An important consideration you must face when setting up your e-commerce store is your shipping method. After all, your business relies on getting the product to the end consumer. Though there are various ways to set up online shipping, everyone desires a quick and efficient method. An ideal system allows you to easily integrate your various shipping lanes, whether they are overnight, ground, or simple mail service, into your business systems, retail website or order management system. An ideal route is to purchase a software application that allows you to create shipping labels, track shipments, obtain rate quotes and generate reports all in one place. While there are some pretty extensive applications out there, it is usually best to start with one of the basic programs that are available free online. A simple and easy to use tool is available at:

http://www.fedex.com/ca_english/businesstools/ecommercetools.html?link=4

What Are Web Shipping Services?
Essentially, they are a collection of programming technologies that allows a user to build customized solutions for application integration. Web shipping services differ from traditional client/server models in that they allow for application-to-application communication. In other words, applications interface with each other, not with the users. This means applications can be combined to create more powerful services. For example, a user could choose to combine FedEx Web Services with purchased Web services or Web shipping services from other organizations to create unique, customized solutions.

Features
Web shipping services represent the future of application integration because they offer the following: Any Web service can interact with any other Web service and can be written in any programming language.

Compatibility
Web shipping services communicate using HTTP and XML—so any connected device that supports these technologies can both host and access Web Services.

Low Barrier to Entry
The concepts behind Web shipping services are easy to understand, and developers can quickly create and deploy them using many tool-kits available on the Web.

Industry Support
Major content providers and vendors are supporting the Web shipping services movement.