Managing Shipping Methods
If you are not participating in our fulfillment program, then you are responsible for shipping your products to your customers. You have the option to use real-time, carrier-calculated shipping rates based on the weights of your orders or your own custom-defined shipping method, including free shipping. You can set-up and manage your shipping options from the shipping settings page (Store setup > Shipping).
Carrier-calculated Shipping
To use carrier-calculated shipping rates, you'll first need to have completed 3 things:
1. Make sure that all of your products have weights entered for them on each product's page.
2. Make sure that all of your products have the option Requires shipping enabled on each product's page.
3. Make sure that you've already set up your Company Address in your seller profile. This is the address where the shipping rates will be calculated as being shipped from.
Once you have confirmed the information above, follow these directions to set up your shipping carriers:
1. In your seller dashboard, go to the Shipping methods section, (Store setup > Shipping)
2. Click the Add shipping method button. A pop-up will appear showing your options of the different shipping methods you can choose from. Select the shipping service that you would like to use. Most people use United States Postal Service (USPS), FedEx, and/or UPS. Note that you must be registered with USPS, FedEx, or UPS in order to integrate their shipping services with your account.
3. Configure the settings for your selected shipping method, and save your changes. Be sure that the shipping method you configured is now listed as Active.
Custom Table Rates
You may prefer to choose a flat shipping fee if you don't have an account with a carrier or if you don't want to mess with configuring the weights and shipping options associated with Carrier-calculated Shipping. To do this, you'll want to create a Custom Table Rate.
1. In your seller dashboard, go to the Shipping methods section, (Store setup > Shipping)
2. Click the Add shipping method button. A pop-up will appear showing carrier-calculated options by default. Click the Custom table rates tab on the pop-up window.
3. Here, you'll provide some general information about your custom rate. Each field is explained below:
Method name: Enter a name for your custom shipping method. This is the name of the shipping method that will be displayed on the front-end to buyers.
Delivery time (Optional): Provide a delivery estimate as to when the customer can expect to receive their order, e.g., 5 - 7 business days.
Table based on: This is where you specify the parameter(s) based on which the rates will be calculated. You can base your custom rates on any of the following:
Subtotal: Set shipping rates based on the order subtotal. Ex: $5 flat rate shipping for orders with a subtotal of up to $70 and free shipping for orders over that amount.
Weight: Set shipping rates based on the weight of items in the order. Ex: $5 flat rate shipping for orders up to 5 lbs and $10 shipping for orders over 5 lbs. Important: To use this rate, make sure that all your products require shipping have a correct weight entered in the product details.
Items: Set shipping rates based on the number of items in the order. Ex: $5 flat rate shipping if the number of items in the order is 5 or less, and $2 per item if the number of items in the order is 6 or more.
Subtotal, weight, items: Set shipping rates based on a combination of parameters.
Address zone: Select the Address zone the shipping method applies to. If you haven’t configured the zone you want yet, use the Manage zones link to access the Zones section and configure it. Here, you can set zones by country, if you are unable to ship outside of the US for example.
4. After you've configured your custom rates, save your changes. Your new shipping method will be added--just make sure that it is active!
If you still have questions, feel free to contact us at sellerhelp@hotsaucedepot.com.
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