Shipping templates, labels and the shipping queue

There are two ways your show’s labels reach the packing bench. You buy them in your own shipping software (or in TikTok Seller Center) and upload the PDF to the bench — that is how it works today, and it always will. Coming soon: LASI works out every box itself and buys the labels on your own UPS account.

To plan boxes, LASI needs to know how your items pack: what they weigh, how many fit in one box, and which box each bundle size goes in. That is a shipping template. With templates in place, the Shipping page shows a show’s orders as the boxes that would be bought and says why any box is not ready. Buying those labels from the Shipping page is the part that is coming soon.

• Weights are never guessed. A box with no template waits until someone picks one.
• Nobody weighs anything. The template says what an item weighs; packaging counts as nothing.
• Buying labels in LASI is coming soon. Until then the Shipping page plans and prices, and never spends.
• Uploading labels from your shipping software is covered in The packing station.

A manager or packer sees which service wins for each box, but never its price.

Define each box or mailer you stock once. Templates pick from this list.

1. 1Go to Settings → Shipping and press Manage.
2. 2Under Boxes, press Add box.
3. 3Give it a Name (for example “10×10×2 mailer”) and a Type: Box, Poly mailer, Padded mailer, Tube or Other.
4. 4Enter Length (in), Width (in) and Height (in).
5. 5Optionally add Cost per box (admins only), In stock, and Warn when at or below to flag it as low.
6. 6Press Add box.

Each box shows its volume and a pill: Fits MI if it is small enough for Mail Innovations, or Ground only if it is bigger than 1,638 cubic inches. Use Edit, Archive and Restore to keep the list tidy; tick Show archived templates and boxes to see archived ones.

A template says how one kind of stream packs. A typical example is Clothing: 0.5 lb an item, at most 8 in a bundle, 1–2 items in a 10×10×2 mailer, 3–6 in a 14×10×2, 7 or more in a 19×14×2.

1. 1Go to Settings → Shipping → Manage, and under Shipping templates press New template.
2. 2Under Basics, enter a Name and Most items in one bundle — one more starts a second box.
3. 3Choose how Weight is counted: Per item (enter what Each item weighs), or Per box size (a set weight for the whole box).
4. 4Under Box sizes, add a row for each range of item counts: From, To and Ships in (a saved box, or Type a size…). Leave To blank on the last row to mean “and up”. Press Add box size for more rows.
5. 5Under Shipping services, tick the services this template may use: UPS Ground and Mail Innovations.
6. 6Optionally add Product exceptions (below).
7. 7Press Create template.

The editor checks as you type. The Box sizes heading shows Every bundle size covered once every count from 1 up to the bundle size has a box, or Needs attention if there is a gap.

trylasi.com/settings/shipping

Product exceptions

Some items do not fit the rule — a coat in a clothing stream, say. Press Add exception, choose Match: Product name contains (and type the text, such as coat) or A bin (and choose it), then enter what it Each weighs. Tick Ships alone to keep it in a box of its own. With weight counted per box size, exceptions can only make an item ship alone.

Preview

Press Price every size to see every bundle size from 1 to the maximum: what it weighs, which box it goes in, and which service would carry it. Admins also see the postage and the runner-up price. If UPS answers with list prices rather than your negotiated rates, the preview says so.

Under Settings → Shipping → Manage → Preferences are the rules every template follows.

Some rules are fixed: each box ships on the cheapest service that can take it (a tie goes to Ground); a bundle only holds items sold in the same live session; free items always ship; and labels never carry insurance or a signature. Mail Innovations is priced from your contract rates, so until those are entered, boxes go Ground.

Press Save preferences when you are done.

A template covers every box on whatever it is applied to. The most specific one wins: round, then stream, then show.

• When you create the show — the New Show form has a Shipping template choice. Choose later leaves the show’s boxes waiting.
• On the Shipping page — pick the show, then use the Shipping template section at the top: Whole show, then Per stream (covers every box on that stream, and beats the show) and Per round (beats the stream). Use the show’s and Use the stream’s fall back to the level above.

Open Shipping in the sidebar and pick a Show. LASI reads the orders from the show’s linked TikTok streams and turns them into boxes: grouped by buyer, address and live session, weighed and sized from the templates, and matched to the cheapest service that fits.

• The summary line reads, for example, “212 orders → 148 boxes”, with a count per service and how many need attention. Admins also see the total postage and how much less it is than the runner-up.
• Group by: Ready / needs attention, Template, Service, Stream or Nothing. Sort by: Sticker number, Weight (heaviest first), Items (most first) or Buyer.
• Tick Only what needs attention to hide the boxes that are ready.
• Press Refresh to read the orders again.

Each box carries flags. Click a row to open it and see the reason in words, with the fix.

