AIMS360 pushes prioritized pick tickets to ShipStation, then pulls tracking and freight cost back onto the order. 200+ carriers, every channel, ten consumer industries.
AIMS360 built this integration and AIMS360 runs it. No connector, no middleware, no third party in the middle. Orders from every channel consolidate in AIMS360, get allocated and prioritized, and only released pick tickets cross to ShipStation. Labels get bought against 200+ carriers, and tracking plus freight cost come back onto the order.
The ShipStation connection is AIMS360 software. It is not a connector product, an iPaaS recipe, or a middleware subscription you license from somebody else. AIMS360 registers with ShipStation as a Custom Store, which is why pick tickets, shipments and freight costs move on AIMS360's own logic instead of a generic order sync.
There is no second contract, no per-record connector fee, and no third vendor to call when a shipment does not appear.
That architecture is also what lets it run at volume. One AIMS360 account has moved 1.2 million orders through this path in a single day. Connector-based integrations tend to throttle or queue well below that, because every order becomes a separate round trip through a third platform that meters what it carries.
Most shipping integrations sync at order level: an order is created, the order is pushed. AIMS360 syncs at pick ticket level, so the decision about what ships, in what sequence, and whether it should ship at all is made in the ERP before anything reaches ShipStation.
An order with no stock behind it never appears in your ShipStation queue. Neither does one on credit hold, or one still waiting on a retailer routing guide.
The difference shows up on the warehouse floor. With an order-level integration, everything lands in the queue and the pickers discover what is unshippable by walking to the shelf and finding nothing there. Short shipments, cancelled labels and re-picks follow. Prioritization becomes guesswork, because the shipping tool has no idea which retailer purchase order has a cancel date next week and which DTC order can wait a day.
Because allocation and priority are set in AIMS360, that sequencing is deliberate. If a shortage does appear after a pick ticket has crossed, the ticket is updated in AIMS360 and the change flows through, so the label and the packing list match what physically ships rather than what was originally allocated. That is what keeps the invoice, the advance ship notice and the carton in agreement, and it is where retailer chargebacks usually start.
Allocated, released work with stock behind it, in your shipping sequence. Nothing unshippable crosses over.
Tracking lands on the order, so customer service, the invoice and any retailer advance ship notice reference the same shipment. Notification timing is configurable, and a completed shipment can be pushed back on demand.
Freight is logged against the order. This is the part most brands miss, and it is what makes margin after shipping readable in wholesale.
ShipStation compares rates across its carrier network at the point the label is bought. AIMS360 also has its own rate shopping, so the carrier decision can be made upstream before a pick ticket is released. Brands run it whichever way suits the warehouse.
USPS, UPS, FedEx and DHL among more than 200 carriers, with discounted rates available, plus batch label printing, address validation, international customs documentation and returns. Bring your own negotiated carrier accounts if you have them.
One honest limitation: ShipStation's API does not accept a third-party shipper account on an order, so a customer's own UPS or FedEx account stored in AIMS360 cannot be passed across for billing. The same outcome is achievable with an automation rule inside ShipStation, keyed to the customer name once the pick ticket arrives.
Most shipping tools connect to a storefront. The problem for a brand selling more than one way is that orders arrive from places a storefront never sees. AIMS360 collects all of them first, allocates against one inventory pool, then hands ShipStation a single clean stream of pick tickets.
If you already run ShipStation connected straight to Shopify, the cutover is straightforward: verify the AIMS360 store with a test order, pick a date, disconnect the Shopify store inside ShipStation, send any unshipped orders across from AIMS360, then switch that customer record to send pick tickets automatically. After that every channel arrives on one path instead of two.
One ShipStation account is enough for most brands, even with several warehouses, as long as the Ship From location is set correctly. Where brands need more than one is usually a 3PL running its own ShipStation account, or a warehouse in another country. AIMS360 supports up to five connections, each associated with a warehouse.
