Shipping Integration: Yurtiçi, Aras and MNG Compared
In Brief
Shipping integration is the work of making every step between an order appearing in your e-commerce panel and the parcel being handed over at the customer's door talk automatically to the carrier's system: creating the shipment record, generating the barcode and label, writing the tracking number back onto the order, pulling status updates in, and starting the return flow. Choosing between Yurtiçi, Aras and MNG is not a price comparison on its own; how well each carrier's delivery network matches your own order map, how mature its API is and which items are buried in the contract all matter more than the headline rate. As of 2026 the question is not "which carrier is cheaper" but "which carrier lowers my total cost and my complaint load given my order distribution".
Thursday evening, 16.40. In the warehouse of a home textiles store, three people are processing that day's 214 orders by hand. The address is copied from the order panel, pasted into the carrier's web panel, the barcode printed one at a time, then the tracking numbers moved into an Excel file, and in the evening SMS messages are sent to customers from that file. About 70 seconds per shipment: roughly four hours a day. The next morning fourteen customers write in asking where their parcel is, because three addresses were pasted wrong, two shipments were never registered at all and nine tracking numbers slipped a row in the spreadsheet.
The cause was not the carrier; it was the copy-and-paste layer in between. The same warehouse, with an integration that generates the shipment record straight from the panel, prepares those same 214 orders in forty minutes, and because the tracking number is written onto the order by itself, most of the "where is my parcel" questions never arrive. That is what makes shipping integration an operational cost line rather than a technical detail.
1. What Is Shipping Integration, and What Does It Automate?
Shipping integration means your e-commerce platform exchanging data with the carrier's system so the shipping process runs without human intervention. What gets automated is not the transport itself but the data work surrounding it.
The five steps an integration covers
For an integration to count as complete it has to cover all five steps; most stores set up only the first two and keep running the rest by hand.
- Shipment record: creating the order as a shipment in the carrier's system with the recipient's name, address, phone, item count and volumetric weight.
- Label and barcode generation: turning the barcode the carrier returns into a printable label; it usually arrives as PDF or ZPL.
- Writing the tracking number: the generated tracking code being written automatically onto the order record and into the customer notification.
- Status updates: movements such as "accepted", "at transfer centre", "out for delivery", "delivered" and "not found at address" flowing back onto the order screen.
- Returns and reverse shipments: generating a return shipment code when the customer requests a return, and tracking the return parcel back to the warehouse.
The difference between a manual and an integrated process
The difference is not speed but error rate. A manual process involves retyping something for every shipment, and every retyped field is a chance to be wrong. Suppose you dispatch 200 shipments a day and make an address error on five out of every thousand manual entries: that is roughly 30 wrong addresses a month, each meaning a return, a re-dispatch and a customer complaint. In an integration the address travels from a single source, exactly as the customer typed it; the error is made once and corrected once.
Three ways to build the integration
The same result can be reached three different technical ways, and the choice follows your shipment volume.
- Direct API: you connect to the carrier's own service. Most control, most maintenance. It makes sense for high-volume stores working with a single carrier.
- Platform integration: you use your e-commerce platform's ready shipping module. Setup takes hours and the maintenance is not yours; switching carriers is usually a settings change.
- Shipping aggregator: services that put several carriers behind one API. Suitable for stores that want multi-carrier operation without building a separate integration for each; in exchange you take on a service fee and a dependency.
We covered how these three work technically, the request-response logic and authentication, in our article on the role of APIs in e-commerce integrations.
2. On Which Criteria Do You Compare Yurtiçi, Aras and MNG?
The right way to compare the three carriers is not to look for a single "best" but to put your own order distribution to each of them across six criteria. The same carrier can be the best option for one store and the most expensive for another; what decides it is your shipment profile.
The six criteria that decide it
- Geographic fit: that carrier's delivery performance in the provinces and districts your orders mostly go to. A catalogue weighted towards Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir will not prefer the same carrier as one spread across small Anatolian districts.
- Pickup schedule: how many times a day and at what hour a courier comes to your warehouse. A pickup cut-off at 17.00 directly determines your same-day dispatch promise.
- Volumetric weight policy: how volumetric weight is calculated and at which threshold the price jumps.
- API maturity: whether the create-shipment, label, status and return endpoints are all documented, and whether a test environment is offered.
- Claims and damage process: how long compensation for loss and damage takes and which documents it requires.
- Contract flexibility: whether there is a volume commitment, how the price changes if the commitment is missed, and how often rates are revised.
