12. Shipping heavy, bulky or specialised products

Set specific per product shipping for heavy, bulky or specialised products

Some products do not fit into the neat automated Royal Mail categories, for such special products you can override the default postage and set per-product shipping for as many countries as desired. This often applies to furniture and other large or heavy items.

Only ship each of your products to the countries you want to.

There is an advantage in simplicity, especially after Brexit, so if you choose to only send your products, or a portion of them to the UK, or any combination of countries, you can. Some traders may wish to limit the countries for specific products to,  to avoid legal issues within that country, or it is simply too difficult or expensive to export that product.

If you prefer to use your own courier or shipping options, no problem

There are almost infinite shipping options, while the standard ones include a wide selection suitable for most goods worldwide it is impossible to cover every possibility. Some traders may only ship using a specific courier and only within a limited set of countries, maybe only the UK.

  • If you want to override the default postage for a product, you can use the per-product option and set a postage rate for each country you wish to override by adding a rate and country code, or a single global rate by using a * 
  • If you setup Postage Per Product it will override the simple defaults for each country you specify
  • If you define a shipping class for a product then countries you do not override are given the default automated postage, giving you a useful fallback so you do not need to define every country if Royal Mail is an option.
  • If you do not set up a shipping class for a product, postage will only be calculated for those countries you specifically set a rate for, buyers from any other countries will not be able to checkout.
  • Step by step instructions on how to set shipping are shown below

Open your account Dashboard

Clicking on your My Account link at the top right opens the traders Dashboard. 

Open Store Manager from your Dashboard

Clicking on your account link at the top right opens the traders Dashboard. From the dashboard select Store Manager

Select Products from your Store Manager

  • Select the products option from the menu on the left side of your store manager display.
  • Edit the product by either clicking on the name or the edit icon 

Select Shipping from the edit Product screen

  • Scroll to the bottom of the product screen 
  • Select Shipping from the menu
  • To activate Per Product Shipping tick the checkbox

ONLY use your postage rules for this Product and disable the default postage options

This is very easy to do, but will make a big difference to who can buy from you and what postage they will pay.

This option is ideal if you only want to ship your product to a handful of countries, ideal for some specialist items.

  • Change the shipping class at the top of the shipping panel to “No Shipping Class“
  • Select how long it will take you to create/prepare the product and post it

Unless you include an entire World block using the country code * , only customers from countries you specify will be able to order your product.

Override the shipping for SOME countries

This allows you to customise the shipping options for some countries while leaving most of the World on a default Royal Mail shipping class, this can be a massive time saver. This will ensure that customers from anywhere in the World can order your product, but the countries you have special cased will get your customised shipping costs.

  • Select a Royal Mail Shipping Class from the shipping class dropdown
  • Select how long it will take you to create/prepare the product and post it

Set the Country Code

When you first activate Per Product Shipping it will have a “*” as the country code, this means Worldwide, and zeroes in Line and Item cost, this means you will charge nothing for sending your items worldwide, please change this immediately.

Replace the star in the country code box with a two character country code, you are unlikely to charge the same postage for every country,

If you leave the “*” in the country code it will apply the rates you enter to the entire world and charge the same postage.

Please note the code for the United Kingdom is GB 

For other countries see a list at the bottom of this page

To set special rates for more countries just click the + icon at the bottom right of the panel to open another shipping rate form for an additional country

Set Postage Price for single and multiple items

To give you maximum flexibility for your postage rates there are two fields for your postage charges Line Cost and Item Cost.

  • Item Costs are a base price applied to the product regardless of quantity
  • Line Costs are multiplied by the quantity ordered
  • Combination of the options above give you 3 different pricing models, details below

1. Shipping prices fixed regardless of number ordered

Example 1: Some products such as beads, or small jewellery can have a single postage price regardless of the number ordered, as almost any number of items will fall within the same postage cost, for these simply use Line Cost. This is shown in the first image, regardless of quantity the postage will be £4.50 

  • One ordered – £4.50
  • Two ordered – £4.50

2. Shipping cost multiplied by number ordered

Example 2: For heavy or large products it can be as expensive to ship a second item as the first so you could use the Line Cost so that customers will be charged £4.50 for each one they order. 

  • One ordered – £4.50
  • Two ordered – £9.00

3. Charge less shipping for multiple items

Example 3: For most products it is not as expensive to ship multiple items so for these products set a base price in Item Cost and an additional amount per item in Line Cost. Remember that the Line cost is ALWAYS applied even if the customer only orders one item. So the third 

  • One ordered – £4.50
  • Two ordered – £5.00

List of Common Country Codes

Replace the star in the country code box with a two character country code, you will not want to charge the same for every country, if you leave the “*” in the country code it will apply to the entire world and charge the same postage.

Common country codes

  • United Kingdom – GB 
  • United States – US
  • Australia – AU
  • New Zealand – NZ
  • Albania – AL
  • Andorra – AD
  • Armenia – AM
  • Austria – AT
  • Belarus – BY
  • Belgium – BE
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina – BA
  • Bulgaria – BG
  • Canada – CA
  • Croatia – HR
  • Cyprus – CY 
  • Czech Republic – CZ
  • Denmark – DK
  • Estonia – EE
  • Faroe Islands – FO
  • Finland – FI 
  • France – FR 
  • Georgia – GE
  • Germany – DE 
  • Gibraltar – GI
  • Greece – GR
  • Hungary – HU
  • Iceland – IS
  • Ireland – IE
  • Isle of Man – IM
  • Italy – IT
  • Kosovo – XK
  • Latvia – LV
  • Liechtenstein – LI
  • Lithuania – LT 
  • Luxembourg – LU 
  • Macedonia – MK
  • Malta – MT
  • Moldova – MD
  • Monaco – MC
  • Montenegro -ME
  • Netherlands – NL
  • Norway – NO
  • Poland – PO
  • Portugal – PT 
  • Romania – RO 
  • Russian Federation – RU
  • San Marino – SM
  • Serbia – RS
  • Slovakia – SK
  • Slovenia – SI
  • South Africa – ZA
  • Spain – ES
  • Sweden – SE
  • Switzerland – CH
  • Turkey – TR
  • Ukraine – UA
  • Vatican City State – VA