Set up shipping for an Ochre-managed Shopify store

Overview

To ensure that shipping can be properly managed once Shopify orders are ingested into Ochre, there are a few requirements for how shipping is set up on Shopify. We have deliberately kept these requirements to a minimum so you are free to charge for postage however you prefer. 

These steps should be completed as part of Shopify store setup - after the connection has been made between Ochre and Shopify, and before the store goes live.

Basic Concepts - Ochre

The key idea is that Ochre handles postage management using the concept of Postage classes. Within Ochre, the postage classes relevant to orders originating from a third-party retail channel are as follows:

• Standard Untracked - low cost, slower services that do not offer tracking
• Standard Tracked - low cost, slower services that do offer tracking
• Couriered - higher cost, faster services that offer tracking.
• Custom - used internally when no postage options can accommodate a given order/shipment.

When we configure shipping on Shopify, we need to do it in a way that communicates which Postage class should be used when processing the order in Ochre. 

Basic Concepts - Shopify

NB: Information below correct at time of writing. 

Shopify postage configuration involves a few concepts:

• Markets - these are the countries you want to sell to on your Shopify store. By adding a country to your market list, it becomes possible to set postage for that country.
• Shipping Profile - this is the 'parent' level entity in Shopify where shipping settings are configured. The main thing to note is that each product in Shopify can belong to only one shipping profile. By default, a 'General Profile' is created in Shopify; this should be used unless there is a specific need to do otherwise.
• Locations (i.e. Fulfillment Locations) - these are the places that goods ship from. When using Shopify via Ochre, we will write these locations to your Shopify store as part of store setup. Locations need to be added to a shipping profile (in this case the General Profile) in order for items to be sold/fulfilled from that location.
• Shipping Zones - within a shipping profile, shipping zones can be set up in order to create different shipping rates which apply only to that zone. You can have as many zones as you like, but a country needs to be added as a market before it can be included in a shipping zone.
• Shipping Rates - within a shipping zone, multiple shipping rates can be set up to apply postage according to rules you define (usually weight or order total).

Setting up Shopify postage for use with Ochre

1. In the Shopify settings menu (gear icon in the lower left), navigate to Markets and ensure that all countries you wish to ship to have been added. For the purposes of shipping, it does not matter how the markets are grouped.
2. Navigate to Locations and verify that your Ochre warehouse locations have been created in the 'All Locations' section at the top of the page. These are written automatically, so if they are not there, all steps should be completed for setting up a Shopify store on Ochre.
3. Once your Ochre locations are present, navigate to Shipping and Delivery. In the 'Shipping' section at the top, click on the 'General shipping rates' item. This will take you to a page where your general shipping profile can be configured.
4. Ensure that all products in your Shopify store are included in the General profile. If you need to set up multiple shipping profiles for some reason, please contact Ochre Operations to ensure that setup takes place correctly.
5. On the same page, locate the 'Fulfillment locations' section, and ensure that all Ochre warehouse locations are added to the general profile. These can be added via the 'Add locations' link on the top right of the section.
6. Locate the 'Shipping zones' section further down the page. It is important that all countries which Ochre will be handling are included in a shipping zone. Ochre and non-Ochre countries should not be included within a single shipping zone. As long as the above condition is met, shipping zones can be configured however you would like. 

Configuring shipping rates for Ochre-managed countries 

These steps should be followed for each zone covering Ochre-managed countries. 

1. In Shopify, on the Shipping Profile page, find the zone you want to configure. Select the 'Add rate' button.
2. For 'Rate type', select 'Use flat rate'. Further conditions can be set later.
3. for 'Shipping rate', select' Custom'. This will make a text field appear for the rate name - this name will be displayed to your Customers.
4. Under 'Custom rate name', type Standard Untracked. You can leave the delivery description blank.
5. Set your pricing for this rate, including any conditional pricing you'd like to use.
6. Important - if you are using conditional pricing, you can have multiple shipping rates with the same name - in this way, the name shown will be the same and you can change rates based on weight or order value. Please be sure to use the same name if setting up this way.
7. Select 'Done' to save the rate.
8. Repeat for all desired weight/cost bands for the Standard Untracked  postage class.
9. Repeat for two additional postage classes: Standard Tracked and Couriered. If using untracked postage options on Shopify, please ensure these are also available and set up on Ochre (for instance - there are no untracked postage options in use for the UK, so this postage class is not needed). 

What to do if you want to use different names for your postage classes

If you think your Customers would prefer to see different names for postage classes, this is possible but requires a small amount of additional configuration on the Ochre side. 

Determine what your postage class names are, and then inform Ochre Operations and let them know what 'alias' you want to use for each class: Standard Untracked, Standard Tracked, and Couriered. For example, you may prefer to use 'Express' instead of couriered.