Methods and systems for supporting the production of shipping labels

A computer-readable memory medium containing instructions for controlling a server computing system to facilitate the production of a shipping label by performing a method comprising:

• causing the shipping label to be produced by a client computing system that is separate and remote from the server computing system, by,
• transmitting, to the client computing system, a first uniform resource identifier comprising a scheme name and scheme data, the scheme name identifying a shipping protocol and configured to cause a shipping label module to be executed on the client computing system, the shipping label module configured, upon execution, to produce the shipping label in accordance with the shipping protocol by:
• initiating output of the shipping label based at least in part on shipment information identified by the scheme data;
• and
• automatically posting information about the produced shipping label back to a computing system remote and separate from the client computing system, based at least in part on post-back information identified by the scheme data.

A shipment management computing system configured to facilitate the production of a shipping label, comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory, communicatively coupled to the processor;
• and
• a shipment management module stored on the memory that is configured, upon execution, to cause the shipping label to be produced by a client computing system that is separate and remote from the shipment management computing system, the shipment management module including instructions configured, upon execution, to:
• generate a uniform resource identifier comprising a scheme name and scheme data, the scheme name identifying a shipping protocol and configured to cause the client computing system to execute, on the client computing system, a shipping label module that implements the identified shipping protocol, the shipping label module configured to:
• produce the shipping label, in accordance with the shipping protocol and by using the scheme data;
• and
• using the scheme data, automatically post to the shipment management computing system information about the produced shipping label;
• and
• transmit the generated uniform resource identifier to the client computing system.