How to calculate and print shipping labels in New Zealand?

[nzpatm]

Hey team,

I am about to start a store selling products in New Zealand. I've got no idea of the best way to

1) calculate shipping costs based on location (there doesn't seem to be anything for NZ postal services, just American and Canadian) - Should I just go a flat rate for rural and a flat rate for urban?

2) Have an easy process to print the shipping label - again, there doesn't seem to be an option for NZ-based courier companies (NZ Post, NZ Couriers, Fastway etc.). 

If anyone has any experience doing a similar thing in the NZ market, I would love to hear your processes.

Cheers,

Pat

[Hank]

Hi @nzpatm,

Hank here from Shopify. Really great question!

Shipping can be a complex and difficult choice to make, but don't worry, Shopify has some apps that can help you with this, should you need them.

There is also the option to do as you said in option 1, to set up a flat rate for rural and urban. You can set up your shipping rates in settings > shipping > manage rates > add rates and choose which rates or countries you want to ship to.

In there you can create price-based and weight-based rates, as well as free shipping rates and more!

Then there are the third party app choices that New Zealand based Merchants use, two of which I will share with you below.

• Starshipit Shipping & Tracking

• Easyship ‑ All in one shipping

Let me know how you find the above, or if you have any further questions!

All the best, Hank.

[AdanRamirez]

Hi @nzpatm,

You can use ShipperHQ’s Landed Cost Engine to show cross-border duties and taxes directly at checkout, so your buyers always know exactly what they are paying, and you don’t have to worry about calculating the extra fees yourself.

Use Zones in ShipperHQ to establish different shipping areas, and from there set rules to charge or surcharge a certain amount for shipping per zone.

Plus, we integrate with several cross-border carriers like Zenda and Easyship that will handle the customs work for you and make international shipping easy.

Get in touch with our sales team, and they would be happy to discuss further. Or you can sign up for a free 30-day trial and see how ShipperHQ works for you.

[Edward-Newgate]

Hi @nzpatm 

Although I do not have any experience doing a similar thing in the NZ market I think you can use the Ready ToShip Labels & Tracking app. This app has some highlight features below: 

• Reduce the manual work in importing orders from Shopify
• Show live shipping rates for your customers
• Automatically validate and fix customer addresses
• Require only on click to print shipping labels
• Send tracking data to your Shopify with ease

Besides this app, you could also try other apps such as: ShipRobot, Ship&co, ... You can get these apps here.  

Hope it helps!

[David_Moore · Accepted solution]

We sell within NZ and use  NZ Couriers as our courier.  They have a Shopify app (Gosweetspot) which manages the shipments including printing the labels.  It works very well and is free. We had Fastways before but had to do it with the ShipIt app which was $50/month and was not as good. The other couriers may also have their own apps.  

The shipping rates can be set by NZ regions (16 in total).  The problem with Shopify is that you can't set a rural charge to apply automatically as it cannot tell if an address is rural or not. Some apps can do that but are generally not worth the extra cost.  You have to offer the rural surcharge at check out.  Some customers are honest and click the rural price and other don't.  

[Animal_Kingdoms]

We have noticed today that the region setting for New Zealand is not working as it should.

We set

 - Auckland region with rates

 - All other north island region with rates

 - South island region with rates

On checkout though, a Christchurch address is giving Auckland rates.

We removed and re added the Auckland zone, and now Auckland addresses are giving south island rates.

Have you come across this issue? 

[Ivane1987]

Yes we are having the same issue. Its just defaulting to the first shipping rate.

[David_Moore]

I have the same issue which arose yesterday- spoke with support chat who
said they were working on it. As a stopgap, I have removed the regions and
put more shipping options, so that at checkout the buyer is offered 4
options to choose from North I, North I Rural, South I, South I Rural. I
removed Hawkes Bay as a separate region for now.

[Animal_Kingdoms]

We have this logged with Shopify support and advised that it has been priority assigned with shipping specialist.

[PKC20]

Did you get this resolved?

I'm also trying to set up shipping rates and at a loss at how to calculate properly..

