Lifetimely: How to Connect ShipBob

At a glance

Connect ShipBob to Lifetimely to import your real fulfilment and shipping costs automatically, so your profit reports reflect the true landed cost of each order.

Note: ShipBob is available on paid Lifetimely plans.

What this enables

• Real ShipBob shipping and fulfilment costs feed into your Profit & Loss, contribution margin, and net profit.
• Ask the Profit Agent shipping-aware questions, like "What did fulfilment cost me last month by product?"

How it works

Once connected, ShipBob costs are matched to your Shopify orders by Shopify order number, and they take priority over any manual or flat shipping rates you've set for those orders. Manual rates continue to apply only to orders ShipBob didn't fulfil.

What you'll need

• A ShipBob account with admin access.
• Admin access to your Lifetimely account.

Setup

1. In Lifetimely, go to Integrations and select ShipBob (or go directly to https://lifetimely.useamp.com/integrations/shipbob ).
2. Connect your ShipBob account. [Connection steps to be confirmed before publishing.]
3. Lifetimely tests the connection before saving, so an invalid entry is flagged straight away.

Once saved, your ShipBob cost data begins syncing automatically. The first import can take from a few minutes up to a few hours.

Troubleshooting

Orders show a flat or default rate instead of ShipBob actuals: this almost always means the order reference ShipBob holds doesn't match your Shopify order number. It's common when orders flow into ShipBob through a 3PL or middleware (for example Cin7 or Trackstar) that passes an internal code — such as an SO-  reference — rather than the Shopify order number. When Lifetimely can't match a ShipBob cost to an order, that order falls back to your manual rate.

A re-sync won't fix this on its own — ShipBob is syncing fine; the data it sends simply no longer carries the Shopify order number. The fix is on the fulfilment side: your 3PL or middleware setup needs to pass the Shopify order number as the order reference in ShipBob. Once ShipBob is receiving the real Shopify order numbers again, costs start matching automatically. Your 3PL contact can help map the Shopify order number into the ShipBob reference field.

Notes

• Lifetimely only reads data from ShipBob — it never writes to or changes anything in your ShipBob account.
• Disconnecting ShipBob removes the shipping-cost data that came from ShipBob. Costs you imported by CSV are kept. If you want to preserve ShipBob history before disconnecting, export it to CSV first.
• For how often data refreshes after the first import, see How Often Does My Integration Data Sync?