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How to ship to the UK with GLS Germany

Louise Thomasson
  • Updated

Purpose: Learn how to ship from Germany to the UK with your own GLS Germany contract. This requires some additional steps to enable the correct shipping methods in your Sendcloud account.

Please note: In order to ship with GLS Germany, you need to have a Lite subscription plan and have enabled a direct carrier contract with GLS in your Sendcloud account. Read our article GLS contract activation for more information.

Customs documents

As a result of Brexit, shipping to the UK from a European country now involves the inclusion of customs documentation alongside the standard shipping label. You can now enable the option to send electronic customs documentation alongside your parcel when you ship from Germany to the UK on your own direct contract with GLS Germany.

When you have enabled this option, not only can you now select shipping methods which are compatible with UK delivery in your Sendcloud account, but you no longer have to attach a hard copy of the commercial invoice to your shipment.

How to start shipping to the UK

You can ship to the UK with GLS Germany using three shipping methods. To activate them, you first need to start using GLS APIs and then authenticate the connection in Sendcloud. Continue reading to find out how to do this.

Step 1: Enroll in the GLS developer portal

  1. Go the GLS developers portal
  2. Click Sign in to login or Create an account if you are a new user.

Step 2: Create a new app

  1. Once you've signed in, click the ▾drop-down next to your email address
  2. Select Apps
    1.jpg
  3. Click+ New app to create a new app
    2.PNG
  4. Enter a name and description for the app in the New App section.
  5. Under the APIs section, click Enable next to Authentication API V3 and Customs API V3
  6. Click Create
    1_gif.gif

Step 3: Access your API keys

  1. Once you've created the app, you will be taken to the app overview. You can also access the overview by clicking the ▾dropdown menu next to your email address and selecting Apps
  2. Under the section API Keys, you can find your API key and secret key
  3. To see your secret, click Show secret
    keys.jpg
  4. These are the keys you need to enter into Sendcloud to authenticate the connection.

Step 4: Authenticate the connection in Sendcloud 

  1. In your Sendcloud account, go to Settings > Carriers
  2. Then go to My contracts > Click Add your own contract > Find GLS DE 
  3. Click Add Contract
  4. If you haven't yet connected your GLS Germany contract, read our article GLS contract activation to learn how to do it and fill in the fields
  5. Enter the API Key from GLS into the field Customs API Key
  6. Enter the Secret Key from GLS into the field Customs API Secret
  7. Click Add this contract when you're done.

Step 5: Shipping methods

You will now be able to ship to the UK with GLS Germany using the following shipping methods: 

  • GLS EuroBusinessParcel
  • GLS FlexDelivery
  • GLS EuroExpressParcel