Fill the comparison table with your own data
The table below is a framework for asking all three carriers the same questions; you have to fill the figures in during the quotation meeting with your own volume, because shipping pricing is contract-specific and there is no single published rate.
| Criterion | Question to ask | Why it matters | Acceptance threshold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delivery time | What is the average delivery day in my top 10 destination provinces? | The primary driver of customer satisfaction | 1 day within city, 2-3 days intercity |
| Pickup hour | At what time and how often does a courier call at the warehouse? | Determines the same-day dispatch promise | At least 1, preferably 2 pickups a day |
| Volumetric formula | Which divisor do you use for volumetric weight? | Sets the cost for light, bulky items | Written into the contract |
| API coverage | Are the shipment, label, status and return endpoints documented? | A missing endpoint means manual work | All four documented + test environment |
| Damage compensation | In how many days does a claim close, and which documents are required? | Direct loss on fragile goods | A written time commitment |
| Rate revisions | How often are increases applied and how many days' notice is given? | Affects margin planning | Written notice at least 15 days ahead |
How to try all three at once
The most reliable way to decide is not a desk comparison but a parallel test period. For two weeks, split your orders across the three carriers: distribute them so each receives shipments from the same regions and the same volumetric range. At the end of two weeks you hold real delivery times, real "not found at address" rates and real complaint counts for all three. That is data no sales presentation can give you.
3. How Do You Read Shipping Pricing?
Shipping cost is not a single figure per parcel but a base rate with several items added on top, and what eats the margin is usually not the base but the additions. Looking only at the first line when comparing quotes is the easiest way to mistake the most expensive option for the cheapest.
What is volumetric weight, and why does it beat actual weight?
Volumetric weight: the conversion of the space a parcel occupies into a unit comparable with weight; it is found by multiplying width, length and height and dividing by a divisor stated in the contract. The carrier charges whichever is greater, the parcel's actual weight or its volumetric value. The practical consequence: a 400-gram pillow can be priced like a 20-kilo shipment. If you sell light, bulky goods, shrinking the packaging saves more than negotiating the rate.
The items to look for in the contract
- Base shipment rate: the basic price for a given volumetric range; often a single price covers 1-3 units.
- Excess volume charge: the amount added for each unit above the base range.
- Cash-on-delivery commission: the percentage and/or flat fee taken on the amount collected.
- Return (reverse shipment) fee: the cost of a return, which may not match the outbound rate.
- Not-found-at-address / second attempt fee: whether a repeat delivery attempt is charged.
- Fuel and zone surcharges: remote-area supplements and periodic fuel coefficients.
- Insurance / declared value: the fee charged on declared value for high-value shipments.
The commission and risk side of cash on delivery deserves separate treatment; it affects both shipping cost and return rate.
The effect of shipping cost on margin
After product cost, shipping is the largest variable line, and its share of margin grows quickly as basket value falls. The table below is an example scenario built on an assumed shipping cost of 60 TL per parcel; the figures change with your contract, but the direction of the relationship does not.
| Basket value | Shipping cost | Shipping as % of revenue | Can you offer free shipping? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 150 TL | 60 TL | 40% | No — it wipes out the margin |
| 300 TL | 60 TL | 20% | Only during a campaign |
| 600 TL | 60 TL | 10% | Yes, usable as a threshold |
| 1,200 TL | 60 TL | 5% | Yes, comfortably |
The practical rule that falls out of the table: set your free-shipping threshold near the basket value at which shipping drops below 10 percent of revenue. Pulling the threshold below that point eats margin; pushing it far above eats conversion. We gathered the methods for lifting baskets to that threshold in the article on raising average order value.
4. Technical Setup: From Shipment Record to Label
The core of the technical setup is four endpoints: create shipment, get label, query status, start return. When those four work, the integration is done; the rest is configuration.
Creating a shipment and the label flow
The create-shipment request sends the carrier the sender and recipient details plus the parcel's properties, and returns a tracking number and a barcode. Three things need care. First, to stop the same order generating two shipment records, pass your own order number as an idempotency key in the request; otherwise a retry after a timeout produces a second barcode and two labels get printed in the warehouse. Second, choose the label format to match your printer: PDF for an office printer, ZPL for a thermal barcode printer. Third, put the SKU and shelf code on the label rather than the product name; a significant share of picking errors starts at the label. If you have never set up stock coding, reading how to build an SKU structure first makes this easier.
Status tracking: polling or webhook?
There are two ways to learn a parcel's status, and the choice depends on volume. Polling: you ask for the status of open shipments at set intervals, individually or in batches; it is easy to build, it lags, and it generates unnecessary requests as volume grows. Webhook: the carrier pushes a notification to your endpoint when something moves; it is instant and only fires on change, but you still need a daily reconciliation query so you notice when a notification is missed. A practical setup uses both: the webhook as the main route and a once-daily batch query as the safety net.
