Flat rates

You can charge your customers a flat shipping rate for any order, regardless of quantity. This is useful for merchants who want to deliver products themselves or offer their own fixed cost for different delivery methods such as Standard Ground or Express Overnight.

You can also charge a flat rate based on how many units of a product are in the cart if quantity matters or you need to charge extra to ship certain (e.g. large or fragile) products.

Flat rate per order

With a flat rate per order, you can charge a single rate to ship all orders to specific locations regardless of how many items are ordered. A flat rate can be a whole amount or a percentage of the order subtotal. Flat rate shipping is well-suited for stores selling items where shipping costs are negligible, all items are approximately the same size and weight, or you deliver orders yourself.

Example: Standard Shipping $5.

To set up a flat rate per order in your store:

1. From your Ecwid admin, go to Shipping & Pickup.
2. Click +Add Shipping.
3. Select the carrier to ship your goods.
4. In the Flat Rate section, click Set Up Flat Rate.
5. Update the Shipping name at checkout if necessary. Customers will see this name at checkout.
6. Select either an Amount or Percent rate and then enter the shipping cost or percentage. Example for a $5 flat shipping:
   

   

7. Optional: Click Add description for customers and enter the details you want to display at checkout. For example, describe how the shipment will be handed over to the buyer.
8. Optional: Click Limit availability by order subtotal, if you want to offer this shipping method only to customers with orders over a certain sum. Then specify the minimum order subtotal, i.e. the sum of all items in the cart before adding shipping costs and discounts. When this limit is reached, customers will be able to choose this shipping option at checkout.
9. Optional: Click Show approximate delivery date at checkout to display the approximate delivery date next to shipping options at checkout.
   When it comes to shipping, customers want to know when they will receive their order. A specific delivery date at checkout gives your buyers a better customer experience — they can clearly understand when to expect to receive their order, resulting in a higher number of successful sales.

   Then set it up:

   • In the Estimated transit time specify how long it usually takes for the package to be delivered after being handed in to the shipping company. You can find the information at the carriers’ website.
   • In the Days when packages are delivered, specify days of the week when your orders can be delivered. These days will be taken into account when calculating and displaying the approximate delivery date for customers at checkout.
   • 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.
   • In the Days when you pack orders specify when you pack orders for shipment. Also 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.

   Your Ecwid store will automatically calculate the delivery time and show it at the checkout so your customers can clearly see it.

10. Click Set shipping region to specify the destination to which this flat rate applies. If you leave the default No limitations zone, your flat rate shipping option will be available for all customer addresses.
11. Click Save & Finish.

Now the newly configured flat rate will be available at checkout for customers ordering goods to the set location:

Repeat the above steps to set up flat rates for other destination zones if necessary.

Flat rate per item

Some products in your store may require additional handling or packaging, or they may be much larger than other products that you ship. For these products you can set up an individual, fixed per-item fee to cover these extra shipping expenses.

There are two ways you can add a per-item fee to a specific product:

• You can charge a per-item fee on a certain product on top of your regular shipping rates.
  Example: You sell home goods like textiles and fragile water-glasses, the latter requires extra packaging. You can charge an extra fee on top of your regular shipping rates for each water-glass in the cart.
• You can charge a per-item fee on a certain product instead of your regular shipping rates.
  Example: You use real-time shipping quotes and one of your products is so heavy that it exceeds the limits of all available carrier’s methods. To solve this issue, you can charge the shipping cost for this product separately by setting a fixed per-item rate for this specific product.

To set up a fixed per-item rate:

Example 1. You’ve set a $1 per-item fee on top of your regular $5 shipping cost for a certain product. Here is how this setup looks at checkout with two items of this product in the cart:

In the above example the shipping cost has been calculated at $1 for the first item of the product + $1 for the second item of the product + the regular store-wide $5 shipping rate.

Example 2. You’ve added a fixed $30 per-item rate for a certain product. This rate will be charged for shipping at checkout instead of your regular shipping rate. Here is how this setup looks at checkout with two items of the product in the cart:

In the above example, the shipping cost has been calculated as $30 for the first item of the product + $30 for the second item of the product. 

FAQ

I want to charge the same per-item fee across the store. Can I set a universal flat rate per item?

Yes, if you charge the same per-item fee for all products, you don’t have to add this rate to every product. Instead you can simply set the same per-item rate globally using custom tables.

To set a universal flat rate per item across your store:

1. From your Ecwid admin, go to Shipping & Pickup.
2. Click +Add Shipping.
3. Choose Local delivery, then Custom Rates.
4. Choose Subtotal from the Table based on dropdown;
5. Choose the Range, subtotal, weight option from the Rates based on dropdown
6. Specify a per item fee for a subtotal range (for example, $0 - ∞ range, so that all orders are affected).
7. Choose the shipping region, i.e. destination zone, to which this rate applies.
8. Click Save & Finish.

Now the same per-item rate will be set across your store for that destination zone.

I need to charge a flat rate for shipping a certain product to certain locations only. How can I do this?

If you need to charge a flat rate for delivering a specific product to a specific country, consider the following solution:

1. From your Ecwid admin, go to Shipping & Pickup and add one of these flat rates:
   • add a Flat Rate per order if you want the rate to apply to any order containing any quantity of that product;
   • add a Flat rate per item via a custom table if you want to apply a specific rate for each item of that product in the cart;
   When adding one of these flat rate shipping methods, make sure to choose the applicable country as the destination zone.
2. From your Ecwid admin, go to Catalog → Products, open that particular product for editing and click the Shipping & Pickup tab. Next, add the flat rate shipping to the list of enabled shipping methods for this product (use the Specify shipping methods for this product option from the product-specific shipping methods dropdown).
3. Then, to disable this rate for the rest products, add the flat rate shipping method to the lists of disabled shipping methods on the editing pages for all your other products (Shipping & Pickup tab). Now this flat rate will not be added to their items at checkout.