Settings › Shipping
Shipping Settings and Setup
Whether you charge shipping, which system works out the rate, what shoppers see at checkout, the boxes you pack into, when an order counts as delivered, your carrier accounts and the zones and countries you ship to. 10 sections.
Quick links
Where to find it:WP Admin › EasyCart › Settings › Shipping › Shipping Settings
The basics
Method and checkout
Whether you charge shipping, how the rate is worked out, and what shoppers can choose.
Shipping method
Whether you charge shipping and how rates are worked out
3 settingsCharge shipping at checkout
The master switch. Off means no shipping address is collected, no rate is charged, and every order is treated as not shipped, which is right for a store selling only downloads, services or collection. Everything else on this page depends on it being on.
How rates are calculated
Which system works out the rate: flat rates, by cart total, by weight, by quantity, a percentage of the total, live carrier rates, or Fraktjakt. You pick the system here and build its table on the Shipping rates page. Only the chosen method’s table is used, so a store with rates entered under two methods is not combining them, it is ignoring one. Live carrier rates and Fraktjakt need a PRO or Premium licence.
Dimension units
Whether dimensions are handled in inches or centimetres. It matters when product dimensions drive option pricing or are sent to a live carrier, because a carrier quoting on the wrong unit will produce a rate that is wrong by a factor of two and a half.
⚠️ Careful: Only the chosen method’s rate table is used at checkout. Rates entered under a method you are not using are simply ignored, which is a common reason a store appears to be quoting nothing. For a step by step walkthrough, see Set Up Shipping That Does Not Lose Money.
Options at checkout
What shoppers see and can choose when shipping is charged
6 settingsHide rates until an address is entered
Keeps the cart page free of any shipping estimate, so rates appear only once the shopper has given an address at checkout. Accurate, but it moves the moment of discovering shipping cost to the last step, which is where carts are abandoned. The shipping estimator on the cart page is usually the better answer.
Offer free local pickup
Adds a free local pickup option beside your shipping rates. Worth offering if you have a physical location: it costs you nothing, it removes the shipping objection entirely, and it brings people into the shop.
Ship to the billing address only
Removes the separate shipping address form and tells shoppers orders go to their billing address. Simplifies checkout, and rules out gifts, deliveries to work and anybody whose card is registered elsewhere. Only sensible where you know that never happens.
Charge shipping on subscriptions
Collects a shipping address and charges a rate when a subscription product is marked shippable. Necessary for anything physical on a recurring basis; pointless for a membership or a digital subscription.
Static methods charge per item
A static rate is multiplied by the number of items rather than charged once for the order. This suits goods that genuinely ship one per parcel, and badly overcharges anything that does not, so check it against a realistic multi-item basket before leaving it on.
Free shipping also covers partner shipping
For items a fulfillment partner makes and ships, such as a print on demand service. When your free shipping applies, through a free-shipping threshold, a promotion or a coupon, on makes those items ship free to the shopper too, and you pay the partner’s shipping yourself. Off, shoppers still pay the partner’s shipping even on an order that otherwise ships free. Work out what partner shipping costs you before turning it on.
💡 Note: Local pickup with pickup times, delivery slots and order-ahead is covered in How to Set Up Pickup, Delivery Scheduling and Restaurant Ordering.
After the sale
Packing and delivery
The boxes orders are packed into, and what happens when tracking says they arrived.
Boxes and packing
The boxes you ship in. Orders are split into packages from them, and a label is bought for each package.
1 settingPack new orders into boxes
Splits each new order into packages from your boxes the moment it is placed, so the order screen already shows what goes in which box and a label can be bought for each package. Orders placed before it was on are packed the first time you open them. Leave it on unless you never ship more than one parcel and never buy labels from the order screen.
💡 Note: The table below the switch is your box library. Add a box takes an optional name, a type ( box, envelope or mailer, poly bag or soft pack ), the inside size, the empty box weight and the most it holds. A Carrier box, such as a flat rate box, makes labels buy at that box’s price. Mark one box as the Default box, and untick Use this box when packing orders to keep a box on file without packing into it. Packages then appear on the order screen, where items can be moved between boxes. See How to Fulfill Orders.
