This article explains how shipping rules work on Cratejoy.
Shipping rules are the rules that sellers create on Cratejoy that dictates how much shipping cost is charged to customers at checkout.
There are 2 kinds of shipping rules: International Shipping Rules and Product Shipping Rules
For more information on each one of those individual shipping rule types and to learn how to set them up, please read these other help articles:
International Shipping Rules: https://help.cratejoy.com/hc/en-us/articles/202717885-How-can-I-customize-international-shipping-rates- & https://help.cratejoy.com/hc/en-us/articles/203806309-How-do-I-restrict-customers-from-other-countries-from-purchasing-from-me-
Product Shipping Rules: https://help.cratejoy.com/hc/en-us/articles/204184129-How-do-product-level-shipping-rates-work-
The general way that shipping rules work on Cratejoy:
- Look at the list of products that a customer has added to their cart
- See if there are any free shipping coupons or gift cards that would apply to the products in that list and if so remove them since they shouldn't be used in calculating shipping costs
- Take all the subscription products and calculate the shipping costs based on which shipping rules apply
- If there are any International Shipping Rules (also called Global Shipping rules) that apply then they would take precedent, get applied and Product Shipping Rules would NOT get applied
- If no Global Shipping Rules apply then look to the Product Shipping Rules for those one-time products: If a Flat Rate Shipping is configured then use that, if not then use the Auto-Calculating if that is configured
- If the subscription product(s) is part of a prepay term (e.g. 6-month prepay subscription product) then multiple the computed shipping cost by the number of cycles on the prepay term (e.g. $5 shipping cost x 6-month prepay = $30 shipping cost)
- This results in a shipping cost total for the subscription product(s) in the cart
- Take all the one-time products and calculate the shipping costs based on which shipping rules apply
- If there are any International Shipping Rules (also called Global Shipping rules) that apply then they would take precedent, get applied and Product Shipping Rules would NOT get applied
- If no Global Shipping Rules apply then look to the Product Shipping Rules for those one-time products: If a Flat Rate Shipping is configured then use that, if not then use the Auto-Calculating if that is configured
- This results in a shipping cost total for the one-time product(s) in the cart
- Add the shipping cost of the subscription product(s) and one-time product(s) together for the total shipping cost. The total shipping cost is what is shown on the checkout page to the customer once they fill in their shipping address
Flowchart showing how shipping rules work on the checkout page:
(Right-click on the image and "Open Image in New Tab" to see a larger version of the image)
Shipping Rule Example:
Let's say a customer is checking out on your store with the following items:
1 - Coffee Box subscription product with a 6-month prepay term
1 - Coffee Maker one-time product
2 - Coffee Filter one-time products
And let's say you have the following shipping rules set up on your store (which is based in the United States):
International/Global Shipping Rules:
- Canada - By Weight - 5 lbs and up is $25.00 shipping cost
- Rest of World - Restricted - So only Canada (because you have a Global rule set up for it) and the United States (since that's where your store is based out of) can purchase from your store
Product Shipping Rules:
- Coffee Box subscription product - Flat Rate - $5.00 - 2 lbs product weight
- Coffee Maker one-time product - Flat Rate - $7.00 - 4 lbs product weight
- Coffee Filter one-time product - Flat Rate - $2.00 - 1 lbs product weight
At checkout the customer enters in a shipping Address in Canada, this is how the shipping costs would be calculated:
- No free shipping coupons or gift cards on the cart so those wouldn't apply
- It would take all the subscription product(s) and calculate the shipping costs for those subscription products (just the 1 Coffee Box in this example):
- The shipping address is in Canada so it would check the International Shipping Rule for Canada to see if it applied
- The Coffee Box only weight 2 lbs which is lower than the 5 lbs limit on the International Shipping Rule so the rule wouldn't apply
- It would check Flat Rate shipping next. Since Coffee Box is configured for Flat Rate shipping of $5.00 then this would get applied as the shipping cost
- The subscription product is a 6-month prepay so it would take the $5.00 flat rate shipping fee and multiple it by the number of cycles (6) to get the shipping cost for the subscription product(s) of $30.00
- It would take all the one-time products and calculate the shipping costs for those one-time products (the 1 Coffee Maker and the 2 Coffee Filters in this example):
- The shipping address is in Canada so it would check the International Shipping Rule for Canada to see if it applied
- The total weight of the one-time products when added together is 6 lbs (4 lbs for the Coffee Maker and 2 lbs for the total of the two Coffee filters) which is over the 5 lbs limit so a shipping cost of $25.00 would get applied for the one-time products
- It would add the subscription product shipping cost ($30.00) with the one-time products shipping cost ($25.00) to get the total shipping cost of $55.00. This is the total shipping cost displayed to the customer on the checkout page and would be charged when they checked out.