How to Surcharge Rates Over a Certain Weight Threshold

Overview

A common scenario for ShipperHQ merchants is to use shipping rules to apply an additional fee based on the weight of a order.

For example, a cart weight that is more than 50 Lbs could be an area where an additional surcharge could be collected by a merchant.

In the guide below, we’ll outline how to apply a surcharge of $5.00 on UPS Ground for a cart weight over 50 lbs.

Requirements

Before you begin, please ensure you have the following:

  • Your Carrier set up with shipping methods selected and defined.

Setup

To create a surcharge rule based on cart weight, you’ll need a shipping filter and a shipping rule.

The shipping filter will determine the cart weight at which the rule will be applied.

Creating a Shipping Filter

  1. Click on “Filters” on from the left-hand navigation in ShipperHQ and then click the +New option.

Location of Filters option under Shipping Rules menu.

Click New to start creating a new filter.

2. In the filter setup page, enter the name for your filter.

We’ll use “50 LBs +” in this example.

  1. Select Filter Applies to Origin.
  2. It is also recommended that a brief description for the filter’s purpose be added to the text box titled “Internal Description.” This is helpful context for SHQ support and your team members in understanding the purpose of the filter.

Example showing details to be filled in Overview section of the filter.

3. Set a Weight Range of 50 LBs & No Maximum Weight.

Example showing how to set up weight based filter.

4. Save your new filter.

Once this is complete, you’ll be able to select this option when building your new shipping rule.

Creating your Shipping Rule

1. To create the new shipping rule, navigate to the “Shipping Rules” option in the left-hand navigation menu.

Location of All Shipping Rules option under Shipping Rules menu.

2. Click “Add New” to create a new shipping rule.

Location of New button to click and create a new shipping rule.

3. Select “Surcharge Rates” for the action you would like the rule to perform.

Location to select Surcharge Rates as the action for this shipping rule.

4. Select the flat rate or percentage you would like to surcharge.

In this case, we’ll simply set a flat rate of $5.00.

Setting to select how the surcharges will apply for this rule. For example, Flat Rate, Percentage Rate or both.
Example showing details to be filled to create a Flat Rate surcharge rule.

5. Be sure to specify how the surcharge should be applied.

Setting to select how the surcharge will apply to the cart.

6. Choose the shipping methods to be used in this surcharge rule from a list of all available shipping methods

Example showing how to select shipping methods on which this rule will be applicable.

7. Click the option to use “Weight” for the rule condition to apply this surcharge to the selected methods then click “Continue” to proceed to the next step.

Location to select Weight as the condition for the surcharge shipping rule.

8. Next you will be presented with a prompt to enter the weight to use for your rule.

If you have not yet created the weight filter, you can do so here.

Example showing how to configure weight condition for the rule.

If you have already created a weight filter from the initial steps above, you can also simply opt to Apply an Existing Filter.

Setting to create a new filter for the shipping rule.

9. Select the existing weight filter from the drop-down menu that appears on the next screen.

Example showing selecting a weight based filter for this example.

10. After selecting the weight filter and proceeding, a summary of the shipping rule will be displayed.

Be sure to add a title for the new rule so that it can be easily identified in the shipping rules list and when testing.

Sample showing the summary of a shipping rule before you click Finish and complete the rule creation.

11. Click “Finish” to save the new rule. This will apply the rule immediately.

Once the rule has been created, we recommend using the “Test your Rates” feature to confirm the new rule is working as intended.

Test Your Rates

Verify that your carriers and rules are working and see how they will display in your checkout right from the ShipperHQ dashboard.

Learn More

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