Introduction to shipping & handling
From Spiffy Stores Knowledge Base
Shipping & handling
The "Shipping & handing" section is where you specify the shipping options for each country that you have decided to support for your store.
The most commonly used shipping option is based upon the weight of your products, so when you're adding new products, you need to make sure you add the correct weight of the product right from the start.
When your customer has decided what they want to purchase, they go to the checkout and specify a Shipping Address for the purchase. This may be the same as the Billing Address, but you can also have different addresses in case you want to send the purchase to someone else as a gift, for example.
Contents
Setting up your Shipping Countries
The customer can only select a shipping country based upon the set of countries that you have decided to support for shipping. This list of countries can be configured in the "Regions & taxes" section of the Toolbox.
If there are a set of shipping rates available for the Shipping country, then the total weight of the items in the shopping cart is used to find all the applicable shipping rates for this customer.
Using Weight-based Shipping Rates
Weight-based shipping rates can be configured using a fixed cost for shipping goods within the weight range specified. Multiple shipping rates can be configured using different weight ranges to allow for the increased cost of shipping heavier goods. When you use this method, remember to cover all the weight ranges from zero to the maximum supported weight, otherwise you may find that your customers cannot purchase some combinations of goods because the shipping rate for that weight range is missing.
The weight of the shopping cart is compared to the weight ranges of each of the shipping rates and all the rates that match can be used to present the customer with a set of shipping options.
As an alternative to using a fixed-price weight-based shipping rate, you can use a Shipping Agent calculator to calculate the correct shipping rate for you.
Spiffy Stores provides the following Shipping Agent calculators:
When you activate one or more of these Shipping Agent calculators, you can specify which services you wish to support. For example, Australia Post has an International Sea Mail service, but you may decide not to offer this form of shipping.
Once activated you can add one or more weight-based shipping rates using one of these Shipping Agent calculators, so that the shipping rates are calculated for your customer and added automatically in the checkout along with any other shipping rates that you have configured for the shipping destination.
As an example, you may offer shipping by Australia Post with one shipping rate, and shipping by a courier company using a second shipping rate. In this way, the customer can shoose the method of shipping and pay accordingly.
Multiple Shipping Rates
Here is an example of using multiple weight-based shipping rates.
In this case, the store has decided to ship small orders using pre-paid envelopes purchased from the post office. They are using three different envelope sizes:
- From 0kg up to 1kg
- From 1kg up to 2.5kg
- From 2.5lg up to 5kg
For these three rates, a single, flat-rate shipping charge is specified according to the size of the envelope. This cost is based upon the cost of the pre-paid envelope.
For any order that weighs 5kg or more, the items are shipped by Australia Post with the cost being based upon the actual eight and destination of the parcel.
Other Shipping Rate Types
There are other forms of shipping rates, such as rates that are based on the total value of the shopping cart rather than the weight or shipping rates that are based upon a shipping code, so that all products with a matching shipping code use the corresponding shipping rate.
A price-based shipping rate is similar to a weight-based rate, except that the rate defines a price range. If the total value of the shopping cart falls within the price range of that rate, then that rate is selected as an option for use in the checkout.
All price-based shipping rates use flat-rate shipping, and it is not possible to use a Shipping Agent calculator with a price-based shipping rate.
You may specify a flat-rate shipping price of zero if you wish to offer free shipping. For example, you could create a price-based shipping rate of $50 or more and configure it with a shipping rate of $0. This would mean that if the customer spent $50 or more, the entire order would have free shipping.
At checkout time, if a price-based shipping rate is found that matches the value of the shopping cart, then this takes precedence over all weight-based shipping rates.
You can also add in your own custom shipping costs if you would like to offer different types of courier services, or would like to charge flat rate shipping. Again these are all based on the total weight of the products that your customers are ordering.
You may need to do a bit of research to make sure the numbers here are appropriate for your actual costs. It is up to you how specific you want to get with shipping rates for various weights, but keep in mind that customers will probably appreciate having as few rates to remember as possible when they are deciding what to put in their shopping cart.