Freight Concepts & Freight File Management
A Straightsell website has the ability to calculate the freight of an order based on a number of variables. Note that the Straightsell freight system does not integrate with any online freight systems for the purpose of freight calculation but can be used to calculate freight in the same way. The freight is calculated in the checkout process based on the contents of the shopping cart and the location details (postcode/state/country) entered in the first step of the checkout.
The Straightsell freight matrix calculator supports Standard Australia Post Freight schedules.
Freight Index:
Freight Concepts
This section details the freight methods supported by the Straightsell freight calculator and provides information on freight concepts.
The following concepts are used to calculate freight for an order within the Straightsell system.
Location Restrictions
Restricts freight to a particular location.
When the customer enters their order delivery details this will define which freight option(s) they can potentially choose. This is set in the Locality Restriction field.
State
Postcode (can be a range of postcodes)
Country (can be a range of countries)
Worldwide (all)
Standard Cost (Flat Rate)
This is flat rate or cost of freight for the shopping cart / order. This is set in the Amount $ field.
It will only be applied if the order meets the volume break and location restrictions, where applicable.
Break Type:
There are 4 different ways of calculating incremental costs. This is done using the Break Type field to set what the increments should use. Then changing the Break Lower Limit and Break Upper Limit to set the Ranges that the freight will apply at.
Unit Type Value - The total cost of the shopping cart
e.g. between $0 (Break Lower Limit) and $500 freight (Break Upper Limit) cost is $20 and between $501 and $1000 freight cost $25 etc
Product Count - The total number of products purchased in the shopping cart
e.g. between 1-5 products freight cost is $5 and between 6-10 products freight is $10 etc
Volume Count - The total weight of the shopping cart
e.g. between 0 and 2kg parcel might cost $5 and between 2 and 5kg may cost $10
Freight Count - Uses a custom field called Freight Charge on each item to determine the freight
e.g. having 2 items in your cart. 1 with 200 in Freight Charge and one with 50 in Freight Charge will make the freight total 250.
Price on Application
You have the option to use the above features to display POA (Price on Application) or Free Freight. This is done by setting the Amount $ to a negative number.
The above restrictions can still apply:
Example of POA
e.g. between $0 and $500 freight cost is $20 and between $501 and $1000 freight cost $25, but orders over $1001 is $POA.
Multiple Freight Options
Using the above concepts if more than one freight option applies to an order then these will be displayed as a choice in the checkout process for the buyer.
You could create two freight options with the same conditions and different prices an example of this would be:
Standard Post $5 and Express Post $10
Freight File Management
An example Freight File with the above information can be viewed here. Once open, use the highlighted icon in the image below to download and open file in Excel.
You can download a copy of your existing Freight matrix from the CMS under Ecommerce > Freight.
Click Create File to generate a file then click the New File Created link to download it. see below
Open your Freight File in Microsoft Excel and fill in the Freight File’s fields with relevant information
Fields highlighted in grey shading with bold text in the table below are mandatory fields and must contain data
Freight File Fields
Field | Description | Example Value |
FreightName | Freight text value viewable to the customer during the checkout process | Standard or Express |
FreightMethod | Internal Freight rule name viewable in the CMS | Freight-Melbourne (V1) |
EffectiveType | How the freight will be restricted e.g. POSTCODE or COUNTRY | POSTCODE |
EffectiveCode | Value for the EffectiveType e.g. 5000-5100;5400-5999; (POSTCODE) or ;NZ; (COUNTRY) | 3000-3210; |
UseFlatRate | 1 (Use a flat rate) or 0 (Use a calculation) for Freight | 0 |
UnitType | The unit used for calculation e.g. COST, FUNIT, CUNIT | COST (Price), FUNIT (Weight/Cubic) or PUNIT (Count) |
UnitCost | Cost for each unit on top of BaseAmount e.g. $2.50 Cost for each item in cart | 2.50 |
BaseAmount | Base cost for Freight before adding Unit Cost e.g. $15 | 15.00 |
BreakType | the type of freight rule e.g. COST, FUNIT, CUNIT | COST (Price), FUNIT (Weight/Cubic) or PUNIT (Count) |
BreakLowerLimit | The starting or lowest value for the rule e.g. 0 kgs or grams | 0 (0 kgs or grams) |
BreakUpperLimit | The ending or highest value for the rule e.g. 3 kgs or 300 grams | 3 (kgs) or 300 (grams) |
Active | 1 (sets the rule active) or 0 (if BuyerSpecific is being used) | 1 |
TaxPercent | The tax rate for the Freight rule (should be 10 for GST) | 10 |
BuyerSpecific | If the Freight rule will be manually assigned to buyers in Manage Buyers | 0 |
Upload a Freight File
The Freight File upload process allows you to either refresh all freight records in CMS or append to existing freight records.
The process of uploading a Freight File can be utilised by both integrated and non-integrated customers.
When the file upload is complete you can view the upload process messages to check for any errors.
Click the Upload Files tab and select Freight File from the dropdown menu
Click Browse and select the file and click Open
Check or uncheck the Would you like to remove any old records checkbox
Checked: All freight records will be deleted prior to the upload
Unchecked: The current freight records will be appended with the records in the file
Click Upload