You can define many freight methods with specific rules determining in what situation a customer will offered the freight method as a way to ship an order.
The following options are supported:-
- Free shipping
- Free shipping for orders over $x
- Freight cost by weight
- Freight method cased on QTY of items in order
- Freight cost calculated by Australia Post freight calculator (live integration) based on delivery post code and total weight
- Freight cost special additional cost for a particular item
- Freight method only available when shipping to certain countries
- Freight method not available for certain products
- Freight method only available to certain websites
How to create a Freight Method
Freight methods are managed from eCommerce > Freight Methods
Add New to create a new method, or click an existing method to edit
The following fields are required:-
- Title: This is the name of the freight method which will appear on your website
- Cost: This is the rate applied if an alternative live freight calculation method is not available or selected
- Base Cost: This amount is added to the freight method cost, regardless of the amount provided from your selected freight gateway (eg: Australia Post)
- Maximum Freight Charged: The maximum amount of freight that will be charged using this method (set to 0 to ignore - ie: no maximum)
- Freight Free: If the order total is above this amount, no freight will be charged when this method is selected.
- Available: This method will show on your website when ticked.
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The following fields are optional:-
- Channel: Target custom channels within a website
- Australia Post Service: Choose the freight type to use when calculating rates through the Australia Post gateway
- Website: Only show this method on the selected website
- Cannot Ship to PO Box: The the first address field of the delivery address contains the text 'PO BOX' the freight will be presented as unavailable
Controlling Methods by Country
- Freight methods are only presented when the Delivery Country matches one of the Countries related to the Freight Method
- You must use the Related tab to Choose countries for which you would like to show the Freight Method
Product Exclusions
- Certain products may not be shippable by a particlar Freight Method
- Relate products to a method that you wish to exlcude from shipping by this method
Product Weights
- If you are shipping by order weight, you should enter product weights in Kilograms in the Product Detail tab.
Courier
Freight cost is based on the shipping fee to the courier hub nearest the customer.
A freight method can be created with many distribution hub addresses linked to it - normally this would be a particular courier company's many hub addresses.
Each hub's address is automatically geo-coded using Google's geocoding API when it is entered.
When a customer enters their address in the Checkout, and chooses the freight method configured to use hub freight calculation, Google's map API is used to geocode the customers address (which provides the latitude/longitude)
The system then calculates the nearest freight hub to the customers delivery address using a very fancy algorithm, and picks the calculation method used for that hub to work out the freight cost.
How to create courier hubs
- From a Freight Method item, choose the Destination Costs tab.
- Add a New item. You do not need to fill out the latitude and longitude - this information will be generated automatically when you save the item. Be sure to provide a full address.
- Three cost base methods are supported - per kilo, per item and a single total cost.
- By creating many hubs, during the Checkout process, the system will match your customers address with the nearest courier hub and calculate freight using the cost base configured.