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by adamfeldman 3535 days ago
According to the UPS Developer Kit's guidelines for the UPS Rating API[1] (the API used for getting shipping rates):

  Unapproved business models/usages
  • Display of UPS rates side by side with competitor rates
How does Shyp get around this restriction?

[1]: (page 25) https://www.ups.com/media/en/UPS_dev_kit_user_guide.pdf
1 comments
hayksaakian 3535 days ago
it ticks me off when pedants run to the terms of service/etc. to undermine something exceptional.

if you're big enough, or influential enough you can negotiate your own terms of use for any API or any service.

if you're small, then they probably won't even notice your usage.

shyp is not a weekend hackathon project. While it's certainly possible they're blatantly violating terms and hoping they don't get caught, that seems unlikely for a venture backed startup.

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ecommerceguy 3535 days ago
Actually, I was wondering the same thing (circumventing TOS).

>Exceptional How? Shyp is nothing new. These services have been around for ages (Pitney Bowes, more recently Stamps.com, more recently than that Shipstation, Ordoro, the list is fairly extensive) and these terms have been around for just as long. If you want to use UPS in your app, better get used to playing by their rules. I bet we see a change very soon in the way Shyp presents pricing to the end user.

>If you're big enough... eBay and Amazon both do NOT show side-by-side cost comparisons for shipping services. Neither do ANY of the established "apps". Big enough for you?

>Small Shyp is below the radar as of until right about now.

As for the execution of the app itself. Why print an estimated delivery range (Fedex 1-6 days) when the exact date is available through API? Sometimes Fedex Ground is cheaper but a day slower. Price of delivery isn't everything (Prime has proven that abundantly).

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jdavis703 3535 days ago
Anyone who has gone through the UPS approval process has either read the TOS and not done this, or failed to read the terms and had their integration rejected by UPS. Been there, done that, lesson learned.
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adamfeldman 3534 days ago
I think what Shyp is doing is absolutely incredible for consumers.

I'm responsible for 100s of shipments per day, and I'm genuinely curious how they got around this restriction, as our order and shipping management system vendor doesn't allow us to rate shop UPS against other carriers (although both the Shippo and EasyPost APIs do allow this, whether directly or simply by providing the information required).

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