The return and reverse shipment flow
The returns side is the part most often left unfinished, and the part customers talk about most. The flow is built like this: the customer opens a return request from the panel or a form, the system generates a reverse shipment code from the carrier, the code goes to the customer by email and SMS, the customer drops the parcel at a branch or a courier collects it, and when the parcel reaches the warehouse it is checked and the return approval is passed to the payment provider. We detailed how the right of withdrawal works in distance selling, and which steps of the return process require written notice, in the article on returns and exchanges in distance selling; you should confirm the regulatory side of the process with your own legal adviser.
The five most common setup mistakes
- Skipping the test environment: creating trial shipments in production produces empty barcodes that get invoiced.
- Squeezing the address into one line: if province, district and neighbourhood are not sent as separate fields, delivery errors rise.
- Not validating phone format: every shipment where the courier's call fails is on its way to becoming a not-found-at-address case.
- Leaving volumetric data at the default: when real dimensions are not entered per product, the invoice and the expectation diverge.
- Swallowing error responses silently: if a failed shipment record lands nowhere, the order sits in "preparing" without ever being dispatched.
5. Multi-Carrier Strategy: Not Depending on One Firm
Working multi-carrier means routing each order to the most suitable carrier by rule, and keeping the operation running when one carrier falters. Every store that grows reaches this point; setting it up early is easier than setting it up mid-crisis.
Rule-based carrier selection
The selection rules should be simple and few; past ten rules nobody can follow them. The table below is the skeleton of a typical rule set.
| Order condition | Routing logic | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Within city, same-day promise | The carrier with the earliest pickup | Pickup hour sets the delivery promise |
| Remote district / village address | The carrier with strong branches in that region | Each transfer hop lengthens delivery |
| High volume, low value | The carrier with the lowest excess volume charge | This is where bulky goods differ |
| High value, fragile | The carrier that closes damage claims fastest | Claim duration is a direct cost |
| Cash on delivery | The carrier with the lowest collection commission | Commission grows with basket value |
| Marketplace order | The marketplace's contracted carrier | Shipments outside the contract are often unsupported |
Redundancy: what happens when a carrier falters?
The risk of a single carrier is not price but continuity. A regional disruption, a backlog of a few days during a peak campaign period, or an outage on the API side will stop the operation completely in a store with one connection. Building a second carrier's integration and never using it is itself an insurance policy: setting one up mid-crisis takes days, changing a rule takes minutes. Prepare, as a written scenario before the season, how that backup gets switched on during campaign periods.
Marketplace orders follow a separate rule
On Trendyol, Hepsiburada and similar marketplaces, shipments usually go out through the marketplace's own contracted carrier and its own shipping code; a parcel you send under your own contract can show as "not dispatched" on the marketplace side and affect your performance score. So in multichannel stores the shipping rule splits by channel: marketplace orders go out on the marketplace code, orders from your own site on your own contract. To stop the two flows clashing on the stock side, the warehouse has to be fed from a single stock source; we covered that side in the article on e-commerce logistics and warehouse management.
6. Measurement: Which Metrics Track Shipping Performance?
If you do not measure shipping performance, you will decide to change carrier based on the volume of complaints, which is the most expensive way to decide anything. Six metrics in a monthly table are enough.
Six metrics to watch
- Average delivery time: days between dispatch and delivery; measure within-city and intercity separately.
- On-time delivery rate: the share of shipments delivered within the window you promised the customer. If you made no promise, you do not have this metric.
- Not-found-at-address rate: the share not delivered on the first attempt; if it is high, the problem may be in your address and phone data rather than the carrier.
- Damage and loss rate: how many shipments per thousand open a damage case; only this metric shows the effect of packaging changes.
- Real cost per shipment: total invoiced divided by shipment count. The invoice, not the quoted rate. The two usually differ.
- Shipping-related support ticket rate: what share of all support tickets concern shipping; the real return on the integration shows up most clearly here.
Setting up the claims and damage process
Whether compensation works in damage and loss cases depends on the process being started correctly within the first 24 hours. Ask the customer for photographs of the damaged parcel together with its packaging, record the delivery note, open your claim with the carrier through a written channel, and write the case number onto the order record. When these four steps are not defined as a written flow, every case runs from scratch and differently; and at the monthly reconciliation with the carrier you are left with nothing to stand on.
Customer notifications: ending "where is my parcel" at the source
Most shipping-related support tickets come from missing information, and four automatic notifications largely end them: order dispatched (with a tracking link), parcel out for delivery, not found at address (with written instructions on what happens next), delivered. If notifications go out by SMS and email, the İYS side of commercial electronic message consent should not be skipped; transactional messages about the order process and marketing messages fall under different regimes, and it is sensible to confirm the current state of that distinction with your own legal adviser.
