The Shipping Settings Administration Center is where you set the business rules for shipping, including how you charge shipping, what shipping carriers you offer and special options that keep your shipping costs under control.
Defining your shipping settings is a 5-step process.
We'll walk you through each step. Remember, you can edit your shipping settings as often as you need. Let's get started!
STEP 1.
SHIPPING CHARGE CALCULATION METHOD
There are three options for calculating shipping cost: Merchant Defined, Gross Cost and Carrier-Calculated.
Both the By Gross Cost and Carrier-Calculated options automatically present the shipping charge to customer at the time of checkout. This allows them to finalize the purchase at the time of check out.
If you opt to use the Merchant-Defined option, your customers will see a sub-total, comprised of the product cost and applicable taxes, with a final total to be presented at a later date. Your shopper can still check out and you can still process the order, you will just need to add the shipping charges manually when you process the order.
Select the method that best suits your business. You can change shipping calculation methods as often as you like to accommodate changes in your business.
Merchant Defined
This option provides you with the most flexibility because you enter the shipping charges manually as part of the confirmation and order processing functions. The downside is that your customers will not know how much they are being charged for shipping and this may create customer services issues for you and your staff.
By Gross Cost
The By-Gross-Cost option automatically calculates the total shipping charges for each order by adding the individual gross shipping costs for each product ordered. *
For example item number one has a gross shipping cost of $3.50. Item number two has a gross shipping cost of $4.90. The total shipping charge will be $8.40. This total is automatically displayed on each customer's invoice before the order is finalized.
The By-Gross-Cost option also allows you to define additives and multipliers to the gross costs for each shipping method you offer, enabling you to add handling costs, run special offers for free or low-cost shipping or to encourage your customer to select your preferred shipping vendor.
Carrier-Calculated
By selecting the Carrier-Calculated option, the shipping charges will automatically calculate the total charges based on weight. You will need to enter a weight for each product using the Product Edit function in the Product Manager.
You will also need to designate a carrier for each shipping method: ground, priority, two-day and next day. For example: You have selected the Carrier-Calculated option and have designated Federal Express as your carrier for packages shipping with two-day delivery. The eSellerCart will automatically contact the Federal Express website and retrieve the cost and display this to your customer on the check out order form.
NOTE: Carrier-Calculated shipping is available only on orders shipped to addresses within the United States. The shipping option for non-US orders will default to the Merchant-Defined setting.
STEP 2.
DEFINE SHIPPING OPTIONS
ESellerCart supports four shipping options: ground, priority, two-day and next-day. You can offer one, two or all four to your customers. Please place a check in the box for each the option you want to support.
Ground
Priority
Two-Day
Next-Day
STEP 3.
DEFINE SHIPPING CARRIER PREFERENCES
If you have selected the Merchant-Defined calculation-option, skip to Step 4. If you're operating with either By Gross Cost or Carrier-Calculated options, Step 3 will give you maximum control at the carrier level.
Using the tables below, follow these steps for each carrier you want to support. You can support one, two or all three carriers and set preferences unique to each carrier. We recommend you read this entire section before you make you selections so you have a complete understanding of how the shipping option selection works.
A. Select one carrier for each shipping option.
For example: Ground to ship via UPS, Priority to ship via United States Postal Service (USPS), Two-Day will ship via FedEx and Next Day will ship via USPS. You may assign multiple shipping options to one carrier, but you cannot assign multiple carriers to the same shipping option.
B. Enter a Multiplier for each delivery service.
This number, as defined either by the Gross Cost method or the Carrier-Calculated method then multiplies the shipping sub-total. For example: your Gross-Cost sub-total is $5.00. You have applied a multiplier of 1.25. Your customer will be charged $6.25, effectively applying a service charge to each order.
If you are unsure as to the Multiplier value you want to use, retain the default multiplier of 1 until you have more information.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Leaving this field blank will multiply your shipping by zero, giving your customers free shipping. (Which comes in handy when you want to offer "Free Shipping"!)
