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ShipEZ Setting Guide

📚 ShipEZ User Manual

🚀 Settings Guide – Section 1: Getting Started with ShipEZ

Welcome! Before setting up your shipping rules, let’s walk through the Settings section of ShipEZ. This part ensures your app is ready to generate accurate rates for your Shopify store.
 Don’t worry — it’s easy! Most settings are already set up by default, and we’ll explain what each one does so you can adjust only if needed.

1️⃣ App Service Status (🚨 Must Set Up First)

This is the most important setting in ShipEZ. If this is not enabled, the app will not function on your store.

🔒 What is it?

This setting activates the Carrier Service API in your Shopify store, which allows ShipEZ to send real-time shipping rates to the checkout page.

✅ How to enable:

Here’s what to do depending on your Shopify plan:

  • Shopify Basic Plan: ❌
     Carrier Calculated Shipping (CCS) is not officially supported on the Basic plan — even with annual billing or the $20/month add-on.
     👉 However, we’ve seen some Basic stores successfully use ShipEZ. It may depend on the advisor or account status.
     ✅ We strongly recommend contacting a Shopify Support Advisor (live agent) directly to ask if they can activate CCS for your store.

     

  • Shopify Plan: ✅
    • Annual billing: CCS can be enabled for free — just ask the advisor.
    • Monthly billing: You can either:
      • Switch to annual billing (CCS is usually included), or
      • Stay on monthly and request CCS for $20/month via support.
  • Shopify Advanced & Shopify Plus: ✅
     CCS is included by default — no extra steps required!

👉 Learn how to enable Carrier Calculated Shipping

🔔 Important: Please speak to a live Shopify Support advisor — the chatbot cannot assist with enabling CCS.

⚠️ What happens if you don’t enable it?

If CCS isn’t enabled, ShipEZ won’t be able to calculate shipping rates, and you’ll see:

  • In the app:
     “Carrier Calculated Shipping must be enabled for your store before using ShipEZ.”

     

  • In your Shopify shipping profiles:
     “There are no carriers or apps available for this zone.”
✅ Final Step in ShipEZ

Once CCS is enabled on your Shopify store:

  1. Go to Settings > App Service Status inside ShipEZ.
  2. Click “Enable Shipping Service.”
  3. The status should change to: Active

You’re now ready to sync your data and move on to Add Rate to Shipping Profile

Add ShipEZ to Your Shipping Profile

Now that ShipEZ is active, you need to add ShipEZ as a rate provider to your Shopify shipping zone:
  1. Go to your Shopify Admin > Settings > Shipping and Delivery
  2. Click Manage Rates next to your shipping profile
  3. Under your shipping location (e.g., Thailand Warehouse), click Add Rates
  4. Select:
    • Rate type: Use carrier or app to calculate rates
    • App: Smart Shipping Rates – Smartive.io
  5. (Optional) Enable “Automatically show new shipping services”
  6. Click Done to save
✅ ShipEZ is now active in your shipping profile and ready to return real-time rates at checkout! You’re now ready to sync your data and move on to configuring rules!
2️⃣ Enable Fallback Rate (Optional, but Helpful)

This setting gives you a safety net in case none of your shipping rules match an order.

📦 What is it?

The Fallback Rate is a default shipping rate shown to customers when no other rules apply.
 If enabled, it ensures your customers will still see a rate at checkout, instead of getting an error or blank screen.

✅ Do I need to enable it?
  • No, it’s not required — you can leave it unchecked by default.
  • But if you want to avoid any gaps in shipping coverage (e.g., if you’re still setting up your rules), enabling a fallback rate is a good idea.
🛠️ How to enable:
  1. Check the Enable Fallback Rate box.
  2. Enter a Fallback Rate Name (e.g., “Default Shipping” or “Backup Shipping”).
  3. Set a Shipping Cost and choose:
    • Fixed Amount: e.g., 100 USD
    • Percentage: e.g., 10% of order total

Once enabled, this rate will appear whenever no specific rule is triggered by the order.