Click a box to open it. You see In this box (each line’s sticker, product, template and weight) and Ship to, with these controls:

Merging boxes

1. 1Tick the boxes to merge. Tick one, then shift-click another to take everything between them, or use Select all.
2. 2Press Merge into one box in the dark bar.
3. 3To split them again, open the box and press Unmerge.

Only boxes for the same buyer, address and live session can merge, up to TikTok’s 20 orders — that is TikTok’s rule. A merged box ignores the template’s bundle size.

LASI buys show labels on your own UPS account, at your negotiated rates. Two things must be in place first.

1. 1An admin connects UPS: Settings → Integrations → Shipping labels, choose Your own UPS account, and enter the Client ID, Client secret and Account number from your app at developer.ups.com. Choose the Environment: Test (CIE) or Production. Press Connect.
2. 2Then go to Settings → Shipping → Manage. Under Buying labels, press Allow buying…, read the warning, and press Yes, allow buying.

Test and production

In Test (CIE), UPS makes labels that look real — a 1Z tracking number, a charge, a printable label — but nothing ships on them. LASI lets you buy, print and pack them to practise, and never tells TikTok about them, so buyers are never sent a tracking number that will not move. Switch to Production when you are ready for real postage.

1. 1On Shipping, pick the show and clear up anything that needs attention.
2. 2Press Review & buy at the top.
3. 3Read the review: how many boxes would be bought and how many skipped, the count per service, and under Not being bought the reasons for the rest. Admins also see the quoted total.
4. 4Press Buy N labels.
5. 5What happened lists each box: bought, test label, failed or skipped, with its tracking number. Press Done.

• Each box is claimed before its label is bought, so two people pressing Buy at once cannot both spend.
• LASI rebuilds the plan itself at the moment you press Buy. Only boxes that are ready are bought.
• Each bought label becomes a box on the packing bench, complete with its sticker numbers. Scanning a sticker prints the label and then a LASI packing slip from the same printer.
• The tracking number goes back to TikTok, so the order shows as shipped.
• A label that was bought is never reported as a failure. If printing or telling TikTok fails, only that part is retried.

The Buys tab on the Shipping page is the history of every press of Buy on the show: one entry per press with what it bought, what it told TikTok, what failed and what it skipped, who pressed it, and whether it ran in test mode (“Test mode — not real postage”).

If any box has a label TikTok was never told about, a red count shows on the tab and a notice explains that those buyers have no tracking. Press Tell TikTok now: nothing is bought again, it only tells TikTok. You can press it as often as you like.

Under Labels bought for this show, each label shows the buyer, where it goes, the service, the tracking number, whether TikTok was told, and Label and Slip links to open them.

Normally a label prints at the bench when its first sticker is scanned. If you would rather print the whole show at a desk first — to pack from paper — do it from the Buys tab.

1. 1Open Shipping, pick the show, and open the Buys tab.
2. 2Under Labels bought for this show, tick the labels you want, or press Select all. Tick one, then shift-click another to take everything between them.
3. 3In the dark bar, press Labels, Packing slips or Both.
4. 4If you have several printers, pick one under Printer. It is the same choice the packing bench on this computer uses.

Don’t print these again at the bench is ticked by default. With it on, scanning one of those boxes at the bench does not print its label a second time; the card says “Label already printed”. Untick it to print a spare copy without changing the bench. If paper goes missing, Reprint at the bench still works, and Reset on a box brings back its automatic print.

Buyers pay TikTok a shipping fee, and you pay for the labels — often less. The difference is profit (or loss) on every show, and LASI tracks it.

• Buyers paid for shipping — the shipping fees on the show’s linked streams’ orders. It fills in when the show is finalized, or press Pull from TikTok, or type it.
• Labels & postage you paid — what the carrier charged you, typed in by an admin, usually days later when the bill arrives.
• Shipping margin — the first minus the second.

1. 1Open Auctions. The row’s shipping cell shows the margin, or Add label bill when the bill is missing.
2. 2Click it, or open the row’s ⋯ menu and choose Shipping.
3. 3Fill in what you know, add a note if useful, and press Save.

trylasi.com/auctions

Labels bought through TikTok

If you buy labels through TikTok Shipping, the cost comes out of your payout and no bill ever arrives. LASI reads that charge from TikTok’s settlement and counts it for you: a show shipped almost entirely on TikTok labels needs no bill and reads “via TikTok”. A few TikTok labels on a show you otherwise ship yourself are added to the bill you type.

Where else it shows

• The Shipping card on the Dashboard: shipping profit, what buyers paid, what the labels cost, and how many shows are awaiting a bill. Admins can type a bill right there.
• Finance → Costs → Shipping, per show, for any date range (admins).
• On the iPhone app: long-press a show on the Shows tab, or Finance → Costs → Shipping (admins), or Menu → Shipping profit (managers).

Managers see what buyers paid and how many bills are missing, but never what the labels cost. Until a bill is entered, that show’s shipping counts as pure income on the P&L. More in TikTok fees and shipping profit.