Rendr supports the shipment of Dangerous Goods (DGs) through a structured, pre-configuration approach that balances operational simplicity with regulatory compliance. This page explains how DG shipments work and how definitions are configured.
All accounts must be reviewed and approved for each category of Dangerous Goods before any DG shipments will be accepted via the API or portal. This approval process is coordinated between the Rendr Merchant Experience and Operations teams, and in some cases may require additional third-party regulatory approvals depending on the goods category.
Dangerous Goods will not be accepted on your account until the relevant categories have been approved and your DG Definitions have been configured in the Rendr platform. Attempting to create a delivery with dangerous goods before this is complete will result in a rejected request.
Rather than requiring merchants and store staff to manually enter complex regulatory data (UN numbers, class divisions, packing groups, etc.) for every shipment, Rendr uses the concept of Dangerous Goods Definitions — pre-configured templates that encapsulate all the technical DG fields required by the carrier.
A DG Definition is a named configuration set up during onboarding that maps a simple, human-readable label (e.g. ap_standard_parcels) to all the underlying regulatory and carrier-specific data. When you reference a definition by name in a delivery payload, Rendr automatically applies the correct UN number, shipping name, class division, packing group, and other required fields without you needing to supply them explicitly.
This is the preferred integration approach. It keeps payloads simple, reduces the risk of data entry errors, and ensures compliance is enforced at the configuration level rather than per-request.
In cases where you need to ship goods that fall outside a pre-defined definition, you can override individual fields on the dangerous_goods object. When override fields are present alongside a dangerous_goods_definition, the explicit field values take precedence over the definition defaults for that shipment only.
Overrides should be used sparingly. The preferred pattern is to work with Rendr during onboarding to create definitions that cover all common product and dimension combinations, and rely on those definitions for all standard shipments.
DG Definitions are set up as part of the account onboarding process. Your account’s specific definitions will be agreed during implementation.
Contact your Rendr implementation partner to review or expand your account’s DG Definitions.
Where DG and non-DG parcels need to be manifested separately, this is handled via a flag on the Create Manifest request. Where a carrier generates a Dangerous Goods Declaration (DGD) document, Rendr automatically retrieves and stores it — the URL is returned in both the Create Delivery and Get Delivery responses.
See Manifesting for details on the manifest workflow.
For full field definitions, payload examples, and the DGD retrieval endpoint, see the Dangerous Goods API Reference.