IA Modules eCommerce Documentation

Shipping Calculations

There are many options available to you in order to produce correct fees to your customers. There are default behaviors which suit most businesses, but we can also affordably customize the shipping calculator module to suit your needs.

Remember your goals:

• 1) Provide the customer with an acceptable rate so they don't leave and
• 2) Provide rates that will cover your costs.
• 3) Be competitive with promotions on shipping

If you make a little bit of money when shipping that is ok. Your actual shipping costs will typcially be lower than the store's estimated rates. You will likely have special discounts the online rating system will not be aware of. You may change shipping prodivers over time. ( Remember that UPS, FedEx, and USPS etc all charge very similar rates in most, but not all, cases) . We leave the choice of shipping providers up to you. The store only typically shows clients rates and services available for selection.They choose the service they want and see the rate they will pay for that. When you ship it, you will know the actual cost. Your goal should be to balance your options below so that you come out ahead without driving away customers.

Shipping Policies
It is common to create a custom page with your overall policies including shipping policies. You may want to note on that page that you do not begin shipping for X days after order placement, whether you refund shipping fees on returns, and whether you have items with shipping rates which are only determined when you actually ship. If you do have items with special shipping rate considerations, you may want your designer to make your product detail pages for those items TO NOTE that by showing something in the template when the template sees some field with some value you agree to specify. Consider a custom field you flag with a 1 if you want shoppers to see this item must be ship rate quoted over the phone, for example. Your templates could be updated to look for that flag and say a certain message or whatever.

Specifying Weight
The default behavior is to assume all items weight 1 pound. weights are specified in the item manager on the additional details tab. They are specified as decimal values of a pound. You can also produce an excel file and import the weight values in.

Additional Fees
You can also assign additional shipping and handling fees on a per product basis in the item manager.

No S&H Fee Items / Items you DO NOT want to charge shipping for.
You can exclude items from calculations by entering a negative value like -1 in the Specific Charge field in the item manager on the additional details tab.You would do this for items that shipping does not apply to, like an online ticket or conference booking. Login to your mangement area, click item manager, click on the item, click on ADDTL Details tab. look to the right for the field called Specific Charge.DO NOT user this option if you are trying to offer items for free shipping before reading about all the options below FIRST!

Fixed Rate Items
You can enter a positive value in the Ship Charge field to specify a fixed shipping fee for an item reguardless of location.Blank and 0 values in the Ship Charge field will simply be ignored.

Free Shipping
In store options, you can set a minimum order total amount (the total of items prices) which will trigger a FREE SHIPPING option. This option will be shown once and it is up to you to indicate what method you use to ship for free in your shipping policies page (make a wrapper page for this ) . If you want to offer free ground shipping (typical) for orders with a total of over $100 of items in the cart, then set this 'free shipping min' option to 100. (not $100, ie no $ sign)

Free Shipping Exclusions
Sometimes YOU MUST CHARGE shipping fees for some items, even if other items CAN QUALIFY for free shipping. An example might be a 100 lb fish aquarium. Maybe it costs $300 and your free shipping promo is only $100, so it 'qualifies' for free shipping.....but as we all know, a 60lbs aquarium would cost ALOT. It is one of those items you can't afford to ship for free, even via ground. THIS is where the exlusion module comes in very handy.

In this scenario, you probably want to exclude all items over a certain weight like say 40 lbs.
You would set 40 in the 'free exclusion rate min weight' in your store options.

In some cases, you may have items under 40 lbs (or whatever you set your limit to be) that need to be free excluded TOO! You can go to the item manager and set each one individually with a free exclusion setting.

Now, if you have configured it properly, then you will see free shipping as an option if the order totals over the free shipping min order total. It will be $0.00 unless there are free shipping excluded items, in which case THEIR ground shipping rates will be totalled up and added to the $0.00 free shipping option. A message will indicate to the shopper:
"If you qualify for FREE Shipping but your order also contains one or more ineligible items, you'll be charged shipping fees for those ineligible items. "

If you need help, then BEFORE requesting support on this topic, PLEASE test it out yourself and PLEASE have the key details ready for a technician to replicate.Key Details: Shopper user/pass, item name or link to it, it's weight you entered, the min order total for free shipping, the weight you set for min free excl, and if you specified this item specifically to be free excluded in the item manager.

Common Custom Requests:

In some cases, you may just plain want custom rules. You need to tell us what your rules would be in a clear clean logical way. You ALSO need to say what, if any, of the current shipping features you still want to retain in your customized rules. For example, you do don't say you want free shipping of handling of some other logic , then it may very well not be included in the custom file we make for you.So be clear!

Additionally, we have made great effort to release a custom shipping rules creator. This will not solve all needs for all clients 100%, though it will handle most common requests we have heard. You can access it by using the shipment mangaer icon on your dashboard.

If not, and you have some really custom need, consider these choices below, which are common logical explanations of what people request:

Add XX to shipping fee based a total $ or % of order.
List of shipping fees based on levels of order totals
List of shipping fees based on levels of item weight totals
List of shipping fees based on destination of order totals
Only indicate that shipping will be determined when shipped and don't show any fees
Or Add other rules
...or any combination of the above ideas.

Note Custom requests will be quoted. Try to keep your requests as simple and clear as possible to avoid excessive time and billing to create your custom rules, if needed at all.