Shipping edge case scenarios

Daniel Orge
Daniel Orge
  • Updated

Introduction

In this article, we describe shipping edge case scenarios.

Getting started

Enabling your shipping setup -  be it a simple or the most complex one - needs to consider up to three factors:
 
  • What your customer pays for shipping at checkout;
  • If you will provide labels to your vendors;
  • What you invoice your vendors for shipping costs. 
 
While Onport has out-of-the-box support for the most common shipping setups to seamlessly connect you, your customers, and your vendors, some particular cases may require an alternative setup. In this article, find some of the scenarios Onport can support.

Flat rates at customer checkout while providing vendor labels

Be it through your e-commerce platform or using Onport as a source of third-party shipping rates, you can set cart level, shipment level, or product level flat shipping fees according to your business needs.
 
Onport can import orders with the shipping rate the customer paid for if this is set on your e-commerce platform. If using Shopify, Onport can also be the responsible party for driving shipping rates to your customer checkout, at a cart level.
❗️ Consult if your Shopify account allows this feature.

These fees can be either agreed upon with the vendor or defined by you.

Label generation

- Enable “Provide Shipping labels”;
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- Configure a Vendor Shipping Rate of the “Live Carrier Rates” type or "Shipping Zones" and assign your vendor to it; 

 

Checkout rates

- If you’re using Onport as a third-party rate provider in Shopify, enable “Charge my customer a different rate at checkout” and choose the relevant flat rate for your customer in “Manage channel rates”; 

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- If you’re using checkout rates from your eCommerce channel, this step doesn’t require setup in Onport;

 

Invoicing

- If you want to charge your vendor for the shipping labels, you need to enable “Invoice shipping costs” in the Payment setup tab and choose "Reduce payout by shipping total" under "How should the shipping amount be applied."

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- If you’re not looking to pay or be paid for labels under these circumstances, you can simply leave “ Invoice shipping costs” unchecked.
In the Shipping tab, make sure to enable “USE SAME SHIPPING RATE PAID BY CUSTOMER” or "USE VENDOR SHIPPING RATES” depending on whether you have checkout rates set up in Onport or in your eCommerce platform;

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Use labels generated outside Onport

Be it because you use a carrier that isn’t included in one of the various aggregators we integrate with or because you choose not to use an aggregator, you may want to use labels generated outside Onport.
 

Label generation

If you’re generating the labels and providing them to the vendor, outside of Onport, it is possible to:

- Upload them inside the Purchase Order to make them available in the vendor’s Dropship Portal:

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- Update the tracking details in the Dropship Purchases section by clicking “Purchase label” and selecting the “Tracking” tab:

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❗️This is possible if the vendor is using Vendor Portal. If done from the Marketplace, in Onport, the order must be marked as shipped first.

If using a fully automated order integration method, in order to add the shipping label for the vendor to use, the order could not process and route to the dropship provider automatically. The order would need to be paused, allowing the Marketplace to manually add the shipping label. Once added, Marketplace could finalize the order in Onport to trigger the routing to the vendors respectively, with the shipping labels.


If your vendors are generating the labels on their end instead, it is possible for them to:

  • Upload the tracking details including the label file in the vendor portal by clicking “I have tracking details.”
 
❗️Adding the label pdf is only possible if the vendor uses the Vendor Portal.
 

Checkout rates

Follow the options provided in FLAT RATES AT CHECKOUT WHILE PROVIDING LABELS.

Invoicing

Follow the options provided in FLAT RATES AT CHECKOUT WHILE PROVIDING LABELS.


Vendor is fully responsible for shipping

When you have agreed that the vendor is fully responsible for shipping, meaning, as Marketplace you will not be providing labels or adding any shipping to the invoicing between parts, Onport is able to support this setup.

Label generation

Given you will not be responsible for generating or providing labels to vendors, in the Shipping tab, enable “USE SAME SHIPPING RATE PAID BY CUSTOMER”.
Note* Using vendor shipping rate also works but would require associating a rate to the vendor. The option "Use same shipping rate paid by customer" will allow the vendor, if they use the Vendor portal, to view the shipping method prefers to use, in case you give the customer an option at checkout - for example Standard or Express.

 

Checkout rates

Follow the options provided in FLAT RATES AT CHECKOUT WHILE PROVIDING LABELS.

 

Invoicing

If you’re not looking to invoice your vendors for shipping, whether it is to charge it or pay for it, guarantee that the option “Invoice shipping costs" under the payments tab is disabled.

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