Two physical sites, or one site with goods separated into virtual warehouses for wholesale, retail or consignment. Each AIMS360 warehouse maps to a ShipStation Ship From location and pick tickets route accordingly.
When a fulfillment partner holds their own ShipStation account, or a warehouse operates in another country, each gets its own connection in AIMS360 so pick tickets land in the right place without anyone forwarding anything.
Worth knowing before you plan a multi-currency setup: a single ShipStation account operates in one currency, because ShipStation has no multi-currency mode. AIMS360 will only export pick tickets to a ShipStation account whose currency matches, so each currency needs its own connection.
Shipping is where product categories stop being interchangeable. A ring and a kayak both leave the warehouse in a box, but almost nothing about how you rate, pack, insure and route them is the same.
Style, color and size means one order can be dozens of lines and several cartons. Pick tickets arrive packed the way the warehouse built them, so carton count and weight are right first time.
Shoeboxes are light for their size, which makes footwear a dimensional weight category. Box dimensions on the label matter more here than almost anywhere else.
Small parcels carrying high value, where signature requirements, declared value and insurance are worth automating rather than deciding at the packing bench.
Liquids, aerosols and gift sets each carry their own carrier restrictions. Kits assembled from components ship as one unit, so the record reflects the finished set.
Hardgoods sit alongside apparel in the same order. Oversize and heavy items change the rate calculation completely, which is where rate comparison earns its keep.
Lot and expiry tracking has to survive the trip to the label, and subscription orders arrive on a schedule, so the value is in shipments nobody touches.
Mixed carts of small parcel and oversize goods, where the parcel or freight decision belongs upstream in the ERP, before a label is bought.
Liquids and case packs, priced low and weighing a lot. Margin here is decided by shipping cost per unit more than by any other line.
Gifting and registry shipments go to an address that is not the buyer's and often need to arrive by a date. Ship-to and bill-to stay separate through to the label.
Bulky, heavy and often low priced. Dimensional weight and zone pricing decide whether an order is profitable, making carrier selection an operational decision.
Every one of these ships from the same AIMS360 inventory. See the full list of consumer industries AIMS360 runs.
ShipStation is very good at what it does: comparing rates, buying labels, batching and moving tracking numbers around. What it does not have is any idea what else your inventory is promised to, or what a shipment did to your margin.
That is the part AIMS360 supplies. Before a pick ticket is released, the system already knows what is allocated to a retailer purchase order, what a Shopify launch has committed, what is sitting in work in process, and what is genuinely available.
Then the money comes back. Because freight lands on the order inside AIMS360, you can read margin by order, customer, retailer, style and channel with shipping included. A bolt on tool knows what the label cost. Your ERP does not, unless someone keys it in. That gap is why many brands can report gross margin but not what an order earned after freight, and it is worse in wholesale, where freight can decide whether a retailer program is profitable or just busy.
It matters as much on compliance. A retailer EDI shipment carries carton level pack data, a UCC 128 label, a routing guide and an advance ship notice that has to match what physically ships. Get any of it wrong and the chargeback arrives before the invoice does. Keeping the shipment, the purchase order, the allocation, the freight cost and the invoice in one system is what keeps all of it reconciled. More on inventory and warehouse management and built-in EDI.
| Capability | Shipping tool or connector | AIMS360 + ShipStation |
|---|---|---|
| Who builds and supports the integration | A third-party connector vendor | AIMS360, natively |
| Sync level | Order level | Pick ticket level |
| Out of stock orders in the queue | Pushed anyway | Never released |
| Shipping priority decided by | The warehouse, after the fact | AIMS360, before release |
| Peak day throughput | Often throttled or metered | 1.2M orders in a day, one account |
| Carrier rate comparison | Yes | Yes, in either system |
| Freight cost on the order for margin | Manual re-entry | Written back automatically |
| Inventory allocation across channels | No | One master stock record |
| Retailer EDI pack data, UCC 128, ASN | No | Built in, 350+ retailers |
| Multiple warehouses and 3PLs | Varies | Up to 5 ShipStation accounts |
| Contracts to sign | ERP, connector, shipping tool | ERP and shipping tool |
Native. AIMS360 built the integration and AIMS360 runs it. There is no connector product, no iPaaS recipe and no middleware subscription in the middle. AIMS360 registers with ShipStation as a Custom Store, so pick tickets, shipments and freight costs move on AIMS360 logic rather than a generic order sync, and support is one team rather than three vendors.
