How Shipping is Calculated

Our Ecommerce shipping systems are extremely flexible. You can charge anything from a simple flat rate to a very personalized shipping grid that allows you to accurately dial in what your shipping costs are and what your shipping charges should be, or if you’re selling digital goods or services you can disable shipping completely.

There are four shipping preferences that can be changed through the Settings category under Shipping/Tax in your store’s web admin:

• Enable Shipping
• Charge Base
• Charge Weight Range
• Charge Location Extension

These four shipping parameters effect how, and how much, shipping will be charged. The way shipping is calculated is quite powerful so it's worth spending some time planning it out completely.

Enable Shipping

The Ecommerce Admin allows you to completely disable shipping if your store doesn’t require any shipping calculations. Setting this value to No in the Admin will cause any other shipping options to be completely ignored, and no shipping costs will be charged to users during the checkout process. Setting this value to Yes will cause the other three shipping options to charge shipping accordingly.

Charge Base

Set this option to Yes in the BCSCC Ecommerce Admin Area to charge a base shipping rate for all orders. The base shipping rates don't have anything to do with order cost. A base rate is a flat rate that will be charged for a particular method. Postal = $5.00, UPS Ground = $8.00, FedEx = $12.00, Standard = $5.00, Express = $10.00 and so forth.

This base rate can serve as a "floor" on which all other shipping rates are added, or it can serve as a flat shipping rate by turning the other shipping rates off. You can adjust the base charges for each shipping method by clicking Methods under Shipping/Tax in the Admin Area.

Charge Weight Range

Weight range allows you to define a shipping cost based on the total weight of an order. Add up the total weight of the package, find a weight range in which the order weight fits for the shipping method that has been selected, and that's your shipping cost. If base rate is selected the weight range cost will be added to the base rate to come up with the total shipping cost. You can adjust the weight ranges for each shipping method by clicking Weight Range under Shipping/Tax in the Ecommerce Admin Area.

Location Extension

The location extension is a multiplier that charges an additional percentage to the shipping cost based on destination. The total shipping cost from the base charge and the weight range is multiplied by the extension percentage, and the percentage is added to the customer’s total shipping costs. You can adjust the location extension for each region by clicking State/Provs under Shipping/Tax in the Ecommerce Admin Area.

Sample Calculation

The following is a general overview of how the shipping calculation is processed.

• The weight of all the items in the order, excluding any free shipping items, is totaled.
• This weight is then compared to the weight ranges available for the chosen or default shipping method. The shipping amount for the appropriate weight range is selected.
• This amount is then added to any base charge amount for the current shipping method. This determines the subtotal shipping charge.
• The shipping destination is taken into account and the location extension, if any, is applied. To apply the shipping extension the subtotal is multiplied by the extension for example: $25 X .25 (a 25% extension) = $6.25. This amount is then added to the original sub total as in: $25 + $6.25 = $31.25.
  
  The Formula:
• Base charge = $5.00
• Weight range shipping cost = $20.00
• Location extension for destination = .25 (25%) = $6.25
• (base charge + weight range) * location extension = total shipping charge, $31.25

The net result of this is that this state is being charged 125% of what the shipping would cost somebody in your home state where the extension would reasonably be set to 0%.

Dialing in your “Shipping Grid”

As you can see, this system allows you to fine tune your shipping charges. You can set up a zone type system that will allow you to be sure you are not over or under charging shipping.

Why not just use UPS or FedEx online?

While this can be done and the structure of the Ecommerce Admin shipping function allows for it, you must keep in mind that tying into an outside source that is critical to the operation of your application is a potential breaking point that you have no control over. Shippers have frequently changed protocols, often without warning. If your connection to the shipper’s system fails due to a change in protocol or even a temporary outage your cart will fail and you will lose orders. This is an important point to consider when deciding to tie into a particular shipper.