What is ShipSidekick?
ShipSidekick is the service that Onward Returns uses to generate return labels. ShipSidekick is built atop EasyPost, a well-established shipping platform that integrates with hundreds of carriers around the world.
Do I need ShipSidekick?
ShipSidekick unlocks the following functionality in Onward Returns:
Charge customers for shipping label fees
Automatically generate labels (and QR codes) and send them to the customer upon return approval
Automatically track return shipments
Automate return processing and restocking based on return shipping events
We use ShipSidekick due to ease of onboarding and broad carrier support.
There are three cases where you do not need ShipSidekick:
You wish to handle all return shipping outside of our system (not recommended)
You don't require return items to be physically sent back
You need to integrate with a different label provider
If you want to use a Return label provider other than ShipSidekick, contact your Merchant Success Manager.
Creating and connecting your account
We've made it simple to create and connect your ShipSidekick account in a few steps.
Step 1:
From the Onboarding Steps screen, click "Setup Shipping Label Service"
Step 2:
Create an account with your name, email, and a password. Note that this does not have to be the same as your Onward login information.
Step 3:
Add the payment method that you want to use to pay for return shipping labels. If you configure your account so that your customers pay for the labels, you will receive those as separate payments via Stripe.
Step 4:
That's it! Click "Complete Integration" to return to Onward.
Label costs and billing
As a merchant, you pay ShipSidekick directly for the labels. However, you can specify whether or not you receive compensatory payments from your customers by setting the Label sponsor. If the label sponsor is set to "Customer," ShipSidekick provides an estimated label cost to the customer at the time they are submitting the return, which will either be deducted from their refund or paid separately.
If you use Onward Checkout+ and have a few returns benefit with us, Onward will sponsor labels for all Upgraded orders. You will receive this benefit as a credit on your Onward Invoice.
Carriers
At the creation of your account, you will automatically receive great rates from USPS.
ShipSidekick also supports approximately 100 major carriers including USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL Express. You can set up any carrier that you have an account with under the "Carriers" tab within ShipSidekick. If you accept international returns, it is likely you will need to set up your own international carrier account and add it this way.
If you do want to use another carrier for some or all of your return shipments, you can add them easily via ShipSidekick and route returns to the carrier of your choice using Onward's Preferred returns carrier setting. By default, Onward will select the lowest available carrier and rate.
Caveats
In regions where ShipSidekick has no supported carrier, labels must be created manually even when ShipSidekick is your label provider — the return is created as a manual shipment instead of failing. See Allow Returns by Region.
Manually entered tracking numbers (on manual shipments) don't feed the shipping-triggered automations.