer. Name changed.
The new way
All you have to do is ask
Connect Shippo to Claude or ChatGPT in one click, then describe the job in plain English once.
Type this in once
“Every day at 8 a.m., check my monday.com board for new replacement part requests from the past 24 hours. For each request, validate the shipping address and generate a Shippo label. Add the tracking number and printable label back to the board. At 9 a.m., send a Slack summary to the warehouse team with all orders ready to print and ship.”
Then it runs every day, without you
- Board checked
- Addresses validated
- Labels created
- Board updated
- Warehouse notified
Shippo MCP is free to connect, and usage is included in your Shippo plan.
See how to set it up
Get the step-by-step walkthrough in our peak playbook session.
Watch now
Job 5 · Intelligence
Catch climbing surcharges in November
Surcharges add up all fall, and the invoice is usually where you find out.
Meet Copper Kettle Home
Customer
Copper Kettle Home, an online kitchenware retailer
The problem
Carrier surcharges crept up through the fall. The team only spotted them when invoices landed, after the busiest weeks had already shipped.
What it cost
Thinner margins on peak orders, and no time left to change course.
Illustrative example
What’s at stake
12 ways an $8 label stops being $8
You were quoted $8.00 to ship one shirt. Then the carrier can add:
- Additional handling
- Customs duties and taxes
- Delivery surcharge
- Fuel surcharge
- Location surcharge
- Signature
- Rate dimension change
- Rate type change
- Rate type service level
- Rate zone change
- Return charge
- Weight change
One bad address can add $25.25 to a single package.
The new way
See why your invoice is higher than your rate
Shippo Intelligence compares what you were quoted with what you were billed, and shows which surcharges caused the gap.
- Rated and invoiced spend in one place
- Surcharges by carrier, service level, and reason
- Fix the cause, so you stop paying for it
Five jobs, off your list
From the product page to your customer’s door, the peak playbook takes the repetitive work off your plate. Shoppers see a real delivery date, every label is the cheapest one that keeps it, the right label prints from one scan, your AI agent handles your shipping, and you catch surcharges while you can still fix them. Set it up before the rush, and the busiest days of the year get a lot easier.
You asked, we answered
No. A lighter model, like Claude Sonnet or Haiku, works too. We built the MCP so the tools are easy for AI agents to find and use, so it doesn’t take a lot of horsepower to get the job done.
Yes. It can help with customs declarations, including which ones you need for what you’re shipping and the right harmonized tariff codes. It can also validate international addresses and add local-language characters, like the accents in a Polish address, so carriers such as DPD can read them at the last mile.
Estimate is an API, so showing dates at checkout takes an integration today (we don’t have a ready-to-install widget for Wix or Shopify yet). In one call, you send the ZIP codes, package size, and ship date, and we send back delivery dates for every service level.
A carrier usually returns a price and a transit time, like a ground service at $7.95 with a transit time of 3 days. But what counts as a day? Business days only? Does it include Saturdays or holidays? What if the carrier’s pickup is at 2 p.m. and you’re buying the label at 3? Estimate builds all of that in and gives you an actual date, like Friday the 23rd, so you don’t have to work out the math yourself.
It works well. With flat rate, you’re promising a delivery window, not a specific service. Estimate can find the cheapest label that still gets there in that window, which helps protect your margin. Even if you use just one carrier or service level, you can still show an arrives-by date on your product pages. That sets clear expectations and has helped cut down on “where is my order?” emails.
No. If you use the Shippo app, you already have it. When you buy a label, you’ll see an “Arrives by” date next to your options, and that’s Shippo Estimate. API users can add it anywhere they want, like product pages or the cart.
Yes. Ask Estimate for the date on just one service, like UPS Ground, and show that as your free option. Then show faster services next to it, each with its own price and arrival date. The API can filter by service level, so you don’t have to sort through every option. Our team is happy to talk through the setup with you.
No. Scan to print works with a lot of scanners and printers, wired or wireless. You’ll need a barcode scanner, plus a label printer or a regular printer. Most retail and warehouse scanners work as long as they run in keyboard (HID) mode and read Code 128 barcodes. If you haven’t yet, install Shippo Print, our free connector that links your printer to Shippo.
Install Shippo Print on each computer you pack from, desktop or laptop. Then set each station up with its own printer, so every station prints its own labels.
Looking for a multi-carrier shipping platform?
With Shippo, shipping is as easy as it should be.
- Pre-built integrations into shopping carts like Magento, Shopify, Amazon, eBay, and others.
Pre-built integrations into shopping carts like Magento, Shopify, Amazon, eBay, and others.
- Support for dozens of carriers including USPS, FedEx, UPS, and DHL.
Support for dozens of carriers including USPS, FedEx, UPS, and DHL.
- Speed through your shipping with automations, bulk label purchase, and more.
Speed through your shipping with automations, bulk label purchase, and more.
- Shipping Insurance: Insure your packages at an affordable cost.
Shipping Insurance: Insure your packages at an affordable cost.
- Shipping API for building your own shipping solution.
Shipping API for building your own shipping solution.
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