Launch Week Day 4: Tracking

Today we're launching expanded tracking support in Zinc.

When an order ships, we automatically extract the tracking number and carrier (UPS, FedEx, USPS, Amazon Logistics, DHL) and attach it to your order. No extra API calls. No parsing emails yourself. It just shows up.

This existed in v1 for a handful of retailers. Now it works everywhere we do.

Why this is harder than it sounds

Retailers don't give you tracking numbers in an API response. They send an email that says "your order has shipped" with a button that says "Track Package."

Sometimes the tracking number is in the email. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you click the button and land on a page with the tracking info. Sometimes you click the button and hit a login wall, and you need to be signed into your account to see anything.

There's no standard. Every retailer does it differently.

So we built a system that handles all of it. We parse the email. If the tracking number is there, we grab it. If it's behind a link, we follow the link. If that link requires authentication, we spin up a browser, sign in, and extract the tracking info from the page.

Same adaptive approach as the ordering engine we talked about on Day 1. We're not hard-coding every retailer's email format. We're building a system that figures it out.

How it works

Tracking info shows up automatically in the order response:

{
  "id": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
  "status": "order_placed",
  "tracking_numbers": [
    {
      "carrier": "ups",
      "tracking_number": "1Z999AA10123456784",
      "created_at": "2026-01-15T14:30:00Z"
    }
  ]
}

If items ship separately — from different fulfillment centers, or on different days — you'll see multiple tracking numbers. We handle that automatically.

And if you set up webhooks yesterday, you'll get an order.tracking_received event the moment we have it. No polling required.

Try it for yourself!

Place an order and wait for it to ship. The tracking info will appear in the order response and (if configured) fire a webhook.

For supported carriers and how to construct tracking URLs, check out Order Tracking in our docs.

Tomorrow we're wrapping up launch week with a demo app you can actually use.