shipment tracking- seems like a good time to sell more product

[limoshawn]

I made a purchase from a website the other day. Like I do with most online purchases, I checked on the package tracking. This particular website uses the ups tracking api (is there one?) to display the tracking information on their site. on the tracking page they display related products that are also for sale. I'm sure that a lot of sites do this it's just the first time I've ever seen it and if your site is not doing it you should be! The order I placed on this site is going to take about 5 days to be delivered. I check the tracking at least once a day (mostly just because I think it's neat to know where my package is, I'm sure others do to) so this site is going to have at least 5 chances to sell me something else at a $0 customer acquisition cost (assuming the ups tracking api is free)!

[rocknbil]

Right, both UPS and USPS (and probably all the others, FedEx, DHL, etc.)have shipping API's. They both need you to acquire a key to access the API. You post an XML (not XHTML) string to the API via silent post (curl or similar,) and it returns a response in XML which you parse in real time. They both have ample documentation and samples in various programming languages.

The tracking on parcels, however, costs for USPS, they don't track all packages by default. Only delivery confirmation, signature confirmation, Express, and similar. If the customer elects to pay for any of these, absolutely, tracking is and should be provided.

[jwolthuis]

The tracking on parcels, however, costs for USPS...

True for the cheapest shipping options; fist-class, media mail, and parcel post. It's 19-cents if purchased online.

Priority Mail, Express Mail, and all international shipping methods have tracking built-into the price. These air-shipment methods are typically scanned a couple of times during transit, making them much more useful than the name "delivery confirmation" would imply.

If you utilize free scheduled carrier pickup (or the brand-new free daily pickup), the tracking information begins as soon as your carrier scans the SCAN Form (USPS Form 5630) during pickup.

[Luxoria]

When I am waiting on a package and I have a tracking number I just leave a tab open in my browser with the tracking info directly on the shipper's website such as UPS/FEDEX/DHL etc, and just refresh the page when I get bored.