It's inefficient to have your warehouse staff manually select the appropriate shipping method for each order. Instead, you can have ShipHero automatically map how you want each order to ship. You have three options you can map to:
- A particular shipping method, such as UPS Ground.
- The cheapest available option.
- The cheapest available option will get to them within a certain number of business days.
Mapping to Cheapest
When orders come in and are not mapped, they are given the Generic shipping label, and you can then choose which method to ship by on the iPad.
Make sure that the carriers that you want to use are added on the Shipping > Carriers page:
Now we can map our shipping methods using the Shipping > Methods page.
For example, say that you have an unmapped shipping method named "Free." You can quickly find it using the Search field, and then click its name to edit its settings:
In the example above, the shipping method was edited to map it to cheapest / Ever. This change won’t affect current orders. All new orders with the method "Free" will now have a shipping method of cheapest / Ever, and in the apps, the packer won’t have to choose a shipping method. It will automatically ship via the cheapest method available.
Mapping to a Specific Method
You can also map to a specific shipping method. For example, say that you want to map to UPS Ground and set a shipping cut-off:
This configuration sets a shipping cut-off at 1:00 PM, and orders that come in before that time have a required ship date of Same Day. You can map different cut-offs for different methods based on what you promise your customers and your business needs.
For example, you can say orders with UPS Next Day Air ship the same day if received by 4:00 PM, and orders with free shipping ship the same day if received before noon. Orders are sorted by the required ship date, so you see the most urgent orders first, and you can always ship orders that are not required to ship today earlier if you want. The dashboard also shows you all the orders that need to ship today based on the required ship date.
Wildcard Matching
When editing a shipping method, you have the option to Use wildcard matching. This checkbox is disabled by default. It is meant to be used when you have many shipping methods that have the same word in them, and you want to map them all as the same method.
For example, if you had shipping methods of:
- Free Shipping – New York
- Free Shipping – New Jersey
- Free Shipping – California
You would make one rule for “Free Shipping – ” and select the Use wildcard matching checkbox to avoid having to map one method for each state.
