Explains the Checkout Rates feature: requirements, how it works, and things to know.
ShipStation's Checkout Rates feature allows you to configure rates for your customers to select during their checkout process from your stores. Enabling this feature will let you control which rates display to your customers while also allowing them to select their preferred service and carrier.
To use Checkout Rates, you must first connect your store to ShipStation (if not connected already), connect the Checkout Rates feature in your store setup, then configure the rates you'd like your customers to see.
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A U.S.-based ShipStation account using the new layout (this feature is not available with ShipStation Legacy).
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An active account with a supported selling channel that is connected to ShipStation (Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, and Wix are currently supported).
If you have not connected your store to ShipStation, follow the instructions from your store's help article:
Magento and Shopify have store-specific requirements. Please review the Additional Features sections of their help articles for further details.
Checkout Rates can be set up to use a flat rate, which allows you to apply the same price to all shipments regardless of shipping cost, or live rates, which pulls a rate from your carrier accounts for the services you define in the Checkout Rates settings. For example, you could create a standard option using a live rate for a carrier and service that ships within 3-5 days.
When using the live rate pricing method, ShipStation takes the package weight sent from the store, ship-to zip code from the order, and ship-from address in ShipStation and requests rates for all the carrier services you specified. ShipStation compares those rates and passes back the least expensive result with its transit time to display in the store checkout screen.
Currently, the Checkout Rates feature must make the following assumptions about the shipments:
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Shipments are shipped from your default Ship From location.
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Shipments use package type: Package. There is currently no way to designate other package types or receive rates for other package types.
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Product weights from your ecommerce platform are the same as the shipping weight. For the most accurate rates, you may need to adjust the product weights to represent the shipping weights.
If this is not possible with your workflow, an alternate option would be to use the Rate Adjustment option provided in the Checkout Rates setup. This allows you to add a percentage or set amount to any rate returned by the carrier's API to compensate for any rate increase the package weight will incur.
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The Checkout Rates feature is curently only available for US-based ShipStation accounts.
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Some selling channels may have store-specific requirements for Checkout Rates to work.
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To calculate rates for your checkout options, ShipStation uses product weights from the ecommerce platform. Please make sure those product weights represent the shipping weights.
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If you include a Local Delivery option for Checkout Rates, a customer phone number is required on the order.
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The Checkout Rates feature assumes all shipments are shipping from your default Ship From Location and using a package type of Package. There is currently no way to choose other package types or enter package dimensions.
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Troubleshooting tip: If a rate is not appearing as an option in checkout:
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It was not the least expensive rate.
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The active checkbox for the rate may be unchecked. This box must be checked for ShipStation to send the option to your store checkout.
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Troubleshooting tip: If you see a blank page under Checkout after ShipStation enables Checkout Rates on your account, you must add a Ship From Location.
Automate the Shipping Service Selection
You can automatically apply a customer’s selected service to an order in ShipStation by checking this box in Store Setup > Checkout: “On order import, automatically set the Shipping Service selected by the customer at checkout.”
This option will override any other service mappings you have set up.
Click the Save Changes button to save this update.
