Purpose: Learn about how you can automate your entire label creation process using shipping rules.
What are shipping rules?
Shipping rules automatically apply specific actions to your incoming orders based on predetermined conditions. It prevents you from having to make manual changes to individual orders time after time, because you can configure blanket rules to cover a variety of shipping scenarios and let's you automate your shipping process!
Benefits of configuring shipping rules:
- Offer multiple delivery options at checkout, and have the order change to that shipping method automatically
- Eliminates mistakes to be made as decisions about shipping methods, insurance, etc. are pre-configured
- Saves time, money and energy - no more manual administrative changes needed to update order details or select shipping methods
- Ideal for webshop owners who have a wide range of products, ship with different carriers and shipping methods or have multiple warehouses and employees
How do shipping rules work?
Shipping rules work by creating "if this (and this) then that" scenarios that, once set up, will apply to all orders which meet the criteria and automatically change these orders to match the rule created.
For example:
- If weight is less than 10kg, ship with PostNL Standard
- If to country is Germany ship with DPD Home
- If order value is greater than 200 then insure shipment by 200
Shipping rules consist of conditions and subsequent actions. The conditions determine when a rule will be applied to an order. For example, if a shipping rule is created with the condition "weight is less than 10kg" then all orders which have a weight under 10kg will have a shipping rule applied to them. The action is the change that will be made to orders that meet the conditions, e.g., "If weight is less than 10kg, ship with DPD Home".
How are shipping rules applied?
When an incoming order is pushed from your online store into Sendcloud, the order will be automatically run through all your active shipping rules.
If the order meets the condition(s) of a shipping rule, then the subsequent action(s) will be applied. this means that you can print all of your labels without making any adjustments to your orders. Instead of manually changing 100 orders, you can process them all instantly in one click.
| Conditions: | Determinations: | Explanation: |
| Integration | Is/Is not | The integration from which the order was imported |
| Postal code | Contains/Does not contain/Ends with/Is/Is not/Starts with | Postal code of the destination of the parcel |
| Company name | Contains/Does not contain/Ends with/Is/Is not/Starts with* | Related to the address line in the recipient information. See B2B shipping below. |
| Item name | Contains/Does not contain/Ends with/Is/Is not/Starts with | The name of an item in the order |
| Item SKU | Contains/Does not contain/Ends with/Is/Is not/Starts with | The SKU of an item in the order |
| Order number | Contains/Does not contain/Ends with/Is/Is not/Starts with | The order number of the incoming order |
| Order status | Is/Is not | The order status of the order |
| Item quantity | Greater or equal than/Greater/Is/Is not/Less or equal than/Less than | The total amount of items in the order |
| Total parcel item value | Greater or equal than/Greater/Is/Is not/Less or equal than/Less than | The total value of the parcel items combined (sum of all item values multiplied by the quantity. This is excluding any shipping costs, discounts, etc.) |
| Sender address | Is/Is not | From which sender address is the parcel shipped |
| To country | Is/Is not | What is the destination country of the parcel? |
| Checkout delivery name |
Contains/Does not contain/Ends with/Is/Is not/Starts with | The checkout delivery name of the order (this is not conflicting with checkout orders) |
| Weight (kg) |
Greater or equal than/Greater/Is/Is not/Less or equal than/Less than | The weight in kg of the total shipment |
| Actions: | |
|
Insure shipment by |
|
| Set weight | |
| Ship with address | This action is not available for checkout orders |
| Ship with shipping method |
This action is not available for checkout orders |
How can I make a shipping rule for B2B shipments?
You can use the condition Company name to create a shipping rule to ship B2B shipments with a specific shipping method. To do so, use the following rule, in which entering "?*" into the text field means that any character value in the address line Company name will trigger this shipping rule to be applied.
You can then select a shipping carrier of your choice to deliver B2B shipments.
Do shipping rules apply to the new checkout feature?
The new checkout feature is currently available for a few integrations and will expand in the future. If you have configured their checkout, yes, shipping rules can also be applied to checkout orders, with a few exceptions for rule actions. The following shipping rules actions don't apply to Checkout orders:
- Ship with address
- Ship with shipping method
Once you have configured the correct sender address, shipping product, and shipping method that should be automatically used for these orders in the Checkout panel.
You can still manually change the shipping method and sender address for a checkout order from the Edit Order View.
Set up your shipping rules
To create a shipping rule, go to Settings > Shipping rules. In this overview, all of the created shipping rules are shown in the order that they will be applied in, from top to bottom. From here you can:
- Create a new rule
- Edit or delete existing rules
- Change the rule order.
- Toggle rules to be active or inactive
- Click on Create new to make a new rule:
- Give your shipping rule a name so you can identify it, and select your conditions and determination. Click the + plus button to add a new condition line. Then select an action to apply and click the + plus button to add multiple actions.
Examples of smart Shipping Rules:
In order to give you an idea of what smart shipping rules can do for you, here are some examples.
