Configuring shipping charges is one of the most difficult pieces you will need to complete. There is NO perfect solution. The best solution wil give you a close enough estimate to cover your shipping costs over time.

Remember that the way you charge customers for shipping is not tied to your actual shipping costs.  The shipping calculation is an independent calculation made during the customer’s check out.

If you sell outside your country you will want to set up a separate shipping calculation for international orders.

Table Rate Shipping

This is the most popular choice among dealers because it is simple, easy to configure, easy to adjust and easy for the customer to understand.

Table rates are set up using either price or weight. Most dealers use price as the basis for calculating charges.

Here is an example.  You can set it up anyway you want and it is very easy to adjust as you become more experienced with how much you are spending on shipping.

0 – $24.99:  $4.00
$25.00 – $49.99:  $8.00
$50.00 – $74.99: $12.50
$75.00 + :  Free Shipping

Note you do not have to add a Free Shipping level but customers love free shipping.  Check to see what your competitors are doing and try to match their free shipping level if you can.  Customers often will try to fill their shopping cart just to get to the free shipping level.

Integrated Plugin

We can add an integrated plugin that tries to estimate what the shipping will cost based on the shipping destination and the weight and dimensions of the products purchased.  Plugins require that ALL products have BOTH weight and dimension data. If one of these is missing, such as the dimensions of a product, it can dramatically alter the shipping cost the customer sees during checkout. If you plan on adding non-Murphy’s products to your store be sure that they have weight and dimension data.  (Note sometimes Murphy’s products do not have complete information).

We can provide the following premium plugins at no additional charge to you.

USPS:  This is the most popular of the integrated shipping plugins.  You do not need a USPS account but you do need a U.S. based address for your store. There is a lot of additional configuration that you will need to do once this plugin is installed, eg. selecting which shipping methods to offer. We will set the plugin up with some basic settings and then show you how to tweak the settings.

FedEx: This plugin does require you to have an account and provide specific account information to tie into their API. This is not an easy configuration for most dealers. Once it is added to your website the rest of the configuration is similar to USPS.

Next Steps:

  1. Are you selling internationally as well as within your country?  If so you will need to set up two sets of shipping configurations. Most dealers use an integrated plugin for international shipping because shipping charges can vary greatly when shipping to other countries.
  2. Do you want to offer a free shipping level? If so you need to provide the price point that free shipping is offered for domestic orders (and a different price point if offering free shipping for international orders).
  3. Complete the form.
    1. Let us know how you are calculating Domestic. If you are going to use a table rate you must define rates down to the penny (ie. $24.99) in the form.
    2. Let us know how you are calculating International Shipping. If you want to use a plugin, specify which plugin. We will contact you for more details as needed.
    3. Define any Free Shipping levels you are offering

Here is the form:  Shipping Calculations

Back to Dealer Resources