Shipping Rates

The shipping process includes setting up and configuring shipping providers, provider groups, shipping rates, shipping countries, warehouse options, shipping provider options and defining options for items. This document will details all the different settings that can be applied when creating shipping providers and shipping groups.

Shipping provider groups can be created to group together various providers and then a specific group can be set as default making the providers inside as the default providers on the store.

1. Click Settings.
2. Click Shipping Rates.
3. Click add button under the Manage Shipping Provider Groups section. The previously created Shipping Providers will be listed.
4. Enter the details in the Add/Edit Provider Group page (Refer table 1)

Field	Description
Group Name	Select the providers by clicking in the corresponding check box. If the provider added above does not show, go back to that section and select the “Available” check box for the provider.
Default	Select to make the shipping provider the default for the group.
Show Order	Defines the order in which the providers will be selected (0 – n).
Default	Select to have this group as the default for items that do not have a specified group. Only one provider group can be set as default.
Available	Select to make it available for the other shipping options. *Note: Each time a new provider is added, it will display on this page if availability is checked. It needs to be added to the group to be available on the store.

1. Click Add button to add a shipping provider.
2. Enter the details (Refer table 2).
3. Click on Save to add the provider.

Headings	Description
Provider Code	Enter a code to specify the new provider (for example, Domestic, International, FedEx, etc.)
Provider Name	Enter an appropriate name for the new shipping provider (for example, Domestic Shipping, International Shipping, Standard Mail etc.).
Ship Via	Select a courier (Flat Rate Shipping, UPS Courier, USPS Courier, Canada Post Courier, FedEx Courier, Third Party Freight, Customer Web Service, etc.).
Limit to Currency	Choose the currency (US Dollar, Canadian Dollar, etc. Will show the currencies setup as system currencies ).
Limit to Offer Code	Select an offer code option (Not Present, Irrelevant or Present). • If the offer code is Not Present, customers that do not enter this offer code in the store will be the ones to access this provider. • If the offer code is Irrelevant, all customers can access this provider. • If the offer code is Present, only customers that enter the offer code in the store will have access this provider.
Weight Type	Select the weight measurements (Pounds, Kilograms, Ounces or Grams).
Limit to Customers of Type	Check to indicate the customer types the provider will support.
Limit to Distributor	The distributor is the supplier that supplies the products for the master catalog. Used on Marketplaces.
Available	Check this to make the provider available. Leave empty to avoid it from displaying in the shipping provider groups section.

Warehouse settings allow the ability to limit shipping providers based on location.

Suppose one provider has both Ground and Air shipping options. Orders nearby get to be delivered by ground and orders too far from the location are delivered by air. In this case, create two separate shipping providers for ground and air. On the Manage Shipping Providers page, there will be separate warehouse edit links for each of them. Use the edit links to configure each of them. Click the Edit link under the Warehouse Location section for the particular provider.

1. Click the Add button in the Manage Warehouse Location page to configure the warehouse location thought the following information..
2. Enter the details (Refer table 3)
3. Click Edit link under the Ship to Rules column and then click Add button. Ship to rules will decide whether or not the shipping option will be available on the checkout page based on the shopper’s shipping address.
4. Set postal code entry as ‘*’ (Asterisk) to set the warehouse to ship to specific postal codes for which the shipment is done through ground/air.
5. If it is not required to specify Country, Province, City or the Postal/Zip for no limitations on the ship to locations. Leave it set to All.
6. Click the Edit link under the Ship To Exceptions column, then click the Add button and fill in the required fields to define exception to shipping rules. Set up the warehouse to ship to all locations defined in the Ship to rules section except for a particular location.

Field	Description
Warehouse code	A unique code for this warehouse
From Country	Indicate the country of the warehouse.
From Region	Indicate the province of the warehouse.
From City	Indicate the city of the warehouse.
From Postal Code	Indicate the postal/zip code of the warehouse location. For UPS, it is necessary to define the country, province, and postal code for every warehouse.

Importing Shipping Data using Spreadsheets #

For information on importing and exporting a spreadsheets for shipping rates, go to Import/Exporting Spreadsheets page and look under shipping rates.

Flat Rates #

1. Click on the Edit link located under the Flat Rates column in shipping providers section.
2. The page will be redirected to the Manage Shipping Method page. Click on add and define the various shipping methods such as ground shipping, ship via air and so on available for a specific shipping provider. Separate rates can be set up for each method.
3. Enter the details (Refer table 4).
4. Click on save to save the changes.

Field	Description
Method Name	Enter the shipping method name (for example, Standard Mail). This name will be displayed on the store page.
Method Description	Enter a description for the shipping method, which will be useful for admins. This is not displayed in the store page.
Calculation Method	Select the method that will be used to calculate the rates (Free Mail, Linear By Total Price, Linear By Total Items, Linear By Total Weight). Calculation method defines how the shipping rates will be calculated for a particular shipping method.
Prompt Message	Enter the text that will show in the store where shipping methods are listed. For example, the message could be “Choose method”.
Position	Is the priority the shipping rate will be selected, 0 being the highest priority *Note default will not affect the priority.
Default	Select if this will be the default method for this provider.

Shipping Rate #

On the Manage Shipping Method page,

1. Click the Edit link under that shipping rates column and then click on the Add button. This specifies how the rate is to be calculated based on the calculation method chosen earlier.
2. Create multiple shipping rate entries for the same shipping method for different shipping charges on orders above a specific volume limit if needed. Alternatively both these approaches can be combined to make use of full functionality.
3. Specify country, region, weight range, range of quantity, range of price, set a minimum and maximum value for shipping charges on the Add/Edit Shipping Rates page. Settings depend on the calculation method selected earlier.

