Real-time Rates From Carriers

Shipping rates are calculated in real-time based on the order weight, parcel or product dimensions, and delivery address.

Initial Shipping Setup

Before connecting a carrier for real-time shipping quotes, follow these steps:

Mark Products as Shippable and Enter Products’ Weight

Specify weight value and tick the Requires shipping or pickup setting for the products that you are going to ship. You can do this in product editing pages:

Note: You can choose the necessary weight unit for your store: go Settings → General → Regional Settings, Weight & Size block.

Specify Origin (Where You Are Shipping From)

Shipping origin is automatically created from the Company Address specified in Settings → General → Store Profile at the initial store set up. Make sure that the right address is entered there. If you are shipping products from another place, specify that address as your shipping origin to receive precise shipping quotes from the carrier enabled in your store.

To edit the Shipping Origin address (if it is different from your company address):

  1. Go to Shipping & Pickup.
  2. Under the Settings block find the Shipping Origin section.
  3. Click Change Address.
  4. Select the option I ship orders from a warehouse or another location and edit the address.
  5. Click Submit to save the changes.

Set up Destination Zones (Where you are shipping to)

Destination zones are geographical areas where you ship your products. You can offer different shipping methods for customers from different destination zones, for example, ship via USPS within the continental United States and ship via FedEx to the Hawaiian Islands.

You can also choose not to sell to certain areas – if a shopper enters a shipping address that is not included in any of your destination zones, they will see the “Sorry we do not ship to this location” error.

Real-Time Rates from Integrated Carriers

The following carrier companies automatically show their shipping rates for customers’ orders at checkout:

  • UPS
  • USPS
  • FedEx
  • Canada Post
  • Royal Mail
  • Australia Post

To enable the automatically calculated rates in your store:

  1. Go to Shipping & Pickup.
  2. Click Add Shipping Method.
  3. Select the carrier company that you ship with. The carrier companies are suggested depending on your country. Click Set up.

4. If you don't see the needed carrier among the suggested options, you can view all carriers or change your country below.

5. Choose Automatically calculated rates from the chosen carrier and click Set up.

If you are going to ship worldwide and offer all the available shipping options from the set carrier, no additional setup is needed.

The default “World” destination zone will be applied to an enabled shipping method, it means that buyers from any location can place orders. Also, popular shipping options of a carrier will be pre-enabled (for example, U.S.P.S. First-Class Mail®, U.S.P.S. Priority Mail™, etc). If you are going to ship orders within a certain area and you want to offer particular shipping methods at checkout, you can edit the settings of the shipping method.

Choosing Shipping Options for Real-time Rates

To select what shipping options of a carrier will be offered to customers at checkout:

  1. Go to Shipping & Pickup.
  2. Click Actions → Edit next to the set carrier-calculated option.
  3. In the Shipping Options section, enable the rates you want to offer at checkout and disable those you don't need. Changes are saved automatically.


To display the approximate delivery date next to delivery options at checkout:

  1. Enable Show estimated delivery date at checkout toggle.
  2. In the Order preparation time specify how many days it usually takes for you to prepare an order. That time will be taken into account when calculating the delivery date for customers.
  3. In the Days when you pack orders specify when you pack orders for shipment.
  4. Set the final time to pack orders in the I pack orders received past this time on the next day box. Your schedule will be taken into account when calculating the delivery date for customers.
  5. Click Save.

Choosing Shipping Region for Real-time Rates

To select the geographical area where the shipping method can be offered:

  1. Click Actions → Edit next to the set carrier-calculated option.
  2. Select a destination zone from the Shipping region.
  3. Click Save.

Product Dimensions

If your products have different sizes and weights, you can specify their dimensional weight to receive more accurate real-time rates from the carriers at checkout.

To add the product dimensions:

  1. Go to Catalog → Products.
  2. Open the product details page.
  3. Make sure the option Requires shipping or pickup is enabled for this product.

4. Switch to the Tax and Shipping tab.

5. Fill out the Weight, Length, Width, and Height fields.

Note: To obtain the correct product dimensions, measure the product as if it were in a regular rectangular box.

The package dimensions are used to calculate real-time shipping rates for products with no individual dimensions specified. If most of your products fit into the same shipping boxes, you can specify the package dimensions only.

To add the package dimensions:

  1. Go to Shipping & Pickup.
  2. Click Actions → Edit for the configured carrier-calculated shipping method.
  3. Under the Shipping settings block find the Default package size section.
  4. Fill out the Width, Length, and Height fields for the Default package dimensions.

5. Click Save to apply the changes.

Shipping Markup

You may want to slightly increase shipping rates to be compensated for the postage or any other expenses related to order fulfillment. You can adjust the automatic rates of carrier-calculated shipping methods with the help of the Shipping markup option. The fee will be included in the shipping rate provided by the carrier company.

To add a markup to a carrier-calculated shipping method:

  1. Go to Shipping & Pickup.
  2. Click Actions → Edit for the configured carrier-calculated shipping method.
  3. Under the Shipping settings block, find and fill out the Shipping markup field with a flat amount that will be included in the shipping fees.
  4. Click Save.

Minimum Order Aubtotal for a Shipping Method

You can set a minimum order subtotal for any shipping method in your store. If the purchase amount before discounts is below this amount, then the shipping option will be unavailable at checkout. Customers will see how much the order should cost so that they can select this particular shipping method.

To set a minimum order subtotal:

  1. Go to Shipping & Pickup.
  2. Click Actions → Edit for the configured carrier-calculated shipping method.
  3. Scroll to the Minimum order subtotal section and enter the amount.
  4. Click Save.