Your Dashboard Settings 2. - Shipping

Your Dashboard Settings 2. - Shipping

Shipping Overview

Shipping is the artist's setting for calculating the delivery cost of a sale (can be one or more artworks possibly). Therefore, your account 'shipping settings', in your Artist Dashboard must be flexible enough to cover all types of artwork you sell or intend to sell and all your possible customer destinations.

SCOTSY shipping is thus set up as a means to offer our artists a flexible mechanism of charging for worldwide delivery to the UK and elsewhere.

Considerations include:

• Shipping destination
• Shipping package weight
• Shipping package size
• Shipping Method (eg. Royal Mail post, Parcelforce parcels, Courier delivery company, etc.)
• Shipping service types such as Special Delivery, Airmail or ship by sea, etc.

In summary, the way we do this is through you setting up various delivery rules for 5 different shipping zones (delivery destinations).

Moreover, the delivery rules are referred to on the site as Shipping Methods.

Shipping General Settings

1. Enable Shipping - Click this box to enable shipping for your store. (If you only offered download products, for instance, this will not be required to be set but for the majority, enable).
2. Processing Time - this is the normal time required to prepare your orders ready for dispatch, by whatever means you are using. 
   Note, this is a global setting for all artwork items in your shop.Select the most appropriate setting from the DropDown.
3. Shipping Type - We only offer 'Shipping by Zone'. Select this type, if not preselected. 

We now go on to setting up the 'shipping zones' you are interested in supplying to, with appropriate 'shipping methods' (delivery rules) for those zones.

Shipping Zones

(Please refer to the above image. The 'Zone Name' column has been magnified to highlight).

The shipping zones are geographical areas you can ship to. They are based on the normal delivery charging areas the post and parcel delivery post companies use, as follows:

1. UK (Excluding Highlands and Islands)
2. Scottish Highlands & Islands, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, Channel Islands.
3. Europe
4. US
   
5. Rest of the World

Each Zone can have one or more different Shipping Methods with relevant rules, according to your overall shipping policy rules and charges.

Shipping Methods

There are three base shipping schemes to which you can apply your Shipping Methods to:

• Flat Rate Method type (which offers comprehensive shipping calculated rates, based on weight or size).
  
• Free Shipping (can be applied to say UK only and the Flat Rate type , calculated shipping applied to additional destination, shipping zones.
• Local Pickup (can be free or you can apply a charge if you desire)

We now consider an additional shipping parameter, viz. Shipping Classes.

Shipping Classes

Another important parameter, used for calculating shipping rates is Shipping classes.

A 'class' covers a grouping for the size and weight of an object you are posting.

Shipping classes are therefore the shipping categories for items and we base this fundamentally on Royal Mail postage shipping types as follows:

• Letter (Standard Royal mail letter size)
  
• Large Letter (Standard Royal Mail large letter size)

(Then there are parcel groupings, where you can determine your own weight and size as per your desired courier delivery company charging directives, which you generally use)

• Small Parcel
  
• Medium Parcel
• Large Parcel

(And finally)

• Other (Any other size or configuration you would like to use. Possibly you might use this for a specific item you make)

Setting up your Shipping

The initial step for each zone you wish to ship to is to add shipping method(s) to the particular zone and add your shipping rules as required.

Click on 'Edit'' and you will be redirected to the 'edit zone' page with an '+ Add Shipping Method' button.

Click on the '+ Add Shipping Method' button to be taken to the 'select shipping method' drop-down list.

Here you can select one of the three shipping methods, in turn as per the shipping methods you wish to add to that particular zone.

a. Free Shipping

b. Local Pickup

c. Flat Rate

Let us discuss each of these shipping methods. Firstly we will look at Free Shipping and then Local Pickup, which are both simpler to set up. Then, we will deal with the more complex, Flat Rate shipping method.

a. Free Shipping

This shipping method allows you to set the threshold amount above which the shipping will be free.

Step 1 - After clicking on "+ Add Shipping Method"  link as explained above; 
add the Free Shipping method from the drop-down and press, the "Add Shipping Method" black button.

Step 2 - After saving this method, you can click on edit and fill up the following fields from the pop-up appearing.

Here is a brief explanation of the fields.

Method Title: This title will be displayed to customers in the checkout.

