When a customer reaches the checkout, their cart items and location are sent to MachShip for quoting against the carriers in your account. Instead of displaying all potential carriers, services, and options, MachShip collects carriers and services into groups, showing the cheapest price in each group. This approach aims to improve checkout conversion and allows you to price specific carriers only.
Let's use an example to illustrate how carrier grouping works:
Suppose you have the following carriers and services:
To set up Regular and Express pricing in your checkout, you might configure your carrier groups as follows:
With this setup, your customers would see two prices: a regular price and an express price, each representing the cheapest option from the services in that group.
While the regular and express service example is straightforward, it's not the most common configuration. Most carriers offer similar delivery times, so groupings often focus on other factors. Common carrier groups typically involve:
These surcharges are used to split carrier groups because they are costly and don't apply to all customers. This allows users to self-select the prices that apply to their situation.
When selling mostly to residential customers, a single price including residential surcharges is often used:
With this configuration, the cheapest of all your carriers and services, inclusive of any residential surcharges, would be displayed.
For a mix of business and residential customers, two options are presented:
Group Name: Residential Address Shipping
Group Name: Business Address Shipping
In this case, you're returning two options for the customer to choose from - where the residential group includes residential surcharges, the business one does not include any.
This allows you to offer a cheaper shipping price to business customers.
For bulky goods, a weight threshold is often used to determine when to apply tailgate fees:
Group Name: Shipping
Group Name: Tailgate Delivery
In this example, you're returning one price, with no tailgate fees, but including residential fees if the order contains smaller items.
If the order contains larger items however, you are showing a tailgate price only.
This configuration accounts for both weight and customer type:
Group Name: Residential Address Shipping
Group Name: Business Address Shipping
Group Name: Tailgate Delivery
Group Name: Forklift Unload Available At Delivery Point
In this example, you're returning two options to the customer, allowing them to self select based on their address type.
If they have lighter items in their cart they will see a standard business and residential price.
If they have heavier items, they can choose from a tailgate option, and a forklift option.
Q: Rather than showing a residential and business option to choose from, can you ask if they have a residential or business address and only show them the one option? A: Some platforms support us adding questions to the cart (Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce), while others do not at this time (Shopify).
For those platforms that support it, we can do this.
Q: Can I display all carrier services for my business customers? A: Yes, MachShip can return and display all carriers and services you offer, or a selection, with their names and prices.
Q: Can I mark up the group prices? A: Yes, different groups can be marked up with different amounts as fixed dollar or percentage values.
Q: Is there a limit to the number of groups? A: There is no limit to the number of groups you can create.
Q: Do I need different groups for different states or areas based on carrier service availability? A: This isn't necessary. MachShip will only return prices for carriers and services that service the destination address provided.
Q: Can the group names and descriptions be customized? A: Yes, names are customizable. Some platforms allow for both a title and description, while others may only show a title. The amount of space available for descriptions is typically limited.
Q: Can groups be further split into express and regular services? A: Yes, groups can be split into express and regular categories, with specific services allocated to each group.
Remember, the key to effective carrier grouping is understanding your customer base and the types of products you're shipping. Tailor your groups to provide clear, relevant options that meet your customers' needs while optimizing your shipping processes.