ShipOpsHow to connect Next Step to your store
To connect Next Step you need one thing: your Next Step API key, the code that lets an app like ShipOps read your Next Step account. Next Step issues it for your account. If you don't have it, ask your Next Step account manager. Then you pick the pickup location your bookings go out from.
What you need
one thing| API key | The client API key Next Step issued for your account. It is not the password you sign in with. If nobody at your business has it, ask your Next Step account manager for one. |
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Don't have it yet?
Ask your Next Step account manager for API access. You can send them this: "Please enable API access for my Next Step account and share my client API key."
While you are asking, check that your account has at least one active pickup location. ShipOps books every Next Step parcel from one, so an account without one connects but cannot book.
Connecting it in ShipOps
- Install ShipOps from the Shopify App Store, or open it if you already have it. On your first visit ShipOps asks you to connect a courier; later, it lives under Settings → Couriers & store.
- Choose Next Step and fill in API key.
- Press Connect Next Step. ShipOps checks the details with Next Step before it saves them, so a typo shows up straight away, not a day later. When it works you see Saved — credentials confirmed.
- Under Pickup location, press Choose…, pick the one your parcels ship from, and press Save. ShipOps loads the list from your Next Step account. This is what bookings and labels are made under; you can skip it if you only want tracking.
- That's it. Your Next Step parcels load in the background, so there is nothing to wait for. They appear in your inbox as they arrive.
ShipOps stores your Next Step details encrypted and uses them only to read your own account and to do what you ask from the app: a booking, a label, a retry or return. Your rates and your contract with Next Step stay exactly as they are, and the COD cash still goes from Next Step straight to your bank.
The pickup location list comes from your Next Step account. If it is empty, Next Step has no active pickup location for you yet: ask Next Step to add one, then connect again. Next Step is marked In testing in ShipOps while it runs on its first stores; tell us if a status looks wrong.
If Next Step won't connect
ShipOps says Next Step rejected my API key.
Paste the key again exactly as Next Step sent it, with no spaces before or after. If it still fails, ask your Next Step account manager for a new one.
ShipOps says my account has no active pickup location.
The key works, but Next Step has no pickup location switched on for your account. Ask Next Step to add one, then connect again. Booking needs it.
Booking says to pick a Next Step pickup location first.
Go to Settings, Couriers & store, Next Step. Press Choose… under Pickup location, pick the one your parcels leave from, and press Save.
I connected but no parcels showed up yet.
ShipOps reads your parcels from your Next Step account in the background after you connect. Give it a few minutes, then open the inbox again.
More about Next Step
Connect Next Step now
You have what you need. Install ShipOps, paste your Next Step details, and your parcels start arriving in a minute. Free to start, no card.