Shipping

Shipping Methods

A shipping method is one delivery option, defined between two countries.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Commercial:

• Carts — the cart itself and its options

Architect Panel → Data:

• Datastores — then View Data on the cart table, and look for the row actions

What a method carries

• Sender and recipient country — the route it covers.
• Shipping company and service name — what the customer sees.
• Minimum and maximum delivery days — the promise.
• Default price and currency.
• Weight tiers enabled — whether price varies by weight.
• Tracking URL prefix — so a tracking number becomes a link.

Routes, not destinations

The sender country matters as much as the recipient. It is what allows a shop with warehouses in two countries to offer different methods and prices depending on where the stock is — which is why warehouse country is a shipping decision as much as a stock one.

Delivery days are a promise

Customers read the range as a commitment and complain against it. Set it to what your carrier actually achieves rather than what their marketing says, and prefer a range you beat to one you meet occasionally.

The tracking prefix pays for itself

A tracking number that is a link removes a large share of "where is my order" contacts. Set it once per carrier; the effort is minutes and the saving is continuous.

Keep the list short

Two or three options per route. A checkout offering seven delivery services makes the customer do work they did not want, and they usually pick the cheapest anyway.

The useful shape is a standard option, a faster one, and collection if you offer it.

Price it honestly

Shipping priced below cost is a discount you did not budget for, and it grows with volume. Shipping priced well above cost is the most common reason for basket abandonment.

Know what each method actually costs you before setting the price.

Weight tiers, cut-offs and holidays hang off the method

Each is a row action on the method itself. That is where the pricing detail and the date calculation live, and it is easy to configure a method and never look at them.

Test every route you enable

A method defined for a route you do not actually ship is a method a customer will choose. Check what routes your shop currently offers against what you can genuinely fulfil.

Worked example

A shop offers standard and next-day from its domestic warehouse and a single economy method from its European one, each with tracking prefixes set. Delivery ranges were set a day wider than the carrier’s stated service, which turned late deliveries into on-time ones.

Recommendations

• Two or three methods per route.
• Set delivery days to what you achieve, not what is advertised.
• Set the tracking prefix — it removes contact volume.
• Check every route is one you actually ship.

Weight Tiers

Weight tiers price a shipping method by how heavy the order is, rather than charging one price for everything.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Commercial:

• Carts — the cart itself and its options

Architect Panel → Data:

• Datastores — then View Data on the cart table, and look for the row actions

How they work

Each tier is a maximum weight and a price. An order is priced at the first tier whose maximum it does not exceed. Above the highest tier, there is nothing to charge — so the top tier needs to be high enough to cover any basket somebody can actually build.

Product weights must be right first

Weight sits on the variant, and tiered shipping is only as good as those numbers. A catalogue with missing or guessed weights produces shipping charges that are confidently wrong, and the error is systematic rather than random.

Before enabling tiers, check for variants with no weight.

Set bands where your carrier does

Because that is where your cost changes. Bands invented independently of the carrier’s produce orders that cost you more to ship than you charged, concentrated just above each of the carrier’s own thresholds.

Leave a margin

Packaging weighs something. A basket at the top of a band, boxed, is over it — so either set your bands slightly below the carrier’s or add an allowance to the weights.

Check the top of every band

Build a test basket that lands exactly at each threshold, and one just over it. That is where tier errors live, and it takes ten minutes to check what would otherwise be discovered by an accountant months later.

Weight tiers are per method

Which is right — a courier and a postal service have different weight economics. It also means enabling tiers is a per-method decision, and a method with tiers enabled but none defined is a method with no shipping price.

Consider whether you need them

If everything you sell weighs roughly the same, a flat price is simpler and no less accurate. Tiers are worth the maintenance when weights genuinely vary.

Worked example

A shop sets five tiers matching its courier’s bands, each 200 grams below the carrier’s threshold to allow for packaging, with a top tier well above its largest realistic order. Test baskets at each boundary caught a transposed price between two tiers.

Recommendations

• Fix product weights before enabling tiers.
• Match your carrier’s bands, slightly below.
• Test a basket at each boundary.
• Make the top tier high enough for any real basket.

Cut-off Times and Holidays

Delivery date estimates come from the shipping method’s cut-off times and the shop’s holidays.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Commercial:

• Carts — the cart itself and its options

Architect Panel → Data:

• Datastores — then View Data on the cart table, and look for the row actions

Cut-off times are per day

Each entry names a day of the week, a time, and which day the order actually ships. That structure handles the real world: order by two on Thursday and it goes Thursday; order at three and it goes Friday; order on Saturday and it goes Monday.

A single cut-off time for the whole week cannot express that, which is why it is defined per day.

Holidays are shop-wide

A list of dates on which nothing ships. They shift every delivery estimate that crosses them, which is exactly what should happen and exactly what nobody remembers to configure.

Load the holidays a year ahead

The failure is not misconfiguration, it is omission. Public holidays, the days between Christmas and the new year, any shutdown week — enter them all at once, annually, rather than the week before each.

A shop promising next-day delivery on Christmas Eve has usually just not entered the holidays.

Be honest about the cut-off

Set it to when your warehouse actually stops packing, not when you would like it to. A cut-off half an hour after the last collection is a promise broken every single day.

Estimates are only as good as the inputs

Delivery days come from the method, working days from the cut-offs, non-working days from the holidays. All three have to be right, and the visible symptom of any of them being wrong is the same: a date the customer was given and did not get.

Turning dates off is a valid choice

Delivery date display is a cart option. If your fulfilment is not predictable enough to promise a date, showing a range in the shipping method and no specific date is more honest than a calculated date you miss.

Check it around the edges

Test what the shop promises late on a Friday, on a Sunday, and the day before a holiday. Those are the three cases that are wrong, and the only ones worth testing.

Worked example

A shop sets cut-offs per weekday with weekend orders shipping Monday, and loads the year’s public holidays each January along with its Christmas shutdown. Estimates are checked on a Friday afternoon and the day before a bank holiday, which caught a Saturday cut-off left over from a trial.

Recommendations

• Set cut-offs per day, not one for the week.
• Load a year of holidays in one sitting.
• Use the real packing cut-off.
• Test Friday, Sunday and pre-holiday.