- Match a shipping method to a check-out shipping method name: When shop checkout shipping method is letter post AND to country is Netherlands > Ship with PostNL Mailbox Parcel Extra 0-2kg
- When shipping an expensive product: If item name contains Fine Jewelry > insure shipment by 1000€
- When shipping an extra large product: If item name contains carpet AND to country is Netherlands > Ship with DHL Europlus
- Shipping to foreign countries: If to country is United Kingdom AND weight is less or equal than 5kg > Ship with UPS standard 3-6kg
- When you want to allow customers to collect orders from your physical store: If checkout method contains "Click and collect" (text must be as stated exactly on your checkout) > Ship with Unstamped letter.
Shipping rule order
Your smart shipping rules are applied in the order they are listed in the shipping rules overview. The rules are applied from top to bottom, so the rules at the top of the list will be applied first, followed by the next rule. It’s important to carefully choose the order of your smart shipping rules, ensuring that no desired actions will be canceled out by smart shipping rules listed further down in your overview.
For example, see the two rules below:
- If “To Country is Germany” (CONDITION), then “Ship With DPD Home” (ACTION).
- If “To Country is Germany” (CONDITION) AND “Weight is Greater Than 20kg” (CONDITIONS), then Ship With DHL Parcel Connect 15 – 31kg (ACTION)
In this example, you would ideally want to place these rules in the same order as above. This will ensure that the orders that are being shipped to Germany AND are heavier than 20kg will be shipped by the right carrier (DHL Parcel Connect 15 – 31kg).
If you placed the rules the other way round, then the rule containing the weight-related condition would be overwritten. The order would be shipped with DPD Home no matter its weight because both rules include the condition “To Country is Germany”.
How to use pattern matching
You can now use pattern matching to further refine your shipping rules. Pattern matching is when a given sequence is checked to see if it contains certain characters. This is particularly useful for shipping rules related to postal codes or for ranges of numbers such as product SKUs or order numbers.
To use pattern matching, select Pattern matching as the determination for your condition. Enter your characters in front or after the pattern character in the following way:
| Pattern: | Meaning: | Example: |
| *X | starts with any number(s)/character(s) but must end with number(s)/character(s) that are mentioned after "*" |
When postal code pattern match |
| X* | ends with any number(s)/character(s) but must start with number(s)/character(s) that are mentioned before "*" |
When postal code pattern match |
| ?X | starts with one number/character but must end with number(s)/character(s) that are mentioned after "?" |
When postal code pattern match |
| X? | ends with one number/character but must start with number(s)/character(s) that are mentioned before "?" |
When postal code pattern match |
| X[] | starts with any number(s)/character(s) but must end with one of the number(s)/character(s) mentioned between brackets | When postal code pattern match 123[4,5,6]: the shipping rule will be applied to orders with postal codes such as 1234, 1235 or 1236 |
| []X | ends with any number(s)/character(s) but must start with one of the number(s)/character(s) mentioned between brackets | When postal code pattern match [1,2,4]456: the shipping rule will be applied to orders with postal codes such as 1456, 2456 or 3456 |
| X[!] | starts with any number(s)/character(s) but must not end with one of the number(s)/character(s) mentioned between brackets | When postal code pattern match 145[!6]: the shipping rule will be applied to orders with postal codes such as 1457, 1458 or 1459 |
| [!]X | ends with any number(s)/character(s) but must not start with one of the number(s)/character(s) mentioned between brackets | When postal code pattern match [!1]456: the shipping rule will be applied to orders with postal codes such as 2456, 3456 or 4456 |
Example: In London there are four types of postcode area: W, E, S, and N. If you want to apply a shipping rule for London, but which will only apply to addresses in the W postcode area, you could apply the below rule:
- If “Postal code” (CONDITION), PATTERN MATCH "W*" then "Ship with" UPS" (ACTION)
Match any or all conditions
You also have the option to select “Match ALL of the conditions of this rule”. If you select this option, all of the conditions have to be met before a shipping rule is applied. If you change this to "match ANY of the conditions of this rule", any of the conditions can be present and the actions will be applied to those orders.
How to see applied shipping rules
You can easily see which shipping rules have been automatically applied to your order by going to the Created labels tab and clicking the eye icon to enter the label details view. The name of the rule which has been applied and the action will be listed.
What types of shipping rules are available for my shop integration?
Not every type of webshop integration supports every shipping rule condition. If you're not sure, check the list below to see what conditions your integration supports:
Total order price value |
Shop checkout shipping method |
SKU |
Items |
| Api | Bol.com | API | Lightspeed |
| Bol.com | Amazon | Bol.com (SKU or EAN) | Prestashop |
| CCVshop | eBay | Amazon | Shopify |
| eBay | ePages | eBay | WooCommerce |
| ePages | Etsy | ePages | |
| Etsy | Magento V1 + V2 | Etsy | |
| Magento V1 + V2 | Mijnwebwinkel | Magento V1 + V2 | |
| Mijnwebwinkel | Prestashop | Mijnwebwinkel | |
| Prestashop | Shopify | Prestashop | |
| Shopify | Shopware | Shopify | |
| Shopware | WooCommerce | Shopware | |
| WooCommerce | Oxid | WooCommerce | |
| Oxid | CSV imports | Oxid |