One AIMS360 account has moved 1.2 million orders through this path in a single day. Because AIMS360 owns both ends of the integration, throughput is not limited by a third-party connector's queue or per-record pricing.
Pick tickets, not orders. This is the main structural difference from integrations that sync at order level. AIMS360 allocates and prioritizes first, then sends only released pick tickets, so what reaches ShipStation is work the warehouse can actually complete in the sequence you want it shipped.
Because the decision about what ships is made in the ERP, where the inventory truth lives. An order with no stock behind it never appears in the ShipStation queue. Neither does an order on credit hold or one waiting on a retailer routing guide. Order-level integrations push everything and leave the warehouse to sort out what is actually shippable, which is where picking errors and short shipments come from.
No. Allocation happens in AIMS360 before a pick ticket exists, so an order without stock behind it is never released and never reaches ShipStation. The shipping queue stays clean instead of filling with work nobody can pick.
Yes, and that is the point of routing shipping through the ERP. Shopify and Shopify POS, retailer EDI bulk and dropship across 350+ retailers, marketplaces including Amazon, and B2B wholesale from JOOR, NuORDER, Brandboom or your own reps all land in AIMS360 first. They allocate against one inventory pool and reach ShipStation as a single clean stream of pick tickets.
Yes, both. Tracking lands on the order so the shipment, the invoice and any retailer notification reference the same record. Freight cost is written back against the order, which is what puts shipping into wholesale reporting and margin by order, customer, retailer, style and channel. Notification timing is configurable, and a completed shipment can also be pushed back manually from ShipStation.
Yes. AIMS360 supports up to five ShipStation accounts, each mapped to a warehouse. Brands use this when a 3PL runs its own ShipStation account, when warehouses sit in different countries, or when goods are separated into virtual warehouses. One ShipStation account can also serve several AIMS360 warehouses using ShipStation Ship From Locations.
Each ShipStation account operates in a single currency, because ShipStation itself has no multi-currency mode. If you run multiple currencies in AIMS360, you map each currency to its own ShipStation account. AIMS360 will only export pick tickets to a ShipStation account whose currency matches.
Not from AIMS360 directly. The ShipStation API does not accept a third-party shipper account on the order, so a customer's carrier account stored in AIMS360 is not passed across. You can achieve the same result with an automation rule inside ShipStation, triggered by the customer or store name once the pick ticket arrives.
The pick ticket is updated in AIMS360 and the change flows to ShipStation, so the label and the packing list reflect what actually ships rather than what was originally allocated. That is what keeps the invoice, the advance ship notice and the physical carton in agreement, which is where retailer chargebacks usually start.
You cut over to the AIMS360 connection so every channel flows through one queue rather than Shopify orders arriving on a separate path. The process is to verify the AIMS360 Custom Store is live with a test order, pick a cutover date, disconnect the Shopify store inside ShipStation, send any unshipped orders across from AIMS360, then switch that customer record to send pick tickets automatically.
Both. Retailer EDI shipments carry compliance requirements a shipping tool does not handle on its own, which is why carton pack data, UCC 128 labeling and the advance ship notice stay inside AIMS360 while ShipStation handles the carrier and the label.
Yes. AIMS360 manages your own warehouses, 3PL warehouses, retail store stock and virtual warehouses in one system, so a pick ticket routes from wherever the stock actually sits and the freight cost still returns to the same order record. A 3PL with its own ShipStation account can be mapped as one of the five connections.
Bring your channel mix, your carriers and your hardest shipment type. We will show a pick ticket move to ShipStation and the freight cost land back on the order.