[David_Moore]

Hi

I have not made progress on this beyond offering the buyer the option
between normal and rural deliveries, and hope he is honest. Some are and
some are not. We monitor our overall freight cost against what we charge
customers and it is more or less balanced because we make a profit on same
deliveries, particularly on small orders which offset losses on other
shipments. The other problem is that our couriers NZ Couriers charge based
on the size of the box whereas Shopify has a weight based charge.

[MattM2]

@David_Moore when you say "add rural option and hope customer is honest", are you talking about adding more shipping rates, or something else? I don't see any "rural option" in the options.

We currently have one zone and six different rates based on package size -- is there any better option than creating another 6 rates for Rural delivery of that same package size?

The "create shipping zone" seems error-prone as then you have to manually add products to the zone and it might be easy to miss some out, or add non-shipped products by accident . (And we would have to add the six rates to the new zone anyway).

[Janice130]

Can't seem to find this app anymore - GoSweetSpot. Is there any better alternative?

[Paul_TandG]

Hi Janice

The GoSweetSport <=> Shopify integration app is installed from GoSweetSpot, not Shopify.

In GSS, go to Administration=>Integration menu and select Shopify. This will take you to a config menu and, once you enter your Shopify store address, GSS will be enabled on your store and the App will appear in the Shopify Apps list.

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Paul

[spokencycles]

Once the integration with Go Sweet Spot and Shopify is connected should the shipping details get automatically sent to Go Sweet Spot?

[David_Moore]

Hi

The interface is not the problem - the shipping details go to Gosweetspot
which prints out the ticket. The problem is that you have already charged
the customer for shipping so if it turns out to be rural you are out of
pocket.

[spokencycles]

But they still should feed through

[BillieJo]

Hi David.

May I ask how did you add the rural surcharge at checkout?
Is this after calculating all the product costs and shipping rate?

[benocray]

@BillieJo 

The way I have setup Bespoke shipping I have four zones - North Island Urban, North Island Rural, South Island Urban, South Island Rural. Each of these zones have their own set of rates assigned which I have taken from my eShip(Courier Post) account.

As seen here in my profiles:

My zones are constructed with postcode rules. 

This is an example of one zone with it's coding: 

And here is the more readable rules for that same zone:

I have a copy of the postcodes preformatted for these rules if you would like a copy?

If you get stuck I would be more than happy to have a look at setting up your shipping rates for you.

[BillieJo]

So there's a Rural Surcharge of $6.50 with my courier because we're currently using 3PL.
The sample you sent looks a bit too much for me to understand. How much do you pay with Bespoke? Is it effective?

[benocray]

@BillieJo 
Bespoke Shipping is perfect for me as I really only have a couple of parcel sizes and the main variation is just the areas where parcels are sent within NZ. 

It is USD$15 per month and the support is really great and fast! It can be a steep learning curve but the Bespoke team will help set up the basics and they offer advanced setup for an hourly fee. 

For me this is a set and forget app which I wish was a one off cost but like most things on Shopify it’s an ongoing subscription - this is the only pitfall. 

[BillieJo]

Can you please share with me the post codes?
I will consider having them to have accurate rates for my customers.

Thank you.

[benocray]

@BillieJo  Sure thing. What's your email?

[rizaldy]

Hi @benocray can I also have a copy please?

[benocray]

@rizaldy sure thing 😃 what’s your email?

[rizaldy]

Hi @benocray  just following up my request please? 😃

[rizaldy]

Hi @benocray it's [email protected] Thanks so much! 🙂

[BillieJo]

@benocray please email me at [email protected]
Thank you so much.

[RuthVaughan]

Hiya @benocray ! May I please have a copy of the magical spreadsheet? My email is [email protected] Thank you! 

[BillieJo]

@benocray sorry to disturb you but is it possible to get the post codes that you have?

[Conwayw]

Hi @benocray 

Could you please email me a copy of the rural and domestic shipping codes and spreadsheet please? 

[email protected]

Thank you so much.

[Conwayw]

Hi @David_Moore 

Could you please email me a copy of the rural and domestic shipping codes and spreadsheet please? 

[email protected]

Thank you so much.

