Shipping Zones allow you to offer different shipping rates to customers based on their location. By grouping US states into zones, you can assign a different Shipping Rate Tier Group to each zone - so customers in one region can pay a different shipping rate than customers in another.
Shipping Zones work in conjunction with Shipping Rate Tiers. If you haven't set up your Tier Groups yet, start with Shipping Rate Tiers before configuring zones.
How Shipping Zones Work
When calculating a shipping rate, Submatic checks the state in a customer's shipping address and matches it to a zone you've defined. The Shipping Rate Tier Group assigned to that zone then determines the shipping cost.
If a customer's state doesn't match any zone, the default Shipping Rate Tier Group is used as a fallback. Each state can only belong to one zone.
Create and Manage Shipping Zones
- Navigate to Submatic Settings > Business
- Click the Shipping tab (if you do not see a Shipping tab, navigate to the Store Settings tab, scroll down to the bottom of the page, check Yes for Enable Shipping Features? and Save)
- Click Manage Shipping Zones
- Click Create Shipping Zone to add a new zone, or click into an existing zone to edit it
- Give your zone a name (e.g., "West Coast", "Northeast", "Everything Else")
- Select the states that belong to this zone - states already assigned to another zone will be shown as unavailable
- Click Save
Assign a Tier Group to a Zone
Once your zones are created, you can assign a different Shipping Rate Tier Group to each zone on a per-template basis.
- Open the template you want to configure
- Make sure Shipping Cost is Variable is checked and a default Shipping Rate Tier Group is selected
- In the Shipping Zones section, use the zone overrides to assign a different Tier Group to specific zones
- Save the template
Any zone that doesn't have an override will use the template's default Tier Group. Below is a screenshot showing how this might appear. This example has a Default Tier Group called "Standard Shipping" and one zone override "Per-Zone Rate" called Northeast.
Example Setup
Say you have two tier groups: "Standard Shipping" and "West Coast Shipping" (which has higher rates). You could:
- Create a zone called "West Coast" containing CA, OR, and WA
- On your template, set "Standard Shipping" as the default Tier Group
- Assign "West Coast Shipping" as the override for the West Coast zone
Customers in California, Oregon, or Washington would automatically get the West Coast rates; everyone else gets Standard.