DHL contract activation

Step 1: Activate your Sendcloud subscription

Sendcloud offers three subscriptions with which you are able to use your own transport contract: Small shop, Large shop and the Business plan.

For more information regarding which plan is best for you and the needs of your business, you can always contact us via the support section of your Sendcloud account or click here.

Step 2: Enable your carrier contract 

Once you have activated a Sendcloud subscription, you can connect your carrier contract. 

1. In your Sendcloud panel navigate to Settings > Carriers & Pricing.
2. Go to the My contracts tab and find DHL from the list.
3. Click Add contract. Here you can add the credentials needed to validate the connection to DHL. 

Step 3: Enter your DHL contract details

Complete the form with the information below and click Save when you are done.

• DHL Business Customer Portal Username
• DHL Business Customer Portal Password
• Billing number Paket
• Billing number Paket International
• Billing number Timeframe
• Billing number Paket Connect
• Billing number Europaket
• Billing number Warenpost/International/International Premium
• Billing number Warenpost Gogreen
• DHL tracking username
• DHL tracking password
• Returns
• Shipper Preference
• Label format (this must be added so that the correct label format can be selected).
  
  • You can find the format in the DHL Geschäftskundenportal > Parcel & Products > Shipping > Settings > General settings.

Please pay attention to the following points:

1. The password and username that you use to log into the DHL Business Customer Portal. 
2. Billing numbers can be found in the DHL Business Customer Portal (Name of your account > Masterdata > Contract Positions).
3. DHL Tracking credentials contain a username and password. The username starts with ZT and a six digit number. Please note that the password may contain a maximum of 1 "!" (exclamation mark) as a special character. To find out these credentials, contact your DHL representative. You can also check out Step-by-Step guide.
4. Enable DHL address validation to avoid having to pay surcharges for relabeling if a customer's address is invalid. 

Step 4: Enable domestic and international returns

In order to be able to receive returns from different countries, please retrieve the country Receiver ID which can be found in the DHL business customer portal.

1. Go to DHL Geschäftskundenportal > Parcel & Products > Returns > Settings. 
2. In the Receiver and country overview, your account manager will define all countries from which you want to receive returns (per country = one line). 
3. Copy the Receiver ID to the Sendcloud contract settings for each country that you want to enable returns for. In the example below, under the outlined yellow box you can see the Receiver ID is here named as "BE" for returns to Belgium. 
   
   
4. In your Sendcloud account, navigate to Settings > Carriers & Pricing > My contracts > DHL DE
5. Scroll down the page until you see the Returns section on the DHL DE contract settings page
6. Select your return country from the dropdown menu and then enter the Receiver ID exactly as it appears in your DHL portal
   
   
7. To add additional countries, click ± and repeat the process
8. Press the Save button when all countries are added

Once you have filled in the receiver ID’s per country in the Sendcloud contract settings the following methods are supported on the Sendcloud platform:

DHL Retoure (formally DHL Paket Return) and DHL Mobile Retoure (formally DHL Retoure Online).

Once you've followed the steps above, your DHL contract should now be successfully linked to your Sendcloud platform and you can begin shipping on your DHL rates. When you create a label with a DHL shipping method, the label price will now show as 0.00 EUR in your account.

How to use DHL Tracking correctly with Sendcloud

If you have not activated your tracking, the status of your package will remain at "Announced". In order to make sure that tracking works properly while using Sendcloud, it is important to make sure that the following steps have been taken:

1. Contact your account manager and ask for tracking credentials (DHL tracking username & password)
2. Once your account manager has activated the credentials, you will receive a link to generate your password
3. Do not use any special characters when generating the password, except for a ''!'' exclamation mark.
4. As soon as you have all your credentials, you can enter them in your contract information under Settings > Carrier & Pricing > DHL > Edit:
   
5. Click on 'Save'. Done! The tracking information is now available.

Related articles:

→ How do I set up a default shipping method?