Articles on: Rates

Create a new Rate

Learn how to create a new shipping Rate to offer to your customers, including how to customise the way your Rate is displayed, the method by which you want to charge and how much your Rate should cost.


Once you've created a Region you will see the 'Add a Rate’ panel.

Click the 'Add a Rate' button.



Alternatively, if you are adding a Rate to a Region that already has one or more Rates, you will see a list of Rates instead.

Click the Add a rate for this Region button.



On the new Rate creation screen there are two panels: ‘Rate Details’ and ‘Rate Rules’.

Within the ‘Rate Details’ panel there are five fields by default:

Title: This is a title that will allow you and your customers to identify this Rate e.g. ‘Fast Shipping’. The title will be returned to customers if the rate is matched.

Description: A short summary of the particulars of this rate e.g, ‘includes tracking and insurance’. This description will be visible to customers if this rate is returned.

Note: This description can be modified when using rate modifiers.

Reference: A unique name for this rate. This name will not be visible to customers and serves as a reference for Shopify. This field will be automatically filled on save using the rate title unless you specify a custom reference in this field.

Status: This field allows you to disable a Rate to prevent it from being displayed to customers. You may wish to set this field to Inactive if you are temporarily suspending this mode of shipping for customers but want to reactivate it in future. Otherwise, in most instances this field is likely to be set to ‘Active’.

Type: This field defines the way the rate should be calculated. The options are ‘free’, ‘flat’, ‘weight’, ‘quantity’ and ‘percentage’. Each of these types is described in more detail below under Rate Types.

Once you have entered details for your new rate, you can either add Rate Rules, or simply click the Save button at the top right of the screen.



Rate Types



When defining a Rate you can choose between five types that determine how the price of your Rate is calculated (prior to any modifications being applied). The five types are:

Free


As the name suggests, this Rate type results in a Rate with a price of zero, in other words, free shipping.

Flat


A flat rate levies a single basic charge for shipping. If ‘Flat’ is selected as the rate type, a new field will be displayed called ‘Rate’. You should enter the price you wish to charge for shipping into this field.

Weight


A weight-based rate derives it’s price from the total weight of an order. When selecting ‘weight’ as the rate type, three additional fields will be displayed:

Base rate - you can optionally set a price that will be applied regardless of the weight of the order. For example you may wish to charge all orders at least $5 before any weight calculations are taken into consideration.

Surcharge per number of g/kg/oz/lb - This field is made up of two inputs. In the first you set a price and in the second you set the number of weight units that price should apply to. For example you may wish to charge customers $2 for every 500 grams that their order weighs. Note: The weight unit that will be displayed matches the weight unit that you have set on Shopify. If you change this weight unit you will need to update your rates accordingly.

Minimum charge - This field allows you to specify a minimum price that should be levied for this rate. If the base rate plus the total weight prices combined are less than the minimum amount you specify, then the minimum charge will be used instead.

Quantity


A quantity-based rate derives it’s price from the total number of items of an order. When selecting ‘quantity’ as the rate type, three additional fields will be displayed:

Base rate - you can optionally set a price that will be applied regardless of the number of items in an order. For example you may wish to charge all orders at least $5 before any quantity-based calculations are taken into consideration.

Surcharge per number of items - This field is made up of two inputs. In the first you set a price and in the second you set the number of items that price should apply to. For example you may wish to charge customers $2 for every 3 items in their order.

Minimum charge - This field allows you to specify a minimum price that should be levied for this rate. If the base rate plus the total quantity prices combined are less than the minimum amount you specify, then the minimum charge will be used instead.

Percentage


A percentage-based rate derives it’s prices from a given percentage of the total value of an order. When selecting ‘percentage’ as the rate type, three additional fields will be displayed:

Base rate - you can optionally set a price that will be applied regardless of amount applied as a percentage surcharge. For example you may wish to charge all orders at least $5 before any percentage-based calculations are taken into consideration.

Percentage surcharge - Within this field you can enter a percentage value. This percentage of the total value of the order will be added to the rate price. For example if you set a 20% surcharge and the total order value is $10, the rate price would be $2.

Minimum charge - This field allows you to specify a minimum price that should be levied for this rate. If the base rate plus the percentage surcharge prices combined are less than the minimum amount you specify, then the minimum charge will be used instead.

When you have created all the Rates you need, you're done! Now your rates should be displaying to your customers based on their postcode.

Updated on: 22/11/2022

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