This document is a short introduction to ShipHawk’s rules engine and how to use the rating rules to offer free shipping to your customers at checkout. Detailed procedures for automating your free shipping rates are provided in the following sections.
About rating rules
ShipHawk has a rules engine that allows you to create rules that are applied to carrier ratings. These are called Rating Rules. These rules can be set to trigger based on certain criteria or apply globally to all external rate requests. Free shipping on carrier rating is one of many types of rules that are supported by the ShipHawk rules engine.
Prerequisites
To begin using the rules engine to automate decisions about carrier rating, you must first fulfill the following conditions:
Customers must be using ShipHawk for rating on their eCommerce or ERP platforms.
Customers must be an administrator or shipping manager role in ShipHawk. Only these two roles have the correct permissions to set up a rating rule.
If you qualify under these conditions, proceed to the following sections for instructions to set up your free shipping conditions.
Free Shipping Options
ShipHawk’s rule engine provides a variety of ways to offer free shipping to your customers. You can select from the following options:
Free shipping for the cheapest rate
Free shipping for certain items/SKUs
Free shipping for orders under a certain weight
The following sections define each of these rating strategies and give detailed instructions for configuring each rating rule.
Free Shipping for Cheapest Rate
When ShipHawk returns carrier rate requests to a customer’s shopping cart, the rates are ranked from least to most expensive. The least expensive or cheapest shipping rate is then offered for free to the customer.
To create a free shipping rule for the cheapest rate:
Log into your ShipHawk account.
Click on the Settings icon > Rules menu option. The Rules screen is displayed.
Click on the Actions drop-down menu > + Create New Rule.
You will be redirected to the Create New Rule screen.Complete the screen.
Enter a name into the Rule Name field.
Check that the Rule Type field is set to Rating.
Make sure that the rule is set to Enabled.
If you wish to only apply this rule under certain conditions, select the Only apply this rule under specific conditions options under the Rule Application section.
New rule criteria fields will populate.Create criteria for the application of this new free shipping rule. You can set this condition to be anything you desire. Customers commonly choose order value as their triggering condition. An example is shown below.
In this example, the free shipping rule is applied when an order exceeds $99.
If you wish to create multiple triggering conditions that all have to be met before free shipping is applied, click the + Add Criteria button to add new fields.Configure the action that will be triggered when the conditions are met in the Rule Actions section.
Select the Free Shipping for cheapest rate option from the Rule Action field. This action finds the cheapest rate returned to your customers and marks its cost down to $0.00.
Click the Create button to finalize this new rule.
Free Shipping for Certain Items/SKUs
When ShipHawk returns carrier rate requests to a customer’s shopping cart, the rates are offered for free to the customer if certain specified SKUs are included in the rate request. If a SKU that qualifies for free shipping is included in an order with a non-qualifying SKU, ShipHawk will ignore the free shipping SKU while requesting carrier rates.
To create a free shipping rule for certain items/SKUs
Log into your ShipHawk account.
Click on the Settings icon > Rules menu option. The Rules screen is displayed.
Click on the Actions drop-down menu > + Create New Rule.
You will be redirected to the Create New Rule screen.Complete the screen.
Enter a name into the Rule Name field.
Check that the Rule Type field is set to Rating.
Make sure that the rule is set to Enabled.
If you wish to only apply this rule under certain conditions, select the Only apply this rule under specific conditions options under the Rule Application section.
New rule criteria fields will populate.Create criteria for the application of this new free shipping rule. You can set this condition to be anything you desire. Customers commonly choose order value as their triggering condition. An example is shown below.
In this example, the free shipping rule is applied when an order exceeds $99.
If you wish to create multiple triggering conditions that all have to be met before free shipping is applied, click the + Add Criteria button to add new fields.Configure the action that will be triggered when the conditions are met in the Rule Actions section.
Select the Free Shipping for this SKU from the Rule Action field. This action marks the shipping cost of selected SKUs down to $0.00.
Enter the SKUs you wish to ship for free in the SKU field, separating each with a comma as shown.
If a SKU that qualifies for free shipping is included in an order with a non-qualifying SKU, ShipHawk will ignore the free shipping SKU when requesting carrier rates.
Click the Create button to finalize this new rule.
Free Shipping for orders under a certain weight
When ShipHawk returns carrier rate requests to a customer’s shopping cart, the rates are offered for free to the customer if the total weight of the items in the rate request are below a certain specified weight.
To create a free shipping rule for orders under a certain weight
Log into your ShipHawk account.
Click on the Settings icon > Rules menu option. The Rules screen is displayed.
Click on the Actions drop-down menu > + Create New Rule.
You will be redirected to the Create New Rule screen.Complete the screen.
Enter a name into the Rule Name field.
Check that the Rule Type field is set to Rating.
Make sure that the rule is set to Enabled.
If you wish to only apply this rule under certain conditions, select the Only apply this rule under specific conditions options under the Rule Application section.
New rule criteria fields will populate.Create criteria for the application of this new free shipping rule. For this rule, select Shipment weight as the triggering condition. An example is shown below.
In this example, the free shipping rule is applied when an order is less than 1 pound. The Weight field defaults to imperial pounds.
If you wish to create multiple triggering conditions that all have to be met before free shipping is applied, click the + Add Criteria button to add new fields.Configure the action that will be triggered when the conditions are met in the Rule Actions section.
Select the Free Shipping for cheapest rate option from the Rule Action field. This action finds the cheapest rate returned to your customers and marks its cost down to $0.00.
Click the Create button to finalize this new rule.