All You Need to Know About Magento Shipping and Extensions

Magento supports a wide range of shipping methods and carriers. The basic shipping methods are the following:

• ✔ Flat rate
• ✔ Free shipping
• ✔ Table rates
• ✔ Online rates

Flat rate is a standard rate charged for transport packages regardless of weight or size. However, as a business owner, you should pay attention to averaging the costs to avoid losing money on shipments. Used with the flat-rate packaging available from shipping providers, it can be a perfect solution for your store.

Free shipping is a very effective tool to promote your products. In Magento, this shipping method can be based on a minimum purchase or set up as a shopping cart price rule that applies when a set of conditions meet. However, you should keep in mind that this strategy works well only if your online shop features a limited amount of products and the shipping cost does not exceed 20% of the product price, or, as mentioned above, for promotional purposes.

The table rate shipping method allows you to create complex rules for shipping your products worldwide. You can define multiple rates based on different conditions. Here are the three main ways to set up your table rates:

• ✔ Weight v. Destination;
• ✔ Price v. Destination;
• ✔ # of Items v. Destination.

Online rates are the dynamic rates from various shipping providers. One of the advantages of Magento is that it is pre-integrated with the world most popular shipping providers:

• ✔ DHL;
• ✔ UPS;
• ✔ FedEx;
• ✔ USPS.

To enable any of these shipping provider services in the online store, you have just to enter specific data that you can get from your service provider and configure a few settings. The configuration options vary for each carrier.

Default shipping methods. Magento 2 admin interface

Shipping is one of the most important indications of service quality. If the customers do not get their products fast, they consider your service being poor. That’s why the choice of the right shipping service provider should be one of your top priorities. Except for the four carriers mentioned above, there is a great variety of pages to choose from.

Below is the list of the most popular shipping service providers from different countries, along with some extension suggestions to integrate those providers’ systems with Magento. Though providers in the table are related to a specific country, they are international leaders and offer their services worldwide. For example, UPS and FedEx ship goods in more than 220 countries.

The basic Magento version includes a lot of shipping opportunities. However, if it doesn’t completely cover your business needs, there is a great variety of extensions that you can use to extend shipping functionality in your Magento store.

We have listed some of the shipping extensions available on Magento Marketplace:

• ✔ Custom Carrier Trackers;
• ✔ Shipping Suite Ultimate;
• ✔ Shipping restrictions by Amasty;
• ✔ ShipperHQ;
• ✔ Shipment Tracking;
• ✔ Delivery Slot With REST API.

Custom Carrier Trackers

Price: $89

Compatibility: OpenSource(CE) 2.3-2.4, Commerce (EE) 2.3-2.4, Cloud (ECE) 2.3-2.4

Custom Carrier Trackers allows users to add custom tracking methods to Magento, disable default tracking methods and make tracking links in emails clickable for customers.

Extension features:

• ✔ Adds ten new completely generic trackers in Magento;
• ✔ Each tracker is freely configurable;
• ✔ The tracking number and postcode get replaced in the tracking URL automatically;
• ✔ It gives customers the ability to track their order directly from the shipment email;
• ✔ Default Magento tracking methods can be disabled and hidden.

Shipping Suite Ultimate

Price: $399

Compatibility: OpenSource(CE) 2.3-2.4, Commerce (EE) 2.3-2.4, Cloud (ECE) 2.3-2.4

Shipping Suite provides a solution for advanced shipping zones management, the automated process of detecting customer location, and flexible shipping rules and restrictions.

Extension features:

• ✔ It gives the ability to overwrite or re-calculate different rates received from shipping method providers;
• ✔ Allows creating different conditions using an address, product, and cart attributes;
• ✔ Allows creating shipping zones for specific countries and assign specific products, categories, and shipping methods to these zones;
• ✔ Shipping location can be determined automatically by visitor’s IP address using MaxMind technology.

Shipping restrictions by Amasty

Price: $159

Compatibility: OpenSource(CE) 2.3, Commerce (EE) 2.3

Shipping restrictions extension allows users to limit shipping methods by country, state, product attributes, customer groups, and store views.

Extension features:

• ✔ Blocking separate methods of shipping carriers;
• ✔ Limitation of shipping methods;
• ✔ Shipping restrictions are created based on Magento shipping weight, order total, address line, zip code, region, etc;
• ✔ Product attributes usage to set restriction conditions for shipping methods;
• ✔ Creating shipping rules based on customer attributes;
• ✔ Ability to include taxes and discounts into subtotal;
• ✔ Ability to disable shipping method for particular customer groups;
• ✔ Shipping methods restricted by store view and website;
• ✔ Restrictions are set up for back-ordered items.

ShipperHQ

Price: free

Compatibility: Open Source (CE): 2.3— 2.4 ,Commerce on prem (EE): 2.3— 2.4,Commerce on Cloud (ECE): 2.3

ShipperHQ extension allows easily customize rates and shipping options that fit your buying scenarios, considering which products customers purchase, their locations, and how much they are spending.

Extension features:

• ✔ Takes control of charging for shipping;
• ✔ Calculates accurate shipping costs to save money;
• ✔ Tailors your shipping experience to your own requirements.

Lives rates and support for 50+ small package & LTL freight carriers, including:

• ✔ UPS;
• ✔ FedEx;
• ✔ USPS, DHL, ReTrans Freight, uShip, Zenda, DHL Express via ILS, Cerasis;
• ✔ FlavorCloud, Australia Post, Canada Post, YRC Freight, GLS/GSO, Fastway, Purolator.

Shipment Tracking

Price: $39

Compatibility: Open Source (CE): 2.3— 2.4

Shipment Tracking extension allows getting details about the shipment information for a website admin and purchaser on Magento.

Extension features:

• ✔ Automated tracking of the shop’s shipments;
• ✔ Email notifications are sent to the customer or recipient after any change in the status of the shipment;
• ✔ Configurable front-end tracking page which the customer can visit at any time.

Delivery Slot With REST API

Price: $69

Compatibility: Open Source (CE): 2.3

Delivery Slot With REST API extension allows customers to make it possible for customers to choose can choose their preferred shipping slots for their orders.

Extension adds:

• ✔ Add and Edit Delivery Slots;
• ✔ Group the Zip codes under various Delivery Slots;
• ✔ Multiple Zip codes can be mapped to a single Slot;
• ✔ Map the Slots and Delivery Day;
• ✔ Add and Edit Slot Information;
• ✔ Set Quota for a maximum number of delivers for Slots;
• ✔ Add and Edit the timing for each Slot;
• ✔ Add Holiday/ Vacation Days and restrict customers from choosing those days for delivery;
• ✔ Add an Interval time between the order placement and the Slot available.

Shipping is a significant part of every e-commerce business. In order to make the entire process flawless, invest some time in developing the right shipping strategy and selecting the right providers and tools. In case you have further questions regarding shipping options for Magento, please feel free to contact us.