Chapter 8: Interacting with the FedEx API

Overview

Federal Express (FedEx) is an international brand name in express shipping. By accessing its API you can not only save time and effort when it comes to shipping products to your customers, but you can also give your customers more information. You can provide information on the various shipment methods available to them, as well as detailed tracking information on their orders after they have been shipped. Finally, in the unfortunate case that a customer needs to return a product, FedEx (and thus the API) also eases that process.

This chapter covers several of the most useful API calls:

• Registering your account number to obtain a meter number

• Determining which FedEx delivery services are available between given addresses

• Obtaining rate information for a given service

• Shipping a package

• Canceling a shipment

• Tracking a package

• Accepting returns