Note: For any calculation method, Shipping Charge = Base Rate + Linear Rate * total volume or weight or price

Packages #

After configuring the warehouse options, Packages options for the courier and the shipping provider can be set.

1. Click Settings.
2. Click Shipping Packages.
3. On the Manage Courier Package page, click the Add button.
4. Enter the details (Refer table 5).
5. Click ok to save the changes.

Headings	Description
Courier Code	Select a courier (Flat Rate Shipping, UPS Courier, USPS Courier, Canada Post Courier, FedEx Courier, Third Party Freight, Custom Web Service).
Package Name	Enter a name for the package settings.
Package Type	Choose an option between solid, alterable or quantity group: • Solid: The size of the package is the one considered for shipping, not the size of the item. • Alterable: The size of the item is the one considered for the shipping. For example, if the item has measurements of 2 x 2 x 2, but the package size is 20 x 20 x 20, the system will use 2 x 2 x 2 as the package size. • Quantity Group: The quantity of items is taken into consideration. Suppose 31 items need to be shipped and the limit for one box is 30, set up 2 quantity based packages. One being the standard box that could hold 30 of the items and the second box (Remainder box) to hold the 31st item.
Dim Unit	Select the measurement unit (inches or centimetres).
Max Length	Set the maximum length for the package.
Max Width	Set the maximum width for the package.
Max Height	Set the maximum height for the package.
Weight Unit	Select the measurement unit for the weight (Pounds, Kilograms, Ounces or Grams).
Max Weight	Set the maximum weight the package can handle.
Available	Check this box to make this package settings available. If this is the only package setting set as available, it will be used as the default.

Add the package characteristics #

In the Manage Shipping Provider section,

1. Click the Edit link under the packages column.
2. Click the Add button.
3. Enter the details in the add Shipping Package page (Refer table 6).
4. Click ok to save the changes.

Headings	Description
Courier package	Select the courier package option from the list. The package set should display here.
Max Items for One Package	Enter the maximum quantity of items that will be shipped in one package.
Available	Check this to activate this option to be available in other shipping options
Default	Check this to activate this option to be the default one among other package settings.
Category Name	Select a category from the drop down to specify the options for items belonging to this category.
Property Name of Item	The item property that will be ruled by these settings
Property Value of Item	The value of the chosen property. For example, if you choose “Dimensions”, the value of it could be 10 x 10 x 10

Settings for the Provider #

1. Click Edit link under Manage Shipping Providers section. to enter specific options asked by few providers such as UPS and Canada Post.

For the UPS Provider: Protocol, UPS Host Name,

Prefix: These 3 options are used to connect to the UPS service, so we need to setup the latest UPS service URL here. The URL will be in the “Protocol” field following this format: Protocol + “://” + hostname + “/” + prefix + “/Rate”.

Example: Protocol=”https”, UPS Host Name=”www.ups.com”, Prefix=”ups.app/xml”

Then, the URL will be: “https://www.ups.com/ups.app/xml/Rate”

The other fields need to be filled in with information provided by UPS:

• Login Name: Your UPS account user name.
• Get a New UPS account: This is a link to the UPS site where you can get a new account.
• Login Password: Your UPS account password.
• Access Key: Your UPS account license number.
• Shipping Rates: Setup the formula for calculating the shipping rates.

1. Go to the store and add an item to the cart after the shipping is setup.
2. The shipping code first looks what shipping group an item belongs to. Assuming that the Ship to Rules is set up defining different providers for different locations, the code then checks which provider (within that group) ships to that specific postal code.
3. Once the provider has been chosen, the code looks into methods available within that provider to see if any limitations have been specified.

Example you may have 2 methods within a provider, each for a specific range of order volumes. In this case, the method with volume limitation range covering that of the order volume will be selected. If you have 2 or more methods within the same provider that meets the limitation requirements, these methods will be displayed as a drop down menu on the checkout page where the shopper can choose one of them. Also, 2 providers that match to the same location, methods for both providers will be included on the drop down list. The order of the shipping methods in this drop down list is as per the position of provider and method. The provider position is set on Add/ Edit Provider Group page. The method position is set on Manage Shipping Method page. Also in case you have modified the checkout templates not to show shipping method options in a drop down list then the code will show the first shipping method in the provider methods list. We are assuming a situation where warehouses are configured such that there is no overlap in ‘ship to’ postal codes. In this scenario, if an overlap does occur, our code chooses the first method (set position as 0,1,2) that is available in the provider methods list.

Consider the following Provider-method structure:

ProviderA AL_US (Position 0)

> Method A (Position 0)

Provider B NY_US (Position 2)

>Method B (Position 1)

> Method Bb (Position 0)

ProviderC AL_US/NY_US (Position 1)

> Method C (Position 0)

> Method Cc (Position 1)

Provider A ships to Alabama, Provider B ships to New York and Provider C ships to Alabama as well as New york as per their Ship to rules. The provider position is set on Add/ Edit Provider Group page. The method position is set on Manage Shipping Method page. Now when a shopper from New york places an order, ideally the ship method drop down would have looked like:

Method C

Method Cc

Method Bb

Method B

Since the code selects the first method by default, the shopper will be given Method C and the shipping charge will be calculated based on rates for this method.