U.S. import requirements now reach further into product-level data than they used to. Steel and aluminum items need a declared metal origin, government agency review is expanding into postal shipments, and postal shipments under $2,500 USD can have free trade agreements applied to reduce duty when the supporting documentation travels with them.
Your Verified Account is where that information lives. You sync or upload your product catalog once, Zonos checks each product against U.S. entry requirements and tells you which ones need more information, and you fill in the gaps. This is ongoing work rather than a one-time task—each new product you add gets checked the same way.
Your Australia Post shipments are already tied to your Verified Account through your shipper identifier—Merchant Location ID (MLID), Australia Post Customer Number (APCN), or Australia Post Business Customer Number (APBCN)—so there is no new account to create. Once a product has its details, Zonos uses them on the U.S.-bound parcels that contain it.
If you connected your store with Zonos Sync, your orders come in with their tracking numbers, so Zonos matches each Australia Post shipment to its order, and the products in it, automatically. If you build your Catalog with a CSV or the Catalog API, Zonos matches each item by its SKU instead. When you create a U.S.-bound shipment with Australia Post, enter each product's SKU in the SKU field, exactly as it appears in your Zonos Catalog. If you create shipments through the Australia Post Create Shipment API, use the shipments.items.item_contents.sku field.
If you have not set up your account yet, start with Account setup.
Get your products into Zonos
Your Catalog is where the extra U.S. information for each product lives, so you provide it once rather than per shipment. There are three ways to build it:
Connect your store with Zonos Sync. Your products and orders sync automatically, keeping your Catalog current as your store changes. Etsy, eBay, Shopify, WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce (Magento), Wix, Amazon, and BigCommerce are ready. See channel integrations for how each one connects.
Upload a CSV. This works for any platform, and is the route to take if a connection to your store isn't available yet. See the CSV import guide for the fields to include.
Use the Catalog API. If your product data already lives in your own system and you have developer resources, you can write products to your Catalog directly with the Catalog API. That system stays your source of truth. See the Catalog API guide for how to create and update Catalog items.
To connect a store, go to Dashboard → Catalog, click Add channel, and select your platform. If your platform isn't listed yet, choose Upload a CSV or use the Catalog API instead.
Starting with a CSV is not wasted work—products you upload keep their details if you connect a store later.
See which products need attention
Zonos checks every product in your Catalog and flags the ones that need attention, with the reason attached—melt and pour data for a steel water bottle, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) details for a lip gloss. Anything without a flag is good to go.
The checks cover both sides of U.S. entry:
The agencies that control what is allowed in, such as the FDA and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)
The tariff programs that decide what you pay, such as Section 232
To review your flagged products:
Go to Dashboard → Catalog.
Select the Needs attention tab to see only the products that are missing information.
Open a product to see what is being asked for and why.
Zonos Clarify tells you what each flagged product is actually required to provide. Working that out yourself is possible, but slow—the requirements sit with different agencies and differ product by product. Clarify does it for you, whether the item is a set of wooden alphabet blocks or a lip gloss, and puts the questions in front of you.
It also infers the likely answers from the product information you already have, so you can move through a lot of products quickly: review what Zonos proposes, correct anything that needs it, and submit.
Each answer is saved to the product and reused, so you are not asked the same question twice.
Upload supporting documents
Some requirements are satisfied by paperwork rather than an answer. You can upload:
Certificates of origin
Metal origin records for Section 232 — melt and pour for steel, smelt and cast for aluminum
Trade agreement documentation — the supporting documents that let a free trade agreement reduce the duty on a shipment
Upload a document once and link it to every product it covers. See supporting documents for which documents apply and how they are stored.
When Zonos emails you about a missing detail
Starts Oct 14
You do not have to keep your Catalog perfect on your own. Zonos checks each U.S.-bound shipment against what you have already provided. If something is missing, you get an email with a link to the one question that needs answering.
Your answer is saved to the product, so it is not asked again.
Add required product data
Add required product data
U.S. import requirements now reach further into product-level data than they used to. Steel and aluminum items need a declared metal origin, government agency review is expanding into postal shipments, and postal shipments under $2,500 USD can have free trade agreements applied to reduce duty when the supporting documentation travels with them.
Your Verified Account is where that information lives. You sync or upload your product catalog once, Zonos checks each product against U.S. entry requirements and tells you which ones need more information, and you fill in the gaps. This is ongoing work rather than a one-time task—each new product you add gets checked the same way.
Your Australia Post shipments are already tied to your Verified Account through your shipper identifier—Merchant Location ID (MLID), Australia Post Customer Number (APCN), or Australia Post Business Customer Number (APBCN)—so there is no new account to create. Once a product has its details, Zonos uses them on the U.S.-bound parcels that contain it.
If you connected your store with Zonos Sync, your orders come in with their tracking numbers, so Zonos matches each Australia Post shipment to its order, and the products in it, automatically. If you build your Catalog with a CSV or the Catalog API, Zonos matches each item by its SKU instead. When you create a U.S.-bound shipment with Australia Post, enter each product's SKU in the SKU field, exactly as it appears in your Zonos Catalog. If you create shipments through the Australia Post Create Shipment API, use the
shipments.items.item_contents.skufield.If you have not set up your account yet, start with Account setup.
Get your products into Zonos
Your Catalog is where the extra U.S. information for each product lives, so you provide it once rather than per shipment. There are three ways to build it:
To connect a store, go to Dashboard → Catalog, click Add channel, and select your platform. If your platform isn't listed yet, choose Upload a CSV or use the Catalog API instead.
Starting with a CSV is not wasted work—products you upload keep their details if you connect a store later.
See which products need attention
Zonos checks every product in your Catalog and flags the ones that need attention, with the reason attached—melt and pour data for a steel water bottle, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) details for a lip gloss. Anything without a flag is good to go.
The checks cover both sides of U.S. entry:
To review your flagged products:
See what Zonos checks for for the agencies and programs behind the flags.
Answer the product-specific questions
Zonos Clarify tells you what each flagged product is actually required to provide. Working that out yourself is possible, but slow—the requirements sit with different agencies and differ product by product. Clarify does it for you, whether the item is a set of wooden alphabet blocks or a lip gloss, and puts the questions in front of you.
It also infers the likely answers from the product information you already have, so you can move through a lot of products quickly: review what Zonos proposes, correct anything that needs it, and submit.
Each answer is saved to the product and reused, so you are not asked the same question twice.
Upload supporting documents
Some requirements are satisfied by paperwork rather than an answer. You can upload:
Upload a document once and link it to every product it covers. See supporting documents for which documents apply and how they are stored.
When Zonos emails you about a missing detail
Starts Oct 14
You do not have to keep your Catalog perfect on your own. Zonos checks each U.S.-bound shipment against what you have already provided. If something is missing, you get an email with a link to the one question that needs answering.
Your answer is saved to the product, so it is not asked again.
Next steps
Was this page helpful?