Difference between revisions of "Using Australia Post Shipping"
From Spiffy Stores Knowledge Base
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=== International Services === | === International Services === | ||
| − | * International Air Mail | + | * International Economy Air Mail |
| − | * International Sea Mail | + | * International Economy Sea Mail |
| − | * | + | * International Standard |
| − | * | + | * International Express |
| − | + | * International Courier | |
| − | * | ||
| − | |||
== Step 1. Enable Australia Post as a shipping agent == | == Step 1. Enable Australia Post as a shipping agent == | ||
Revision as of 13:00, 10 August 2017
Spiffy Stores links in with Australia Post to calculate the cost of shipping an item to your customer based on the weight of items in their cart. To add an Australia Post shipping rate, go to the "Preferences >> Shipping & handling" section of your Store Toolbox, and follow the instructions below.
Contents
Supported Services
The Australia Post shipping agent supports the following Australia Post shipping services. You can enable or disable the services you want to use in the "Preferences -> Shipping & handling -> Shipping agents" section of your store's Toolbox.
Domestic Services
- Regular Parcel
- 500g Parcel Post Satchel
- 3kg Parcel Post Satchel
- 5kg Parcel Post Satchel
- Express Post
- 500g Express Post Satchel
- 3kg Express Post Satchel
- 5kg Express Post Satchel
- Express Post Platinum
- 500g Express Post Platinum Satchel
- 3kg Express Post Platinum Satchel
Optional Domestic Services
- Registered Post
International Services
- International Economy Air Mail
- International Economy Sea Mail
- International Standard
- International Express
- International Courier
Step 1. Enable Australia Post as a shipping agent
If you haven't already enabled Australia Post as a shipping provider, go to the "Preferences >> Shipping & handling" section of your Store Toolbox, and follow the instructions below.
- Click on the "add a shipping agent" button in the top right of the "Shipping & handling" page
- From the list of available shipping agents, click the Activate button in the Australia Post section
- Select the services from Australia Post that you want to offer to your customers, then click the Activate button. The supported services are listed above. Make sure you don't select every option, as too many options will be provided in the checkout to your customer. e.g. if you are going to ship using prepaid satchels you should only select satchels.
Step 2. Create a weight-based shipping rate using Australia Post
- Click on the "Add a weight-based rate" link under the country that you want to add a new shipping rate for.
- Name your shipping rate. This name appears in your checkout when a customer places an order, so generally you would write the carrier that it's being shipped by, for instance "Australia Post".
- Add the weight range that this postage rate applies to. The first box is the starting (lowest) weight that applies for this weight range. The second box is the ending (highest) weight that applies for this weight range. Note that the Australia Post maximum rate is 20kg.
Note: In order for the weight range to apply to the current contents of the shopping cart, the weight of the cart must be greater than the lowest value in the range, but less than or equal to the highest value in the weight range. - Select the shipping agent that applies to this shipping rate by clicking the link "Switch to a Shipping Agent rate calculator", then choose "Australia Post" as your shipping agent.
- Choose whether you want to add any "handling days". In the checkout, the customer is currently shown a delivery date estimate, for example, Delivery Estimate: 10th Sep, 2010. If you want to give yourself an extra day or two before you ship the item, adjust the handling days. If you add two handling days, the delivery date estimate in the example above would then be adjusted to read Delivery Estimate: 12th Sep, 2010.
Note: Delivery estimates are only provided for Domestic services. Delivery dates are not provided by Australia Post for International shipping, as these can be unreliable for some destinations. - Choose whether you want to add a handling fee. If you want to charge a customer for packing up the item and so on, you can now add a handling fee. This amount is just added to the shipping cost in the checkout. It's not displayed as a separate handling fee.
Note: Australia Post currently adds a surcharge of $9.00 for all items weighing 500g or more and all ECI and EPI items that are shipped to the United States of America. The shipping rate calculator automatically takes this surcharge into account, so you don't have to do anything special to deal with this surcharge. - Adjust your shipping rate by a percentage amount. If you want to charge a little extra (or a little less) for your shipping to cover costs, you can adjust the calculated shipping fee by a percentage amount. This also allows you to compensate for any errors in rates that a shipping carrier might return.
- Set your fall-back option. If for any reason the shipping carrier fails, you can set a default rate or set it to ignore that carrier.
- Click the "Save Rate" button.
Parcel Dimensions
When you use shipping dimensions for your variations, you will need to remember to ensure that they conform with the minimum and maximum values as specified by Australia Post.
For further information on Parcel Dimensions, please refer to the Parcel dimensions page on the Australia Post web site.
Products that require Separate Shipping
Product variations can be configured to require separate shipping.
This option is used for bulky or heavy items so that their shipping costs can be calculated separately from the other items in the cart.
When separately shipped items are included in the shopping cart, the Australia Post shipping calculator determines which shipping services are available for each separately shipped item as well as for the all the other items in the cart.
The customer is presented with a list of shipping services to choose from based upon the services that are available for all the items in the cart, excluding the items that need to be shipped separately.
When the customer chooses a shipping service, that service will be used to ship all items if possible. For example, if the customer chooses Express Post, then all items, including the separately shipped items, will be shipped by that service.
In some instances, however, the selected service is not available for some of the separately shipped items. For example, a 500gm satchel cannot be used to ship a 10kg parcel. In these cases, if a separately shipped item cannot be shipped using the selected service, then the lowest cost alternative is used instead.
For shipping within Australia, this will usually mean that the separately shipped items will end up being shipped by Regular Parcel post if one the the satchel shipping services is chosen for the other items in the cart.
For some combinations of International shipping services this may also mean that Sea Mail is chosen as the lowest cost option for shipping the bulky items. If you want to prevent this from happening, then you can always disable the Sea Mail service, which will generally mean that Air Mail is chosen as the cheapest available service.