PostEx and Shopify, from booking to the CPR
PostEx was the first courier Kaarobar supported and carries most of its parcels. The integration covers the whole life of a parcel: booked from the Shopify order, tracked without the portal, advised when delivery fails, and finally matched to the payout that paid for it.
What the PostEx integration does
- Books from the Shopify order. Customer, phone, address, city, item count and COD amount come straight from the order. Kaarobar converts the phone to the
03xxxxxxxxxformat PostEx expects, whichever way the customer typed it, and rounds the COD to whole rupees as PostEx requires. The tracking number goes back onto the order. - Prints PostEx's own airway bill. The CN comes from PostEx's Airway Bill API: the same PDF the merchant portal downloads, with PostEx's barcodes, QR and routing code. You can print one or a whole batch together.
- Cancels a booking from the same screen.
- Tracks without the portal. Every parcel's status and full scan history are pulled from your PostEx account and shown on the order.
- Sends NDR advice to PostEx. When a delivery attempt fails, the parcel lands on the NDR worklist. Choosing re-attempt or return there sends PostEx's own shipper advice (Retry Attempt or Return Requested), so nobody has to log in to the portal to do it.
- Reconciles COD per parcel, using PostEx's own payment status rather than a bank line. More on that below.
Setup: one token, one pickup address
- Copy your API token. In the PostEx merchant portal, open API & Webhooks and copy the token.
- Paste it into Kaarobar's Connect page. Kaarobar checks the token with PostEx before saving it. If you paste the wrong thing, you're told then and there, not shown a green "connected" badge that never syncs anything. The token is encrypted when stored.
- Choose your pickup address. PostEx refuses any booking without one. If your account has a single pickup address, Kaarobar uses it automatically. If it has several, as a consolidator with many vendor locations does, you choose the default yourself. Kaarobar never picks one for you, because the wrong one sends a rider to the wrong place.
That's all. Your PostEx history comes in on the first sync, parcels booked in the portal included, and is matched to Shopify orders by order reference and tracking number. You don't download or import a CSV.
How PostEx pays you, and why spreadsheets get it wrong
PostEx doesn't pay a parcel in one go. The payout data Kaarobar reads splits each parcel into three amounts:
- Upfront payment: an advance, roughly half the COD, paid once the parcel ships and before anyone knows whether it will be delivered.
- Reserve payment: the rest, released after delivery. Upfront plus reserve equals the parcel's COD value.
- Balance payment: on a returned parcel, the advance is taken back. This is money leaving you, not money arriving.
The balance payment is the classic mistake. A spreadsheet that adds every payout column together counts each returned parcel's advance twice, once when it was paid and again when it was clawed back. Kaarobar treats the balance as a recovery and subtracts it, so on a returned parcel the cash nets to zero, as it should.
Settled means PostEx says so
PostEx's order list doesn't reliably say whether an older parcel has been paid. So for every delivered COD parcel that isn't yet known to be settled, Kaarobar asks PostEx's per-parcel payment-status endpoint. The answer comes back with a settled flag and the CPR transfer reference for each tranche, so you can trace any rupee to the transfer that carried it. Once a parcel is settled it is never checked again, which keeps the sync fast however large your history grows.
On the COD reconciliation screen, that becomes a per-parcel answer to "has PostEx paid for this?" Delivered parcels still unpaid are listed by age, and the total is the cash PostEx still owes you, before charges and the 4% withholding are taken off.
PostEx statuses, as Kaarobar reads them
PostEx's status names are mapped onto one set of stages that every courier shares. That shared set is what makes the courier scorecard fair. The mapping is a fixed set of rules in the code, and these are the stages your parcels land in:
| PostEx status | Stage in Kaarobar | Shopify tag |
|---|---|---|
| Unbooked | Not booked | — |
| Booked | Booked, waiting for pickup | — |
| En-Route, Out For Delivery | In transit | — |
| Attempted | NDR: needs your re-attempt or return decision | — |
| Under Verification, Delivery Under Review | On hold with the courier (not counted as a failed attempt) | — |
| Delivered, not yet paid | Delivered | Delivered + Payment Pending |
| Delivered and paid out | Delivered, settled | Delivered + Payment Settled |
| Returned | RTO | Return Received once scanned in at your warehouse |
| Cancelled, Expired | Cancelled | — |
Two details in that table matter more than they look. A held parcel isn't counted as a failed delivery, so a busy verification week doesn't look like a collapse in your delivery rate. And the Shopify payment tags come from the same settlement data as the reconciliation screen, so your Shopify order list and Kaarobar never disagree about which orders are paid. How tags are written is on the Shopify integration page.
PostEx next to your other couriers
If you also ship with Trax, both couriers use the same booking queue, NDR worklist and reconciliation. Booking rules send each order to a courier by city, COD amount, payment type or the customer's return history. A rule can also let Kaarobar choose, per city, whichever connected courier has actually delivered best there. A challenger has to beat PostEx by a clear margin before any volume moves.
Connect PostEx — install freeQuestions merchants actually ask
- Do I need a PostEx account already?
- Yes. Kaarobar connects your existing PostEx merchant account and doesn't resell shipping. Your rates, pickup addresses and relationship with PostEx stay exactly as they are.
- Where do I find my PostEx API token?
- In the PostEx merchant portal, under API & Webhooks. Paste it into Kaarobar's Connect page; it's checked with PostEx before it's saved.
- I've been booking in the PostEx portal. Will those parcels show up?
- Yes. The first sync reads your PostEx history whether or not Kaarobar booked the parcels, and settlement is checked per tracking number, so older parcels reconcile too.
- Does Kaarobar print the same CN as the PostEx portal?
- Yes. It fetches PostEx's own airway bill PDF through the API, with PostEx's barcodes, QR and routing code. It is not a look-alike label.
- Will the total ever match my CPR to the rupee?
- Gross COD per parcel comes from PostEx itself. The net figure deducts courier charges and withholding, and PostEx rounds per parcel in its own arithmetic, so expect it to land very close to the CPR rather than to the exact rupee.
- PostEx ka payment kab aata hai, Kaarobar kaise batata hai?
- Har delivered parcel ke liye Kaarobar PostEx se poochta hai ke payment settle hui ya nahi, aur CPR reference bhi dikhata hai. Jo parcels deliver ho chuke hain magar payment abhi nahi aayi, woh alag list mein nazar aate hain.