Pack station and labels

Scan the packing slip, weigh the box, buy the label, print it. Reprint or refund labels, and make the USPS SCAN form at the end of the day.

Opening it

Inside the Shopify admin the Pack station button sits in the title bar at the top of every Lodsted page. It opens the pack station in a new browser tab, already signed in, with a banner linking back to the Shopify admin. This is deliberate: the USB scale (WebHID) and a local Zebra printer cannot be reached from inside the Shopify frame. If you land on the page inside the frame by a bookmark, it shows a button to open the proper tab. The button is hidden when the feature is switched off under Settings › Features.

Before the first label

Carrier account

USPS and UPS labels are bought through Stamps.com (Endicia). Enter the account under Settings › Carrier accounts and use Test connection. Shopify Shipping labels for Shopify orders need no account; they use the store's own connection (see below).

Printers: Manage printers

Add a printer profile: a name, how Lodsted reaches it, the label format and the printer's DPI.

Set DPI to the printer's real resolution (203 or 300); labels are rescaled to it at print time. A label that prints small in a corner means the DPI is wrong. Test print prints a test label and a sheet of action barcodes and box preset barcodes for the bench; reprint it whenever presets change.

Box presets: Manage presets

Named boxes with length, width and height in inches and a ship type (Parcel, Pallet or Gaylord; Parcel is the default). Presets are listed most-recently-used first. The ship type decides which SCAN form a label goes on.

Scale

Connect scale pairs a USB scale through the browser; the chip in the toolbar shows the live weight and whether it is stable. Test scale reads it once. The weight field fills itself from the scale.

Ship method mapping

The scan shows the order's shipping method as the store sent it, normalized through Settings › Shipping Method Mappings to Standard, Expedited or Overnight. Standard buys USPS Ground Advantage, Expedited UPS 2nd Day Air, Overnight UPS Next Day Air Saver; other mapped values pick USPS Priority or UPS Ground. The packer can change the method before buying.

The Pack tab

1. Scan the shipment id

   The cursor sits in the ShipmentId box. Scan the packing slip barcode (12891-1) or type it. The screen fills with the ship-to address, the order's lines, the method, a HAZMAT badge if any line is hazmat, a BUSINESS badge for a company address, any packages already on this shipment id, and warnings.

2. Address check

   The address is validated with the carrier. When it matches, the Ship-to card gets a bright green border and the standardized address is used. No border means it could not be verified; check it against the slip.

3. Weight

   Filled from the scale when connected (Wt in pounds). With no scale reading it is pre-filled with the items' total from their product weights (left at 0 when any item has no weight), and a warning under the box row says why the scale gave none: no scale connected, a scale error, the scale blocked by the browser, or no reading. That total leaves out the box, so weigh the box or add its weight before buying. The warning never blocks Buy and goes away once you change the weight.

4. Box

   Scan a box barcode from the test sheet, choose a preset, or type L, W and H in inches.

5. Options

   Ship date (today by default; see SCAN forms below). Hazmat (pre-checked when the order is), Adult signature, Test mode (sample label: prints, no postage, no shipment record; Stamps / Endicia only, hidden when Shopify Shipping is the provider, because Shopify Shipping has no test mode). FC max lb is the First Class cutoff (default 0.15 lb): a USPS Standard parcel under it whose stacked product height is under half an inch is bought as a First Class large envelope instead; blank or 0 turns the promotion off.

6. Ship method and Account

   Confirm or change the method; pick the carrier account if you have more than one.

7. Buy label

   Click the button, press the Buy barcode, or let the Enter key do it. The label is bought, stored, sent to the printer, and a shipment record is written with tracking, weight and charge. The screen resets for the next scan.

Action barcodes

Printed on the test sheet so the packer never touches the mouse. They work whichever field has focus.

Warnings that stop the buy

• Multi-package: a label already exists for this shipment id. Confirm to add a second package (its tracking number is appended to the shipment).
• Stale: the shipment record is more than eight hours old. Confirm if it really is shipping now.
• Changed: the store changed the order after it was waved. The lines shown are current; check the tote, then confirm.
• Address could not be verified: confirm to buy with the address as given.

Manual mode

Manual (or its barcode) makes the Ship-to card editable for one label, for a return label, a replacement sent outside an order, or a bad address. The method list gains First Class letter. With a shipment id scanned first, the manual label still belongs to that shipment and is processed normally. With no shipment id, the label is postage only: no stock is deducted and nothing is sent to the store.

The Recent / Refund tab

Every label bought, newest first. Search by shipment id, order number, tracking, or scan to list SCAN forms. Columns: Created, ShipmentId (links to the order), Tracking, Service, Ship type, Account / Provider, Charges, Reprints, Status (Manifested, Sample, SCAN form, Refunded), Actions.

USPS SCAN forms

A SCAN form is one barcode the USPS driver scans to accept every package on it. Lodsted creates one form per ship type (and per carrier account) from the USPS labels whose ship date is today, excluding samples, refunds and labels already on a form. After the run, the pack station's Ship date advances to the next business day (Friday to Monday), so labels bought after close-out are dated for tomorrow and go on tomorrow's form. The packer can set the date back by hand.

The form is a full-page image, not a thermal label: use View / Print on its row and print it on an office printer. UPS has no manifest step here; UPS pickup uses the carrier's own end-of-day.

Shopify Shipping labels

For Shopify orders you can buy postage from Shopify Shipping instead of Stamps.com. This runs inside the Shopify frame: on the Orders page or the order detail, the Pack button opens the Pack page for that order. Lodsted checks the order is eligible: Downloaded or Printed (an In Wave order must be printed or removed from its wave first; Shipped, Complete, Cancelled and On Hold orders cannot be packed), not under a Shopify fulfillment hold, with a shipping delivery method and items still to fulfill, and the store has accepted the Shopify Shipping terms. Buying a label for an order that was never waved marks it Printed; when the shipment is processed it ships from unallocated stock and the order becomes Shipped.

• Weight is pre-filled from the product weights synced from Shopify ("Enter the packed weight" when none are set); choose a box preset or type dimensions; set the ship date; check Notify customer to let Shopify send the shipping email. The label is rated from the weight and the box you choose, so keep product weights accurate in Shopify and the box presets true to your boxes.
• Buy purchases the label through the store and stores the PDF (and a customs form for international). Print label opens it; Mark printed records that it was.
• A shipment record is written as usual. If Shopify created the fulfillment itself as part of the purchase, Lodsted's processing deducts stock and marks the shipment Skipped rather than pushing a second fulfillment.
• FedEx is not available through the Shopify API. To void, cancel the label in the Shopify admin.

Troubleshooting

Scanning a box barcode put digits in the weight field

Scan again with any field focused; WMS barcodes are caught globally. If the scanner adds a prefix or suffix, configure it to send plain text and Enter.

Label prints at 2.7 × 4 instead of 4 × 6

Printer profile DPI is 203 but the printer is 300 (or vice versa). Fix the profile.

A PDF label or page prints shrunk

The print dialog is set to Fit to page. Set Scale to Actual size (100%) and margins to None; the browser remembers it.

Browser Print not installed

Install Zebra Browser Print on the workstation and bind the device from Manage printers.

Manifest says no labels to manifest

No USPS labels have today's ship date. Check the Ship date field: it advances after each manifest run.

Buy failed with a carrier error

The message is the carrier's. Common ones: address not deliverable (use Manual to correct), hazmat not allowed on that service, account not funded. Nothing was charged.

Order already shipped or canceled

The scan is refused or warned. Check the order in Lodsted before forcing anything.