Delivery
What happens when tracking says an order arrived
2 settingsMark orders delivered from tracking
When a label service reports that every package on a paid order has arrived, the order moves to the Delivered status below on its own. That keeps the orders list honest about what is still in transit without anyone checking tracking by hand. Off, orders stay as shipped until you mark them delivered yourself from the order screen.
Delivered status
The status a delivered order moves to. A store without one gets an Order Delivered status made for it. Rename it or change its colour under Order statuses, rather than picking a status that means something else.
💡 Note: Automatic delivery needs a label service that reports tracking. Without one, mark an order delivered from its packages on the Order Management screen.
Carriers
Live rates and accounts
How live rates are quoted, and the accounts they are quoted from.
Live carrier rates
How rates fetched from a carrier are quoted and shown
3 settingsShow estimated delivery days
Adds the carrier’s transit estimate after each live rate, where the carrier supplies one. Shoppers choosing between a cheap slow service and an expensive fast one need this to make the choice, and without it the expensive option looks like a worse deal rather than a faster one.
Quote each item as its own parcel
Requests a live rate per item and adds them up, rather than quoting one combined package. It is correct for goods that cannot be boxed together and expensive for everything else, since you lose the saving of a single parcel.
Always show overridden rates
Where you have replaced a live rate with a fixed amount, this shows that rate even when the carrier returns nothing for the address. Off hides it in that case. On is more forgiving, since the shopper always sees an option; off is more accurate, since a carrier returning no rate often means it does not serve that address.
Carrier accounts
USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, Canada Post and Australia Post credentials and origin details. A carrier quotes once its details are complete.
no stored settingsNo stored settings in the usual sense: this is where carrier accounts are entered. USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, Canada Post and Australia Post each take their own credentials and origin details, and a carrier only starts quoting once its details are complete. Each carrier has a tab with a dot for its state, and the panel lists what is still missing. Entering credentials here does nothing on its own unless the shipping method is set to live carrier rates.
DHL quotes through the MyDHL API, DHL’s current connection: set Connection to MyDHL API, then add the API key and API secret from the MyDHL API access DHL gives your account on developer.dhl.com, with your DHL Express account number and origin city. A store set up on the older XML Services keeps its Site ID quoting until it switches, and the panel explains how to request MyDHL API access.
FedEx’s panel carries Use FedEx account discounts, on by default, which quotes your negotiated rates rather than list rates. If you have an account with agreed pricing, turning it off means quoting shoppers more than shipping actually costs you.
💡 Note: Carrier credentials do nothing unless the shipping method is set to live carrier rates, and a product with no weight cannot be quoted at all. Weights are set under Inventory & Shipping.
Fraktjakt account
Swedish carrier aggregator, used when the shipping method is Fraktjakt
no stored settingsAccount details for Fraktjakt, a Swedish carrier aggregator, used only when the shipping method is set to Fraktjakt. If you are not selling in Sweden this section is not for you.
Ship-from address
The origin Fraktjakt quotes from. Other carriers take their origin details in their own setup above.
no stored settingsThe origin address Fraktjakt quotes from. The other carriers take their origin details inside their own setup above rather than here, which is why this section looks narrower than it sounds.
Where to
Destinations
The zones and countries you ship to.
Shipping zones
Group countries and regions so a rate table can charge by destination
no stored settingsGroups of countries and regions, so a rate table can charge differently by destination without a row per country. A zone is the practical way to say that Europe costs one thing and the rest of the world another. Build the zones here, then use them when building rate tables on the Shipping rates page.
💡 Note: Zones are used when you build rate tables under Settings › Shipping › Shipping rates. Countries and regions themselves are managed under Settings › Store › Countries & Regions.
Ship-to countries & regions
Where you are willing to ship
no stored settingsWhere you are willing to ship. This is a shortcut into the same ship-to switches held against each country in Countries and Regions, gathered here because it is a shipping decision as much as an address one. A country not enabled cannot be chosen at checkout.
💡 Note: Looking for the packing slip? What it prints is now set up in Settings › Emails & Documents › Documents, with gift and drop-ship versions and a live preview. Your existing choices moved with it.
Keep going
Related panels
The rate table behind the method chosen here.
Countries and regions, and where you ship.
Product weight and dimensions, which carriers quote on.
Pickup scheduling and the cart shipping estimator.
Fulfillment, carriers and tracking numbers.
Whether tax is charged on shipping.
What the packing slip prints.
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