MDS Collivery

MDS Collivery is a South African delivery service providing their shipping rates quotes in real time. You can set up MDS Collivery in your Ecwid store and show live rates to your customers at checkout.

To use the automatic shipping rates from MDS Collivery, your store’s country must be South Africa and the currency of your store must be South African rand.

Setting up MDS Collivery rates

To offer MDS Collivery delivery options with automatically calculated rates at checkout:

Once you complete these steps, customers will start seeing MDS Collivery delivery options at checkout with automatically calculated rates.

Changing MDS Collivery settings

When you enable MDS Collivery, the default settings are applied so that you can offer this shipping method in your online store right away.

To change the default MDS Collivery settings in your Ecwid store:

1. From your Ecwid admin, go to Shipping & Pickup.
2. Click on the Activate menu in the MDS Collivery box and choose Edit.

You can change the following MDS Collivery settings:

• Choose shipping options
  Enable which MDS Collivery services you will use to ship orders. Customers will see these options at checkout.
  

  

• Show approximate delivery date at checkout
  Turn this on to display the approximate delivery date next to delivery options at checkout. A clearly stated delivery date lets customers understand when they can expect to receive their order, resulting in a higher number of successful sales.
  From the Order preparation time drop-down select 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.
  From the Days when you pack orders drop-down choose when you pack orders for shipment.
  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.
• Specify shipping region
  Select which destination zone the MDS Collivery rates will be available for in your store. You can choose to ship to particular city, or choose a specific zone on a map.
  Customers whose address doesn’t fall into the set zone won’t see MDS Collivery options at checkout. You can check areas where MDS Collivery is deliver to on their website.
• Add shipping markup
  The shipping markup is a hidden fixed fee that will be added to the MDS Collivery rates. Use this setting if you want to increase the shipping rates to cover your shipping expenses.
• Set minimum order subtotal
  You can limit the availability of this shipping method by order subtotal. If the order is below the set amount, this shipping method will be inactive at checkout.
• Add internal shipping name
  Enter the name that will be used to refer to this method in the admin panel. This name is for internal use only and cannot be seen by customers. The actual names of the shipping methods displayed at checkout are retrieved from the carrier.
• Package type
  Choose the optimal type of package to use with this delivery method. You can choose to deliver tender documents (for papers and documents), envelope (for A4-format items that are less than 2 kg) or package (for big items over 2 kg and size dimension above 20 cm).

Adding your MDS Collivery account

You can connect your own MDS Collivery shipping account to display at checkout lower shipping rates from the carrier as negotiated for your MDS Collivery account. If you don’t have an account, you can register it first on the MDS Collivery website.

To add your MDS Collivery account to your Ecwid store:

1. In your Ecwid admin, go to Shipping & Pickup.
2. In the MDS Collivery delivery option box click Actions → Edit.
3. Scroll down to the MDS Collivery account settings and click Use your own shipping account (advanced way).
4. Fill in the email and password from your MDS Collivery account.

To make sure that rates are shown properly you may need to customize your MDS Collivery account. Fill in your company details (company name, contact name, phone number, etc.), specify your default shipping address, add a logo, etc.

The default address that you specify in your MDS Collivery account will be used as the origin address to calculate live rates. Make sure you specify the correct origin address in your MDS Collivery account.

You can also choose the preferred package type for this method. Choose the optimal type of package to use with this delivery method. You can choose to deliver tender documents (for papers and documents), envelope (for A4-format items that are less than 2 kg) or package (for big items over 2 kg and size dimension above 20 cm).