An introduction to delivery pricing

How the delivery pricing system works

Your delivery pricing system is created by first creating delivery zones and then creating delivery rates within those zones.

Once you have created zones and rates, when a customer goes to checkout on your website they will be asked to first select their delivery zone. Once they have chosen a zone, the rates that you have configured and that are available to them based on the products in their basket will be shown for them to choose from. Multiple delivery rates can be shown to a customer depending on the criteria you set for the rates.

Customising your delivery rates

There are many different ways that you can customise your delivery rates. You can customise them so only certain rates show in certain circumstances, or you can choose to only create certain rates in specific delivery zones. You can also create many different rates for one zone to give your customers choices for delivery.

When creating your delivery rates you will first need to decide if you are going to charge for delivery based on the value of the products, the total of the weight of the products or both. Alternatively, you can use the weight system to base delivery on something else entirely.

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Delivery rates based on price

As a customer adds products to their basket the system automatically calculates the total cost of the products. You can choose to set delivery rates based on the total value of the customer’s basket.

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Delivery rates based on weight

As the customer adds products to their basket the system will also automatically calculate the weight of the products if you have set a weight for them. You can choose to set delivery rates based on the total weight of products in the customer’s basket.

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Delivery rates based on both

It is also possible, by creating multiple rates, to use both weight and price to determine your rates. For example, if you were setting up delivery rates based on weight, you could also offer free delivery if a customer spends over £100.

Alternative pricing

Alternatively, you can use the delivery pricing by weight option to create a pricing structure based on something else. Because the customer never sees the weights you enter on your products the system can be used to create a different pricing structure.

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Example 1

You could use the system to charge for delivery based on the number of products a customer orders. To achieve this you would first need to set all of your products at the same weight, such as 1kg. By doing this you are having 1 item have the same effect on the delivery system as 1kg of weight.

You could then set up your delivery structure along these lines:

So if a customer orders 1 item, the total weight of their basket would be 1kg, and the only delivery rate that would show to them is £2.00.

If a customer orders 2 items, the total weight would be 2 kg, and the delivery cost would be £1.00.

And if a customer ordered 3 or more items, they would fit into the last delivery rate, and their cost would be £0.00.

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Example 2

You could also use the system to charge differently for small, medium and large products in your store. This could be suitable for you if you need to ship your products in different ways depending on their size. For example, if you wanted to send small items in the post, medium items through a courier and large items by special delivery. These 3 options would cost you different amounts, so you could use the weights system to pass that cost on to your customers depending on what they order.

To achieve this you would separate your products into 3 sizes and assign each product in a group the same weight. It would be advisable, however, to give each group a drastically different weight. For example, small items could be 0.1kg, medium items could be 5kg and large items could be 1000kg.

Then you can set delivery rates for different weight totals, such as:
0.1kg - 4.99kg
5kg - 999.99kg
1000kg+

With this rates system:

• If somebody ordered a small + large item, the total weight would be 0.1kg + 1000kg so the large delivery cost would apply.
• If somebody ordered a small + medium item, the total weight would be 0.1kg + 5kg so the medium delivery cost would apply.
• If somebody ordered 5 small items, the total weight would be 0.5kg so only the small item delivery cost would apply.

If you don’t charge for delivery

If you don’t charge for delivery, you can skip the entire delivery pricing process. You’ll need to contact us to have the delivery procedure removed from your website.