Plug Into Better Shipping Part 5: Rules Part 1- Creating Simple & Effective Shipping Rules

Whilst not everyone thinks shipping is cool, here at Temando we’re all about it. Providing your customers with the right delivery option at the right time can dramatically affect your conversion rates and even reduce your costs in the long run.

Why do you need rules? Shipping rules allow you to provide different shipping options and prices to your end customer. You can also apply different variables to the rule like product sku, postcode, time and demographics to control your shipping. Shipping rules enable you to execute your shipping strategy – so they’re pretty important to get right.

There are two levels of rules in the Temando Shipping Extension. Firstly, in the Starter module, you can enable basic pre-set rules. All other versions give you access to the advanced rules engine, where you can start to offer free shipping over a certain cart value or on certain SKU’s, as well as other rules. It gives you the ability to conduct shipping campaigns as well as takes into account heavier or larger SKU’s to ensure you don’t lose out.

This post covers the basic rules you can offer in all 4 plans.

Please note that the below 4 rules are the only rules available in the Starter plan. These rules can only be enabled and disabled, unlike the higher plans which allow you to create rules with IF THIS THEN THAT conditions and create rules on a more granular level.


Free Shipping - no charge to customer.

boohoo.com offer free shipping on all products

What: 
When this rule is enabled free shipping is displayed to all customers across all products


Why: 
If your shipping cost is built into your product margin or your strategy is to offer free shipping to stand out in a crowded market place.


Handy Tip:
#1 No dimensions are required on the product sku to quote the customer, however, dimensions are needed for Temando to quote the shipment. If you’re sending the same size packages, use the default settings we talked about in our earlier packaging blog article.


#2 If you have large bulky items we recommend not enabling free shipping. When free shipping is offered in a scenario where sending a kayak to Alice Springs is required, it can get pricey.

Fixed Price / Flat Rate - customer pays the same set amount.

featherandbuzz.com offer their customers a flat rate shipping price

What: 
When this rule is enabled the customer will pay a specified fixed price across all products. This can only be one nominated value in the starter plan.

Handy Tip:
#1 It is important not to give the impression that your shipping is expensive. Make shipping costs comparable to the cost of goods sold. A customer purchasing $5 napkins might not want to pay $9.95 for shipping on top of that.

Dynamic Pricing – Display all carriers or the cheapest or fastest or cheapest and fastest.
All:

Supercheap Auto empowers their customer through choice, displaying all quotes

What: 
This option will display all possible quotes from carriers that have been selected in the "allowed carriers" configuration setting. The customer then selects from the list of displayed quotes.


Why: 
This empowers the customer to select their preferred carrier and delivery time.


Handy Tip:
#1 You don’t have to have all carriers displaying, you can select only 1 i.e. Fastway, this will result in all relevant Fastway quotes being displayed to the customer.

Cheapest: Only the cheapest quote is shown.
What: 
Only the cheapest option for the delivery will be displayed.

Why: 
This will ensure your shipping costs are always competitive – relative to the postcode and dimensions of your shipment.

Handy Tip:
#1 Cheapest will often coincide with the slower services and are also referred to as standard shipping. Often the cheapest is a road service.

Fastest: Only the fastest quote is shown.
What: 
Only the fastest delivery option will be displayed to the customer

Why: 
Let your customer decide how urgent a purchase is. If they want it fast, make sure they can select an express option.

Handy Tip:
#1 Fastest is also referred to as Express shipping. This service will generally be 1-2days from metro to metro.

Cheapest and Fastest: The customer can choose between the cheapest or the fastest quote.
What: 
A combination of cheapest and fastest.


Why: 
Allows your customer more choice.


Handy Tip:
#1 On all dynamic options you can add a mark-up to the displayed price by either a fixed or percentage amount. This will help you turn shipping from a cost center into a profit center.

Next week we take a deeper look into creating shipping rules in the advanced rules engine. We also look at some of the cool campaigns you can create using shipping rules.