Reference Guide

Sets the order that the shipping methods will appear in the "Ship Via" drop-down list in the Shipping/Payment Selection screen. ( User Interface > Edit Page OSEL). Initially, all of the shipping methods that you have enabled will show up in this screen with priority 0. You can use any integer as the priority, but shipping methods with higher numbers will appear first in the drop-down list. Many companies set the priority so that the shipping methods are listed from least expensive to most expensive. See also Edit Priorities Button.

Set the text that will appear in the "Ship Via" drop-down list in the Shipping/Payment Selection screen for the shipping method (see figure above). If you leave this field empty, the system will show the default shipping method name. For example, the default Shipping Method name might "UPS Ground", but you could set the Display As text to "Standard Shipping".

You can set up zip codes in ranges, which allows you to restrict shipping methods for certain areas. For example, if you wanted to restrict every zip code that begins with 150, 151 and 152, you would enter 15000-15299.

Allows you to adjust the shipping rate, after it is returned from the carrier's estimating software, but before it is shown to your customer. For example, you could take the quoted rate from the carrier and add to it to cover your packaging or handling costs. You could adjust the carrier shipping quote down if you wanted to offer your customers a discount on shipping. The customer won't see or know about any adjustment that you make.

• None: The customer will be shown the rate that came back from the carrier.

• Fixed: Select Fixed and enter a dollar value in the next field. The rate that comes back from the carrier will be increased or reduced by the amount that you enter.

  

  For example, if you enter "1.00" in this field and the rate quote from the carrier was $5.00, the customer will see a shipping charge of $6.00 for this shipping method. You can adjust the rate downward by entering a negative number in the field "-1.00".

• Percent:
  Select Percent and enter a percentage in the next field. The rate that comes back from the carrier will be increased or reduced by the percent that you enter.

  

  For example, if you enter "5.00" in this field and the rate quote from the carrier was $10.00, the customer will see a shipping charge of $10.50 for this shipping method. You can adjust the rate downward by entering a negative percentage in the field "-5.00".

The Shipping Method Rules dialog box has five types of "restrictions".

• Restrict to Order Subtotal
• Restrict to Item Quantity
• Restrict to Total Weight
• Geographic Restrictions
• Restrict to Zip Codes

These restrictions let you control when a particular shipping method will appear or be removed from the "Ship Via" drop-down list in the Shipping/Payment Selection screen. For example, you could make sure that UPS Standard shipping only appears as a choice in the Shipping/Payment Selection screen when the order total is $10.00 or less:

Or you could remove UPS Standard shipping for orders that weigh more than 500 pounds:

But see also Example: Creating a Free Shipping Option.

If you are using a shipping method that cannot deliver to a U.S. post office box, check this box. If the customer's shipping address is a post office box, this shipping method won't be displayed in the Shipping/Payment Selection screen (OSEL).

Miva Merchant software figures out if the customer has a post office box by looking at two fields in the Shipping Address (Ship To):

• Address
• Address2

At least one of these fields must contain, exactly, one of these strings:

• Post Office Box Example: Post Office Box 1001
• Box Example: Box 1001

Capitalization doesn't matter, but other variations are not recognized, and the system will assume that the customer does not have a post office box:

• Capitalization doesn't matter, but other variations are not recognized, and the system will assume that the customer does not have a post office box:

• POB 1001
• post 1001
• post box 1001
• postal box 1001

This Feature and Updates

• If you had a PR8 store, and you updated your store to Version 9.0, and then updated your store to Version 9.0003, this feature is unchecked in all of your existing shipping methods.
• If you have a brand new installation of a 9.0003 store, this feature will be checked by default in all of your non-USPS shipping methods.

The exclusions feature has two purposes:

• UPS, as a business rule, does not allow their shipping methods and rates to be displayed in the same screen with shipping methods from other carriers. This is a UPS requirement that Miva Merchant must comply with. For example, if you have both the UPS Developer Kit module and the USPS shipping module enabled, when you edit the UPS shipping method "UPS Standard", you might see an exclusions list like this:

The grayed out boxes mean that UPS is not going to allow (in this example) rates for UPS Standard service to be displayed in the same screen with shipping methods from USPS. When the customer reaches the Shipping/Payment Selection screen, they would see a "Ship Via" drop-down list that looks like this:

Notice that UPS Standard does not appear as a shipping option.

• You can also use the exclusions drop-down list to deliberately remove a shipping method based on the presence of another method. For example, if you want only one type of UPS air method to be present at a time, you can set it to exclude other UPS air methods.
• Allow: Do not set any exclusions.
• Excludes: if the current shipping method is available, do not allow the specified shipping method to be offered. For example, if you are editing the UPS Ground shipping method, and you set:

Then whenever UPS Ground is a valid shipping method, UPS Next Day Air will not be offered as a shipping method.

• Excluded By: If another selected shipping method is available, the current shipping method will not be offered. For example, if you are editing the UPS Ground shipping method, and you set:

  

Then whenever UPS Next Day Air is a valid shipping method, UPS Ground would not be offered as a shipping method.