The ongoing war in Ukraine has worsened the challenges faced by Ukrainian online merchants and logistics providers, making an already difficult shipping environment even more complex. With disrupted supply chains, damaged infrastructure, and ongoing security risks, Ukrposhta, Ukraine’s national postal service, has struggled to maintain reliable shipping operations. This has created significant hurdles for both Ukrposhta and merchants who depend on consistent, trackable shipping to fulfill international orders. 

For Ukrainian merchants selling on global e-commerce platforms like Etsy and eBay, cross-border fulfillment has become especially challenging. A key issue is shipment tracking – many items shipped via Ukrposhta cannot be tracked on these platforms. Without reliable tracking, merchants risk penalties, order cancellations, and customer dissatisfaction. Moreover, when a “stop-clock event” occurs in the tracking system – a pause triggered by incomplete or unconfirmed shipment status – there is no mechanism to validate the release of payments to sellers, further adding to their frustration. As a result, many sellers have turned to alternative carriers, reducing Ukrposhta’s role in cross-border e-commerce, increasing shipping costs, and disrupting the local postal system. 

Additionally, the integration challenges between Ukrposhta and global e-commerce platforms remain a significant barrier. These platforms lack the resources and incentive to connect with each individual postal operator. On Ukrposhta’s side, its limited IT resources further hinder efforts to streamline operations and integrate with each marketplace. 

To enable Ukrainian merchants to sell and fulfill cross-border on these e-commerce platforms, Ukrposhta partnered with AfterShip, the largest tracking platform provider for global marketplaces like eBay, Etsy, and Amazon, to create an advanced integration that provides seamless shipment tracking. Their collaboration began with the development of a special Application Programming Interface (API), allowing AfterShip to track Ukrposhta shipments while ensuring full compliance with international data privacy regulations. Eric Pong, Logistics Partnerships Director at AfterShip explained, “AfterShip Postal can help companies like Ukrposhta by being the one-to-many connector. Once they integrate with us, we can then connect them to all the major marketplaces through the API we’ve worked on”.  

AfterShip collaborated with Ukrposhta’s technical team to improve tracking algorithms and ensuring accurate processing of Ukrposhta tracking numbers. This prevents tracking penalties for merchants on e-commerce platforms and enhances shipment transparency. Additionally, optimizing the data flow between Ukrposhta and AfterShip has made tracking updates more reliable and efficient, reducing delays and errors, and providing Ukrainian merchants and their customers with timely, accurate tracking information to build trust and improve the buyer experience. 

This partnership has not only maintained shipping volumes with Ukrposhta, preventing a shift to other logistics providers, but has also significantly improved the e-commerce landscape for Ukrainian sellers. Nearly 200,000 e-commerce packages are now tracked monthly, benefiting 35,000 Ukrainian merchants on Etsy with reliable shipment tracking. Additionally, it has ensured that thousands of Ukrainian businesses can continue operating despite the challenging conditions brought on by the ongoing war. As Julia Pavlenko, Director of International Operations at Ukrposhta, put it, “It’s like a win-win strategy for us […] we have much more time and opportunity to focus on physical deliver”.