How to Charge a Flat Rate on Individual Shipping Groups and Live Rates on Combinations

Overview

This guide goes through how to charge a flat rate on individual shipping groups and live rates on combinations.

Steps for Carriers

For this example, you charge a flat rate of $5.95 “Standard” shipping for one item and $7.95 “Standard” shipping for another set of items.

Step 1: Carriers

  1. Create a new Custom Carrier via the “Carriers” tab or in the ShipperHQ Marketplace
  2. Give the Carrier a name in the Basic panel
  3. In the Shipping Methods panel set the method named (in our case, “Standard”) and configure the other options for your flat method. Set the price to whatever base rate is relevant.
  4. Save the Custom Carrier
  5. Install a UPS Small Package Carrier via the “Carriers” tab or Marketplace if you don’t have one already. See details for validation and configuration of UPS in the doc linked.
  6. On the UPS Carrier, enable all shipping methods you wish to show through this carrier.
  7. Save UPS Carrier

Step 2: Shipping Groups

Two shipping groups will be used for this configuration. “FLAT5” will be used for the products that receive the $5.95 flat rate and “FLAT7” will be used for the products that receive the $7.95 flat rate.

Step 3: Shipping Rules

  1. Go to Shipping Rules and click the +New button
  2. In the Basic tab, give it a descriptive name (i.e. “Flat Rate $5.95 on FLAT5 items”)
  3. Under the Shipping Methods section, Add your Custom Rate Method (i.e. “Standard”) under Custom Shipping Methods Assigned
  4. In the Action tab under the “Action to Perform” section, ensure that I want to… is set to “Modify the Price of my selected Shipping Methods” and In Order to… is set to “Override Rates” and “By a Flat Rate”
  5. Enter $5.95 as the flat rate price and set And Apply The Rate to “Per Shipping Group” or “To Each Item in Shipping Group”
  6. In the Conditions tab, set the “FLAT5” shipping group under Shipping Groups Include ALL, and set “FLAT7” shipping group under Shipping Groups do NOT include.
  7. Also in Conditions tab, under Zones Include set any zones you wish this to apply to (if required), (e.g you may only want this to happen for US48)
  8. Save and test your rule.
  9. Create a second Shipping Rule for “Flat Rate $7.95 on FLAT7 items” and follow the above steps, swapping the included/excluded groups and set 7.95 as the shipping price.
  10. Create a third Shipping Rule for “Hide UPS for FLAT5”.
    • In Shipping Methods section, add all methods under the UPS carrier for Live Shipping Methods Assigned
    • In Conditions tab select FLAT5 in the must include drop-down field and all groups except FLAT5 in the excludes field
    • Under Actions, set the action to perform to “Hide my selected Shipping Methods”
  11. Repeat Step 3 for the FLAT7 shipping group
  12. Create a final Shipping Rule to “Hide Flat Rates for non Flat Rate items”
    • In Shipping Methods section, add the custom shipping method (i..e “Standard”)
    • In the Conditions tab, set Shipping Group Includes ALL field to all shipping groups except FLAT5 and FLAT7
    • Also in Conditions, specify any zones you wish this to include (if required).

Last Steps for Platforms

Magento Platform

  1. Sync your shipping groups, then you will see FLAT5 and FLAT7 in the shipping tab

BigCommerce Platform

  1. Add the relevant FLAT5 or FLAT7 shipping group to any items you wish to ship flat rate

Additional Options

You can optionally have flat rates surcharge UPS rates by changing the rule to surcharge rates.

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