Becoming a partner

Here we explain the process of building your integration. This includes which pages to look at and the details your team should keep in mind.

If you haven't already, reach out to our Partnerships team so they can give you information specific to your integration and extra guidance. If you have trouble or any questions while integrating, we're more than happy to help!

Best Practices for Integrating

Our Best Practices page has a set of recommendations that streamline integrations and help them act as expected for senders and receivers.

Your integration doesn't need to follow these guidelines to the letter – every business is different after all. But if your implementation strays from that page, you should let us know why and how it does. Our Partnerships team can help point out any issues before they turn into trouble for your users, and can suggest alternate approaches if our recommended ones won't work for your use case.

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Simple API, Complex Business

Most partners can create orders and download labels from the Sendle API within a few hours. But a great integration involves more than just generating a label…

If Sendle is your first shipping integration, take plenty of time to fully understand the user experience you're building. Not just the booking UI, but also the picking and packing process (how your senders will be packing their parcels), parcel pickup or drop-off, and customer support.

Having a good understanding of: the shipping process; what your senders need to do when they send parcels; and what your receivers will see when they're getting parcels; will help you build a better integration.

Account Setup

You will need accounts on both our sandbox and production systems – you can create these yourself. Once you've created them, your engineering team will need the Sendle ID and API Key for both, which you can find in the dashboard.

To setup your sandbox and production accounts:

• Create an account on the Sendle Sandbox. Your engineering team will need to use this for testing while building the integration. Before using your sandbox API Key you need to:
  • Confirm your email;
  • Add a Stripe test credit card (AUD or USD);
  • Accept the Dangerous Goods declaration.
• Create an account on the Sendle Production site. This will be used for your live integration. Before using your production API Key you need to:
  • Confirm your email;
  • Add a working credit card (AUD or USD);
  • Accept the Dangerous Goods declaration;
  • Set the Billing Contact if this is different to the account email.
• Email us the sandbox and production email addresses – we'll enable your access to partner functionality. We'll also need these to verify your integration data, and which accounts are being used, during Testing & Launching
  
  

Technical Integration

Your teams can now start building the integration! These pages and details will get them started:

• Our API documentation covers our common endpoints.
• Our Integration Best Practices page covers common use cases for integrations. This is a great resource for your team to understand what we do – and don't – recommend.
• For Australian orders, understand:
  • Using our International service.
  • Using our Drop Off service.
• Understand the differences between our Australian and US services.
• Contact us for any other technical questions you might have.

Functionality

Most integrations implement at least the following features for launch:

• Creating an Order. (Be sure to send the full details)
• Downloading a Label. (Please don't alter the labels)
• Cancelling an Order. (Why?)
• Linking to the Tracking Page for the order. Ideally to our Authorised Tracking Pages if you're a reseller, or via our public tracking page requiring only the Sendle Reference.
• Reconciling your billing report to charge your users (see more).

Depending on the depth of integration, you may also consider:

• Parcel updates via our tracking endpoint.

Test Orders

For testing, your team may need sandbox orders in specific states. For example, Picked Up or Delivered. To do this:

• Please create a number of test orders with the sandbox API (/api/orders).
• Email your Partnerships liaison with the Sendle Reference of the orders, and the state each one should be moved to. Common states are Picked Up and Delivered.
• Our team will manually update the states and tracking information of those orders.
  
  

Preparing Operations

As the technical integration approaches launch there are operational aspects to consider, including:

• Making sure your users are held to our Terms and Conditions and Dangerous Goods policies.
• Understanding the weekly billing process, including charges and refunds.
• The FAQ, Support, or Help Centre content you may need to prepare.
• Subscribing to the Sendle Status page.
• How your support team can, and when they should, escalate to the Sendle team.
• How our team should direct enquiries to your team or documentation.
  
  

Testing & Launching

When you're close to launch, reach out to us again. There are a few areas we may be able to help:

• Basic QA and testing of the integration to help spot common issues and improve our understanding of your system.
• Listing on our AU Partner page or US Partner page.
• Listing on our Help Centre guides.
• Inclusion in our newsletters, blog, or other media.
  
  

Scaling Up

As your integration continues to scale up, our Partnerships team is available to help with marketing, support and technical questions. We'll also keep you updated on product and technology changes, and any feedback we receive about your integration.