Overview
Shipping Regions are a feature in AmeriCommerce Online Stores that give store owners the ability to specify an area of countries, states or zip-codes in order to apply different shipping rules and costs to different geographic locations. Do you charge a different shipping rate for Alaska and Hawaii? Do you ship only within the U.K.? Or maybe you only ship to Texas and Louisiana? Shipping regions make all this possible.
Common Shipping Region Setup Example
In this example, we're going to setup shipping regions for a fictional brewing company based in Beaumont, Texas. The brewing company delivers to customers in Beaumont, offers 15% off shipping for all of Texas, charges regular rates for the lower 48 States, and charges an additional $25 to Alaska and Hawaii. We'll create a shipping region for each of these scenarios.
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Lower 48 States
To get started, navigate to Settings > Shipping > Shipping Regions from the admin console, and click New. This will open up the Edit Shipping Region screen:
On the Edit Shipping Region Screen, fill out the settings like so:
- Region Name: Lower 48 States
- Priority: 0
- Region Type: Zip code
- Zip Codes: Leave blank (don't type anything in this box, in other words).
- States: Select all states but Alaska and Hawaii and the Canadian Provinces. To do this, click on Alabama to select it. Then, scroll down until you see Wyoming. Hold the Shift Key on your keyboard while clicking Wyoming. This will select All 50 states. Now scroll up to Hawaii and hold the Ctrl key (Command for Mac) down while clicking Hawaii -- Hawaii should now be un-selected. Now do the same thing for Alaska. See screenshot below.
- Country for Zip Code Lookup: United States
- Leave the rest of the settings as they are, then click Save:
Follow the same basic process as above to create the other three shipping regions with the following settings:
Alaska and Hawaii
- Region Name: Alaska and Hawaii
- Priority: 5
- Region Type: Zip code
- Zip Codes: Leave blank (don't type anything in this box, in other words).
- States: Use Ctrl+Click to select just Alaska and Hawaii
- Country for Zip Code Lookup: United States
- Shipping Region Markup Amount: 25
- Markup Type: $ Per Package
- Leave the rest of the settings as they are, then click Save:
Texas
- Region Name: Texas
- Priority: 5
- Region Type: Zip code
- Zip Codes: Leave blank (don't type anything in this box, in other words).
- States: Use Ctrl+Click to select just Texas
- Country for Zip Code Lookup: United States
- Shipping Region Markup Amount: -15
- Markup Type: %
- Leave the rest of the settings as they are, then click Save:
Beaumont, TX
- Region Name: Beaumont
- Priority: 10
- Region Type: Zip code
- Zip Codes: Copy and paste a list of Beaumont, TX zip codes, return separated (separated by hitting return key)
- States: Leave as is (do not pick a state)
- Country for Zip Code Lookup: United States
- Leave the rest of the settings as they are, then click Save:
You are now finished! Your Shipping Regions List should look like this:
Shipping Region Settings
In the Basic Shipping Region Setup Example above, there were a lot of settings. Here's what they all do:
- Region Name: This is the name of the region. A region can be named almost anything. This name does not display to the customer
- Priority: If a customer's shipping address is within two regions (For example Texas and Beamont, TX), the region with the highest priority will be used.
- Region Type: Zip code or Country. Zip code allows you to select a state/province or specify zip codes. Country allows you to select and entire country.
- Zip Codes: Available when region type is Zip Code. This is where the zip codes can be specified, return separated.
- States: Available when region type is Zip Code. Select the states that will apply to the region. Do not select any states if using the Zip Code box above.
- Country for Zip Code Lookup: A Country must be selected here when the Region Type is Zip Code. If no Country is selected here, the region will not function.
- Shipping Region Markup Amount: Rate or flat dollar amount to be added to the shipping cost if a customer's shipping address is within the region
- Markup Type: Use % for a rate of increase and use $ Amount for a flat markup.
- Default Shipping Warehouse: The warehouse to be used for shipments within the shipping region can be selected here. Leaving Default selected will cause the Product's warehouse to be used.
- Region Restricted Payment Methods: Check the payment methods you do not want to be available for the region here.
There are also store specific shipping region settings in Settings > Shipping > General in the Shipping Region Restrictions Section:
- Ship Outside of Regions: If checked, customers will be able to place orders that will be shipped outside of your defined Shipping Regions.
- Call for Shipping Outside of Regions: When this is selected, an order with a shipping address outside of the defined regions will be treated as a 'call for shipping'. No shipping will be charged and a custom message can be displayed to the customer in the cart and on the order.
- Call for Shipping Outside of Region Message: This is the custom message that will be displayed when the Call for Shipping Outside of Regions is selected.
- No Ship Outside of Regions Message: This is the message displayed if a customer is attempting to ship outside of the defined Shipping Regions, when the Ship Outside of Regions setting is disabled
- Hide No Ship Outside of Regions Message By Default: Hide Region No Ship Message until Placing Order
Lastly, store specific Shipping Region Markups can be applied in Settings > Shipping > General in the Region Settings section.