Shipping Option

In this document, you’ll learn about shipping options and their rules.

What’s a Shipping Option?#

A shipping option is a way of shipping an item. Each fulfillment provider provides a set of shipping options. For example, a provider may provide a shipping option for express shipping and another for standard shipping.

When the customer places their order, they choose a shipping option to be used to fulfill their items.

A shipping option is represented by the ShippingOption data model.


Service Zone Restrictions#

A shipping option is restricted by a service zone, limiting the locations a shipping option be used in.

For example, a fulfillment provider may have a shipping option that can be used in the United States, and another in Canada.

A diagram showcasing the relation between shipping options and service zones.

Service zones can be more restrictive, such as restricting to certain cities or province codes.

A diagram showcasing the relation between shipping options, service zones, and geo zones


Shipping Option Rules#

You can restrict shipping options by custom rules, such as the item’s weight or the customer’s group.

These rules are represented by the ShippingOptionRule data model. Its properties define the custom rule:

  • attribute: The name of a property or table that the rule applies to. For example, customer_group.
  • operator: The operator used in the condition. For example:
    • To allow multiple values, use the operator in, which validates that the provided values are in the rule’s values.
    • To create a negation condition that considers value against the rule, use nin, which validates that the provided values aren’t in the rule’s values.
    • Check out more operators in this reference.
  • value: One or more values.

A diagram showcasing the relation between shipping option and shipping option rules.

A shipping option can have multiple rules. For example, you can add rules to a shipping option so that it's available if the customer belongs to the VIP group and the total weight is less than 2000g.

A diagram showcasing how a shipping option can have multiple rules.


Shipping Profile and Types#

A shipping option belongs to a type. For example, a shipping option’s type may be express, while another standard. The type is represented by the ShippingOptionType data model.

A shipping option also belongs to a shipping profile, as each shipping profile defines the type of items to be shipped in a similar manner.


data Property#

When fulfilling an item, you might use a third-party fulfillment provider that requires additional custom data to be passed along from the checkout or order-creation process.

The ShippingOption data model has a data property. It's an object that stores custom data relevant later when creating and processing a fulfillment.

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