C. Enter an Additive for each delivery service.
By entering an Additive amount, you automatically include a handling fee to cover costs of packaging and other incidentals such as a thank you note or thank you gift. For example: The Carrier-Calculated shipping total is $5.00. You have applied a multiplier of 1, leaving the total $5.00. You have entered an Additive value of $.75 per order. The final shipping charge to your customer will be $5.75 and will be presented in the check out process.
NOTE: If you have selected UPS as a carrier and/or have elected to use the Carrier-Calculated shipping method, the shipping charge is calculated on rates for business addresses. If you are shipping to residential addresses, you may need to increase your additive to cover additional charges. By using the UPS website, found at http://www.ups.com, you can do a simple comparison using their shipping calculator to determine the appropriate additive for your store.
D. Check the Insure box for each applicable carrier and shipping option.
By checking this box, the insurance cost on the total value of all the items in the shipment will be automatically calculated and added to the total shipping cost.
Select which carrier you will use for each shipping option.
ENTER THE LOCATION WHERE YOUR SHIPMENTS WILL ORIGINATE:
COUNTRY CODE
STATE CODE
POSTAL CODE
FedEx Express:
SHIPPING METHOD
ADDITIVE
MULTIPLIER
INSURE
OTHER INSTRUCTIONS
Next Day
Two Day
Priority
USPS:
SHIPPING METHOD
ADDITIVE
MULTIPLIER
INSURE
Ground
Priority
Next Day
UPS:
SHIPPING METHOD
ADDITIVE
MULTIPLIER
INSURE
OTHER INSTRUCTIONS
Ground
Priority
Two Day
Next Day
UPS:
SHIPPING METHOD
ADDITIVE
MULTIPLIER
INSURE
OTHER INSTRUCTIONS
Ground
Priority
Two Day
Next Day
OTHER:
SHIPPING METHOD
ADDITIVE
MULTIPLIER
Ground
Priority
Two Day
Next Day
STEP 4.
ESTABLISHING THE UNIT OF MEASURE.
For Carrier-Calculated shipping, each product must have a weight assigned when you input the product detail. If the product weight changes, for instance you get a new supplier, or change packaging elements, you can update the product weight at any time. The shipping calculator will automatically pick up the new weight when figuring the total shipping cost.
Please enter the unit of measure for all your products. This is a global setting and the unit of measure cannot be set for individual or categories of products.
Trouble Saving Tip: If you change the unit of measure, or the weight assigned to any product, you will need to regenerate and replace the HTML for that product before the new shipping attributes will take effect.
UNIT OF MEASURE
STEP 5.
SELECT SPECIAL OPTIONS
Activate the Gift Option Setting
Activating the Gift Option setting gives your customers the option of having their order shipped directly to the recipient. If the customer checks selects the gift option on the order form, that information is passed to you in the order form. You then know to send the package without the price on the packing slip.
Activate the Gift Option?
CHECK FOR YES
Activate Custom Messaging
The Custom Messaging option gives you the ability to include a personalized message at the bottom of all confirmation emails sent to your customers. The confirmation emails are sent when the customer completes their order but before you have finalized the order for processing.
This is a good opportunity to thank them for their business, mention new products and specials and encourage customers to register for your email newsletter. You can change this text as often as you need to accommodate your business. Simply update the text in the box below. The next confirmation email will have your new message.
Activate the Customand confirmation?
CHECK FOR YES
If you have checked yes, please input your message in the box below.
Activate Customer Order Tracking
Top e-commerce sites give customers the option of tracking their order. This saves you customer service calls and helps the customer feel more confident.
Activating the Customer Order Tracking option will give your customers the ability to check on the status of the orders they have made on your site. The Order Tracking tool displays approved, shipped, and pending status.
Customers access their order status by logging in to their account using their email and password from your website. If you check yes we recommend letting customers know how to track their order via the custom message option. It's a great customer service feature.
Activate Custom Order Tracking?
CHECK FOR YES
Activate Access Permissions
The Access Permissions setting feature lets you set up a second user for your store with their limited access. This features will let a second user check and process orders without having access to your cart builder, catalog manager and other cart settings.
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