About Shopify Shipping Zones
Our app allows you set rules per shipping zone, per fulfillment service.
Shipping zones are defined shipping areas based on countries and/or provinces.
Common Shipping Zones set-ups could be:
- USA, Canada, International.
- Domestic, Rest of the World
- Contiguous 48 States, Hawaii, Alaska
- etc.
Shopify has done a great job of providing shop owners with an interface for configuring multiple granular shipping zones.
Instead of reinventing the wheel, we let you set-up shipping zones within the normal Shopify admin and then we draw those zones into our app to allow you to specify rules for each zone, for each fulfillment service ( vendor ).
How our app interacts with Shopify shipping zones.
When an existing zone is edited
When you create a shipping zone in the Shopify admin, it is assigned a hidden unique ID. We use this ID to maintain that shipping zone in our app. If you edit an existing zone by either changing its countries or provinces, or by changing its label, we will keep the rates you’ve configured in our app tied to that zone.
When an existing zone is deleted.
If you delete a zone from the Shopify admin, that zone along with all the rates configured in our app for that zone, will be deleted as well! So be careful when deleting zones in Shopify. If you lose those rates, you will have to reconfigure them from scratch in our app.
When a new zone is created
When you create a new shipping zone in Shopify, we will load that zone as a new blank slot for a rate into each fulfillment service/vendor set-up in our app. You will then have to go into each fulfillment service/vendor and create a rate for that zone. We have added a feature that allows you to clone rates from any currently configured zone within a fulfillment service/vendor to that newly created zone.
Case Study: Cloning rates from existing shipping zones
Let’s say you have a shop with shipping zones set-up for US, Canada, UK, and Rest of Europe, and you have a handful of vendors/fulfillment services set-up with rates configured for each zone.
Now imagine you get a new vendor who is located in Germany, and tells you that they have different shipping rates. One rate for shipping within Germany, one rate for rest of Europe, and one rate for US/Canada.
You would first go into your shipping zone, in the Shopify admin, for “Rest of Europe” and remove Germany from the list, retitle the zone something like “Europe, not Germany, not UK” and save.
Then you would create a new a shipping zone “Germany”, and save.
Now when you open the Vendor Shipping Rules app, you will see that the shipping zone label for “Rest of Europe” has changed to “Rest of Europe, not Germany, not UK”, and the rules set-up for that zone have remained intact. You will also notice that an additional shipping zone will appear labeled “Germany”, with blank rules next to it for each fulfillment service/vendor.
You will then want to “Add Rule” for each fulfillment service’s Germany zone, and you’ll notice that there is an option “Clone rate from an existing shipping zone”, choose that one, and select the zone “Rest of Europe, not Germany, not UK” and save.
For all the pre-exiting fulfillment services/vendors you will want the same rate for the shipping zone “Rest of Europe, not Germany, not UK” and for the shipping zone “Germany”.
Now go ahead and create a new fulfillment service for your German vendor, and assign that fulfillment service to all of the products you have set-up for them in your shop.
Go back into the Vendor Shipping Rules app and you will see the Fulfillment Service for them created with blank rules for all the shipping zones. Add rules for Germany, “Rest of Europe, not Germany, not UK” and for US. Then add rule to Canada, but choose the “Clone rate” option, and clone the rate from the US. Then add a rule to UK, but choose the “Clone rate” option, and clone the rate from “Rest of Europe, not Germany, not UK”.