[Mitchell_KS]

Sharing our solution for NZ rural shipping, we released a rural shipping Shopify app that can guarantee New Zealand customers pick the correct rural shipping rate at checkout for $5 USD per month with a 14-day free trial, and our app doesn't require you to have Shopify Advanced or Carrier-Calculated Shipping. If you're interested in using it, follow our 5 minute guide to set up rural shipping in NZ for your Shopify store. (This guide also includes all of the NZ rural postcodes if you are just after that).

[Jo2866]

We've just set this up and its working a treat! Thanks team!!!

[shohan]

Hi David. May I have a copy too please? [email protected], thanks!

[Jo2866]

Hey! You should look at the app KiwiSprout Rural Shipping as mentioned above. We implemented it into our store last month and it's so easy to install and only $5 per month. Its awesome! 

[frenchico]

Hello!  I wondered if you would mind sending me your shipping list please @ [email protected].  I'm navigating this challenge too and think I may have fried my brain trying to do this.  Build a store they say, it's easy they say - it's been fun but man what a learning curve!  Thank you for helping us all. 

[Justine2020]

Is there any updates on rural shipping in NZ

how do we set this up?

[Paul_TandG]

Hi Pat

Have you found a workable solution?

Unfortunately the Shopify Shipping module has very limited functionality for the NZ market, as I'm sure you have discovered.

Here's a thread I have been contributing to:

https://community.shopify.com/c/Payments-Shipping-Fulfillment/New-Zealand-Shopify-Calculated-Shippin...

The regional based shipping options in the Shopify shipping module are too broad to satisfy the variations in shipping costs across New Zealand.   While I have been able to configure Shopify shipping rates for most NZ Courier deliveries, and have successfully integrated with GoSweetSpot, our oversize shipments >80Kg are challenging and we have decided to zero rate these products and advise the customer at checkout that shipping cost are to be confirmed.  This works to a point, except that if the order combines shipping rates then the customer doesn't see the TBC note for the oversized item (I hope this makes sense!). Rural Delivery is another layer of complexity to be addressed 🙂

I believe a postcode based app is likely the answer but have yet to muster the energy to install and trial.

https://apps.shopify.com/postcode-shipping-extension

https://apps.shopify.com/vendor-shipping-rules-1

https://apps.shopify.com/customer-shipping-rules

https://apps.shopify.com/custom-shipping-rates

Would be interested in you progress.

Cheers, Paul

[David_Moore]

Hi Paul

Thanks for your post.  I installed one of the apps in your post, Bespoke Shipping and it seems to work well.  It is a bit of work to set up, because you have to load the rural post codes, but you can load everything via a spreadsheet.  I have pricing now based on zone, weight and post code.  I found the post code list from developers who make it available but I can send my spreadsheet to anyone who is interested.  One issue is that the NZ rural list is not followed by all the couriers who have their own version of what is rural (ie more than NZ Post) so will slowly add more post codes as we find them.  NZ Couriers don't use postcodes so they don't have a list of theirs.  However, it will capture 95% of rurals.  The app costs USD15 per month and we believe it will save us significantly more as shipping gets priced correctly.

[ReeceMcLeod]

Hi David,

If you could share the post code file please, send to [email protected] it'd be much appreciated.

We are continually getting stung with rural charges which hare not being recovered at checkout.

cheers

Reece

[goodjujustore]

I David I would love this list could you please email me at [email protected] !

[michelle-becs]

Hello @David_Moore - please could you send me your address list, that would be very helpful! [email protected] Thanks so much 😉

[rizaldy]

Hi @David_Moore, I'm interested. If you could also share the spreadsheet to me please [email protected]

Thanks so much! 🙂

[ModelettoStore]

I David I would love this list could you please email me at [email protected]

Merry Christmas x

[fuz_70]

Hi David,

If you could share the post code file please, send to [email protected] it'd be much appreciated. Thanks

[BillieJo]

@David_Moore  can I have a copy of your codes please? Thank you so much.

[onePlanet]

@David_Moore thanks for your post. I found this while searching for a solution. Would really appreciate if you are able to email me the spreasheet [email protected]

Thanks heaps!

[RuthVaughan]

Hi @David_Moore. Could you please send the rural post codes through to me? My email is [email protected].

Thank you for your time!

[BillieJo]

Haven't heard from @benocray  and @David_Moore 
Hopefully they can see our message 😞