Shipping

  • Updated on Dec 24, 2024
  • Published on Nov 15, 2024
  • 4 minute(s) read
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Shipping can be understood as a two-step process that consists of:

  • Offering shipping options: During checkout, shipping options are calculated and offered to the customer, to allow them to choose how and when they want their order delivered.

  • Booking a delivery: During fulfillment, a specific delivery time-slot is booked based on an estimate from the shipping provider confirming when the shipment can be delivered. At this point, the associate fulfilling the order can specify the shipping dimensions of the shipment and can confirm the final delivery slot. For more information on how to use the API to implement this, see Booking a shipment.

Note

NewStore sends an email confirmation to the customer when all the items in a fulfillment request have been shipped.

Shipping is one of the complex parts of your business to set up and manage. This guide will help you with:

  • Understanding shipping concepts

  • Planning your shipping solution

  • Integrating with shipping providers

Understanding shipping concepts

Before you set up your shipping, it's better to learn more about the following concepts:

After you understand how shipping works in NewStore, you're ready to configure your general shipping options, and also use them for any products that require custom shipping  configurations.

About shipping aggregators

A shipping aggregator is an external software vendor that partners with various shipping carriers to provide a single integration point. Shipping aggregators differ in their services based on the carriers they support or integrate with, their customs capabilities, their fees, and so on.

Shipping aggregators typically influence a specific region, because shipping carriers vary by regions.  The advantage of using a shipping aggregator is that customers can save money by shipping specific orders with specific carriers based on the best rate. From a NewStore perspective, we support a turnkey integration with EasyPost.

Using shipping aggregators

NewStore partners with shipping aggregators to enable shipping from stores. Every package shipped from a store, whether for a customer or internal transfer, must have a shipment booked for it. Below is a list of specific use cases where a shipping aggregator is used:

  • Getting shipping rates for potential orders

  • Booking shipments for orders

  • Refunding shipments for canceled orders

  • Automated recording of carrier pick ups

  • Tracking shipments through delivery

  • Creating shipping manifests of orders for carriers to pick up (Coming Soon)

Here is a list of shipping aggregators supported by NewStore.

Shipping aggregators supported by the NewStore platform​

Shipping aggregators supported via a custom integration​

Planning your shipping solution

The following workflow will help you with a bigger picture understanding of getting started with shipping:

  1. Creating your shipping solution: Before you begin setting up shipping, you have to determine your shipping solution.

    • Decide on the types of shipping you want to offer, such as 1 to 3 days delivery, express delivery, or custom shipping, and the pricing model for each level. You can also set up shipping policies, such as minimum order values for free shipping or shipping discounts for certain products. For more information, see Setting up the strategy.

    • Decide on the order fulfillment location. For more information, see Integrating a fulfillment provider.

  2. Integrating with NewStore EasyPost shipping provider: You can integrate with EasyPost so that you can have access to different shipping carriers and their services throgh a single shipping aggregator. This may require some technical expertise, so you have to contact the support team and learn more about the EasyPost  adapter.

    However, you have to create a custom adapter under the following conditions:

    • To integrate directly with shipping providers, such as UPS, FedEx, or DHL

    • To integrate with another shipping aggregator (other than EasyPost)

    For more information, see Integrating a shipping provider.

    Note

    You can use both, EasyPost and one or more custom adaptors, using configuration mappings between carriers. We recommend you to use the NewStore EasyPost shipping provider v3.1 to integrate with an EasyPost adapter, and v3.2 to integrate with a custom adapter.

  3. Setting up a shipping carrier: A carrier configuration is a mapping between a shipping_carrier_name (from the fulfillment configuration) to a shipping provider. For more information, see Configuring shipping settings  and the Add/Update carrier config API.

  1. Validating your shipping solution: Once you have set up shipping in the platform, you can try a soft routing to make sure that set up is working correctly. You can test the shipping solution using the Create routing options API.

  2. Monitoring and optimizing your shipping performance: After your shipping solution is enabled, you can monitor its performance to ensure that it is meeting your customers' expectations. You can track delivery times, shipping costs, and other metrics, and make adjustments to your shipping policies as required.

    Note

    You can use the Shipment notification configuration API to manage notification options for shipment statuses.

How shipping options are calculated

When a customer enters their shipping address, NewStore sends fulfillment locations where ATP exists for the products, to your shipping provider. The shipping provider creates shipping offers based on the information sent and returns shipping options for the order.

This is the workflow for calculating shipping options:

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