How do I request a pickup?

How to schedule a one-time pickup for your standard packages

Ina Kahl avatar
Written by Ina Kahl
Updated over a week ago

With Shipcloud, you can easily request sporadic pickups via Shipcloud business rates or via your own carrier contracts at the push of a button.


In this article, you will learn which carriers offer occasional pickups, how to place pickup orders with Shipcloud and when to order them.

In this article 👇


What are the pickup types?

Your parcels are picked up directly from your warehouse or store. A distinction can be made between two types of pickup:

Occasional / One-time pickups.

You request a one-time pickup order for shipments from a specific carrier.

Recurring / Regular pickups

Recurring pickups take place on workdays defined by you in an agreed pickup time window. Regular pickups can be agreed with the respective carrier via your own carrier contracts. If you have stored them with Shipcloud, the agreements made with your shipping partner regarding a regular pickup will continue to apply.

Good to know: If you ship via Shipcloud business rates, we can have a regular pickup set up for you with DPD. Further information about the minimum shipping volume required by DPD can be found here.

Which carriers can I request a pickup from for my standard shipments?

With Shipcloud you can request a sporadic pickup for your standard shipments for DPD, UPS and Hermes. DPD and UPS pickups are included in the Shipcloud business rates.

It is technically possible to request sporadic Hermes pickups, but you will need your own Hermes contract for this. The request of DHL pickups is not possible via Shipcloud, so you can only manage DHL pickups with your own DHL contract and as part of a contractual pickup agreement.

How do I request a pickup for my standard shipments?

Pickup requests via Shipcloud webUI

You can request sporadic pickups in the Shipcloud webUI under the menu item "Pickup". There you will find an overview of your shipments that have already been created or can be picked up, sorted by carrier. If you click on the green button with the truck icon, you request a sporadic pickup for the respective shipments on the following business day.

Pickup requests via plug-in/integration

Sporadic pickups can already be requested in many plug-ins or integrations. To do this, check in your plug-in or integration whether you can store a pickup address there. If this is the case, you can usually also issue sporadic pickup orders directly from your shop, ERP or inventory management system. Please contact the manufacturer of your plug-in or integration if you are not sure whether you can place pickup orders directly from your backend.

Pickup requests via API request

You can also create pickup requests via API request. You can find more information in our Developer Portal.

Good to know: You can find out which pickup address is transmitted to the carriers when you request a pickup here. In case you would like to request a pickup for your express shipments, you can find more information here.

When should I request a pickup?

Pickups can only be requested for the following working day. So that the carriers can schedule a pickup at your location for the next working day, it is necessary that you notify them in a timely manner. Therefore, it is best to order the pickup before 5:00 pm.

Please note that the carriers do not make any guarantees that the pickup will be made on the next business day. In some circumstances, your pickup may not be made until two days after you request the your pickup.

Good to know: To increase the likelihood of a next business day pickup, we advise you to collect all shipments of one day for the respective carrier and then request the pickup. Otherwise, an individual pickup will be requested for every single package, which experience has shown to be more prone to disruptions.

When will the pickup be carried out?

Pickups take place from Monday to Friday in the core collection time window between 9:00 and 17:00. For sporadic pickups, a more precise delimitation of the pickup time window is unfortunately not possible on the part of the carriers.

Pickups are not possible on Saturdays. Therefore, please keep in mind that pickups you request on a Friday can take place on the following Monday at the earliest.

Good to know: You can alternatively drop off your DHL, DPD, and UPS parcels at the nearest parcel shop. Hermes parcels cannot be delivered to parcel shops.


Any further questions? We're happy to help.



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