Minimum order amount: Here you can enter the threshold value (GBP) above which the shipping will be free. Leave at zero if you want all shipping to the zone to be free (eg, free UK shipping and incorporate shipping in the artwork product price!).

Description: You can enter the description of the rate here.

Step 3 - Save the above changes by clicking on the "SAVE mETHOD SETTINGS" button.

b. Local Pickup

Local pickup is a method that allows the customer to pick up the order themselves. As the artist vendor, you configure the VAT tax, if registered, and cost from here. This is how you can configure local Pickup options for your store/shop.

Step 1 - Add Local Pickup method from the "Add shipping method" drop-down. See magnified box selection.

Step 2 - Similar to the above free shipping method, after saving this you will have to click on the edit option for configuring the same.

Once "Edit" option is clicked, you will get a pop-up similar to this below:

Here's a brief on the above fields:

Method title: This title will be displayed to customers in the checkout.

Cost: Enter the cost for the option.

Tax Status: Define whether or not VAT is applied to the shipping amount.

Description: Allows you to describe the option here.

Step 3 - Save the above changes by clicking on "SAVE METHOD SETTINGS" button.

c. Flat Rate Shipping

Flat Rate shipping is a more complex shipping calculation method that allows you to define a standard rate per item, per shipping class as per each order. Here is a step-by-step guide on how you as the artist, can set up the flat rate method for your store/shop.

Step 1 - As per the previous methods, after clicking the "+ Add Shipping Method" red link, select "Flat Rate" from the given drop-down shown in this image:

Step 2 - Once you add this shipping method, it will be listed on the "edit zone page" as per earlier. As the next step, you will have to click the red "Edit" link in the zone list for the desired zone.

The Edit Shipping Methods screen will be displayed as below:

Let us discuss the above Edit Shipping Methods fields:

Method Title: Enter a title that displays to customers at the checkout.

Cost:  There are two Sections to the Edit Shipping Methods form, both with cost entry boxes:

Section A at the top of the form is a Fixed Cost or alternatively, Flat Rate cost entry section, and

Section B beneath has the Shipping Class Cost sections where costs can be added for each of the shipping classes(i.e. "size and weight" groupings).

(Shipping classes: Letter, Large Letter, Small Parcel, etc.)

As the Artist, you can add a base cost and additional, calculated costs per item into the Cost field. Notably, this can be left blank (i.e. 0) to disable. 

Please also note, that when you enter your cost in the Section A cost box, in particular, it can factor into the overall cost in the Shipping Class Costs added to Section B, unless the former is left blank.

The following is the calculation variables, which are to be kept in mind when entering the cost (See also the calculation examples):

[qty] - Number of products in the cart.

[fee] - An additional fee. This fee has two optional arguments.

percent - A percentage based on the total order cost.

min_fee - A minimum amount. Useful when using percentages.

max_fee - A maximum amount. Useful when using percentages.

Examples:

20 + (3 * [qty]) - a base shipping cost of £20 plus £3 for each item in the cart.

15 + [fee percent="5" min_fee+"2"] - A base shipping cost of £15 plus 5% of the order total, which is £2.

(The instruction on the form, on your screen, is repeated below for reference:

Enter a cost (excl. tax) or sum, e.g.  10.00 * [qty] . Use [qty]  for the number of items,

 [cost]   for the total cost of items, and  [fee percent="10"  min_fee="20"  max_fee=" "]   for percentage based fees.).

Tax Status: Define whether or not tax is applied to the shipping amount.

Shipping class cost: These costs can be optionally entered based on the Shipping Class set per product. (This cost will be added with the shipping cost above in Section A, with the latter set to '0' if required).

Cost of shipping class "X": Enter the cost for a particular shipping class (Letter, etc.)

{Note: Please refer to the Product Entry Knowledgbase articles for details on adding a Shipping Classes to your artwork product.}

No Shipping class cost: i.e. for any artwork product that is not grouped into any of the shipping class options. Alternatively, the Cost field in A can be used to set this instead!

Calculation Type - Two options

Per Order - Picks the most expensive option based on shipping costs in the cart. 

Per Class - Charges shipping for each shipping class.

Calculation Type selection image:

Step 3 - Once the above options are filled in, save the changes by clicking on the "SAVE METHOD SETTINGS" black button.