I want to order postage in bulk for copies of my limited edition book A Speccy Man Has A Breakdown. Doing each one separately would take hours.
This may seem banal (it is banal) but it’s new to me and I find it stressful, so I’m making a record of what’s involved.
First, I downloaded Evri’s CSV template, showing the information required for each parcel:
Address_line_1, Address_line_2, Address_line_3, Address_line_4, Postcode, First_name, Last_name, Email, Weight(Kg), Compensation(£), Signature(y/n), Reference, Contents, Parcel_value(£), Delivery_phone, Delivery_instructions, Service
I can get all that information by exporting first a CSV of all buyers from Stripe (my payment processor), but the Stripe list will include customers who have nothing to do with the book, and book buyers from outside the UK, who need international postage – and I’ll need to work that out separately.
I asked Claude.ai to create a simple step-by-step process:
Step 1 – Download Stripe data
In Stripe, go to Transactions and export to CSV. Ensure file includes: name, email, shipping address, and amount field.Step 2 – Filter to book buyers only
Filter by amount paid: £48 (book + UK postage). Delete any rows that don’t match that.Step 3 – Map Stripe fields to the Evri template
Couldn’t do this myself, so I asked Claude to write Python code to do it for me. It created a new CSV file which I checked for any obvious blunders.Step 5 – Fill in the fixed values
Several fields will be identical for every row (weight, contents, value, signature). The Python script added some of these but I had to paste others down the whole column.Step 6 – Save as CSV and upload to Evri
Save the finished file as a plain .csv and upload via Evri’s bulk label portal. They’ll flag any rows with address issues before you pay. Did this, but then had a massive panic about buying all the postage without knowing what exactly I would get in terms of labels etc.Step 7 – Pop around to local Parcel shop to ask about labels
They don’t really know what happens with bulk orders.Step 8 – Go back home
Wrap more books as a way to kill time and not make a decision about the postage. Get really hot (hottest June day ever). Decide to order postage for just the first five parcels – Ayla, Rachel, Charmian, Jo and Helen.Ta-da!
First five copies, photographed outside the parcel shop with postage label just visible.
Step 9 – Breathe