Setting Up Shipping Integration in Thirty Days
Thirty days is enough to build a full integration with one carrier and prepare a second as a backup. The order matters: a carrier chosen without measurement gets replaced three months later.
Days 1-7: measure and get quotes
Pull the last three months of shipment data: distribution by province and district, volumetric distribution, average basket value, return rate, share of cash-on-delivery orders. Ask all three carriers for a quote in the same format using that table. No contract is signed this week; you only learn your own profile. When comparing quotes, write the excess volume, return and collection items next to the base rate rather than looking at the base alone.
Days 8-14: parallel test
Split orders so each of the three carriers receives the same profile of shipments, and record the six metrics even if by hand. In the same week, review your product dimensions: which products are packed in needlessly large boxes, which could be combined into one. Shrinking packaging pays off faster than negotiating a contract.
Days 15-21: technical integration
Run all four endpoints in your first-choice carrier's test environment: create shipment, get label, query status, start return. Build the idempotency key rule, decide where error responses land and how retries behave, all this week. Test the label format with the actual printer; an integration that works on paper will not work in the warehouse at the wrong label size.
Days 22-30: automation and backup
Automate the four customer notifications, connect the six metrics to a table you see weekly, and leave the second carrier's integration built but dormant. Write the rule set down: which order goes to which carrier. Looking at ready integration options where shipping, payment and accounting flows are managed from one place cuts this week's work down to a few days.
Here is the job for tomorrow morning: open the shipping invoice for your last 200 parcels, divide the total by the shipment count, and compare the figure with the base rate in your contract. If the gap is more than 20 percent, the add-on items are eating your margin, and finding out which item it is will be both faster and cheaper than negotiating with a new carrier.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to set up a shipping integration?
With a ready e-commerce platform's shipping module, setup usually takes between a few hours and a day, because the work is entering API credentials and configuring rules. A direct API integration takes one to three weeks including the test environment and error handling. What stretches the timeline is not the coding but cleaning up product dimensions and address fields.
Which is cheaper: Yurtiçi, Aras or MNG?
There is no single correct answer, because shipping is priced per contract and set by your volume, your volumetric distribution and your regional concentration. The same three carriers can quote two different stores in a different order. The right method is to pull your own last three months of shipment profile, ask all three for a quote in the same format, and write the excess volume, return and collection items next to the base rate.
How is volumetric weight calculated?
The parcel's width, length and height are multiplied and divided by the divisor stated in the contract; whichever is greater, that value or the parcel's actual weight, is what gets invoiced. Because the divisor can vary by carrier and by contract, you need to confirm the formula in your own contract in writing. The practical consequence: for light but bulky products, shrinking the packaging is a direct saving.
Should I work with one carrier or several?
If monthly shipment counts are low, a single carrier gives better rates and a simpler operation. Once volume grows and orders spread across different volumetric ranges and regions, a second carrier pays for itself on both cost and continuity. The switching point usually arrives the first time a single carrier's disruption costs you orders.
Should the tracking number go to the customer automatically?
Yes, and it should go the moment the shipment record is created. A delayed tracking number is the number one source of "where is my parcel" questions, and each of those is a support cost. Send the notification with a tracking link so the customer does not have to copy a number and search for it on the carrier's site.
How do I set the free-shipping threshold?
Set it near the point where shipping cost per parcel falls to around 10 percent of the basket value. Going below that point erodes gross margin; going far above it loses the customer before they complete the basket. Once the threshold is set, showing "X TL to free shipping" on the basket screen increases its effect on conversion.
If my not-found-at-address rate is high, is the carrier at fault?
Usually not. The most common causes are incomplete address fields, wrong or unverified phone numbers, and no notification reaching the customer on the delivery day. Check your own data quality first: collect the address as separate province, district, neighbourhood and street fields, and validate the phone format at the moment of order.
Who should pay for return shipping?
Three models exist in practice: the store covers returns entirely, the customer covers them entirely, or it splits by reason (wrong or defective item on the store, change of mind on the customer). Whichever you choose, the condition has to be written clearly on your returns and exchanges page. Because who bears the shipping cost under the right of withdrawal in distance selling depends on regulation, confirm the model you apply with your own legal adviser.
Can I ship marketplace orders under my own carrier contract?
On most marketplaces, no, or only in limited cases. Marketplaces expect shipments to go out through their contracted carriers and their own shipping codes; a parcel sent outside that can show as "not dispatched" and affect your seller performance score. So split your shipping rule by channel and define the marketplace flow as a separate rule.
Does shipping integration also automate stock management?
No; shipping integration automates the dispatch and tracking side, while deducting stock is the job of the order and warehouse side. The two are often confused, and that confusion shows up as products dispatched but never deducted from stock. The correct setup is a flow where stock is managed from a single source and the shipping integration updates the order status in that source.
Share this article