⚠️ What happens if it’s not enabled?

If no rules match and the fallback is disabled, then:

  • Your customer may see no shipping options at checkout.
  • The order cannot be placed unless a valid rate is returned.
✨ Pro Tip:

Use this feature as a temporary backup while you’re still finalizing your shipping rule conditions — or keep it permanently in place with a high price just in case something slips through.

3️⃣ Combine Shipments into One Rate (Optional)

This setting lets you simplify shipping costs when orders contain items from multiple locations or vendors.

🔄 What is it?

By default, Shopify calculates shipping per location.
 If a customer’s cart includes items from two locations, they’ll see two shipping charges.

With this setting enabled, ShipEZ will:

  • Combine all shipments into one rate, based on your configured rules.
  • Return a single shipping cost at checkout — easier for customers, and often more appealing.
✅ Do I need to enable it?
  • No, it’s optional. The default value is unchecked (No).
  • We recommend leaving it unchecked unless:
    • You want to offer one unified shipping cost to simplify the checkout.
    • You have multiple warehouses, vendors, or dropship sources, and don’t want to charge customers twice.
🛠️ How to enable:
  1. Go to ShipEZ > Settings
  2. Find the “Combine Shipments into One Rate” toggle.
  3. Switch it to Yes to enable.
⚠️ What happens if it’s disabled?

If you keep this unchecked (default behavior):

  • Shopify will calculate shipping per fulfillment location
  • Customers may see multiple shipping charges on a single order
✨ Use Case Tip:

If you want full control and transparency over how shipping is calculated per location, keep this off. If you want a simple, flat-rate experience, especially for marketing campaigns like “Free Shipping Over 1,000 USD,” you may want to enable this.

4️⃣ Sync Data (⚙️ Keep It Up-to-Date)

Syncing keeps ShipEZ in sync with your Shopify store so it can apply your shipping rules accurately.

🔁 What is it?

ShipEZ relies on your store data — like products, collections, shipping zones, customers, and store settings — to determine which shipping rules apply.

To keep everything working smoothly, you need to sync ShipEZ whenever there are any changes to the data related to your shipping rules.

✅ When should I sync?

You should sync data any time you:

  • Add or update products
  • Modify collections or tags
  • Change shipping zones or regions
  • Update customer information or customer groups
  • Change your store address or base settings
  • Install the app or re-enable services
🛠️ How to sync:

Go to ShipEZ > Settings, then scroll to the Sync section. Choose:

Sync Option

What It Does

Sync All Data

Recommended — updates everything in one click

Products

Syncs latest product info (SKU, tags, types, etc.)

Shipping Zones

Updates your current Shopify shipping zones

Customer

Updates customer list for rule targeting

Store Information

Syncs settings like address, currency, and timezone

⚠️ What happens if you don’t sync?

If your data is outdated:

  • Your shipping rules might not trigger correctly
  • Newly added products might not appear in your rule settings
  • Shipping zones or customer filters may be incomplete or inaccurate
✨ Pro Tip:

You don’t have to sync everything every time.
Use Sync All Data when starting out or after major changes. For small updates, you can sync only what you need (e.g., just products).

5️⃣ Advanced Settings (Optional – Pre-filled for You)

This section gives you additional control over how ShipEZ calculates and displays rates.
 💡 By default, all settings are already filled based on your Shopify store. You don’t need to change anything unless you have special requirements.

⚙️ What is it?

Advanced Settings include:

  • General configuration (currency, timezone, checkout display)
  • Measurement units
  • Volumetric weight calculations
  • Appearance and excluded delivery days
  • Google API options for distance-based rules

🛠️ Let’s go through each section:

🧩 1. General Settings
    • Currency Code
       → Pulled automatically from your Shopify store.
       → Default example: USD
    • Timezone
       → Synced from your Shopify backend.
       → Default example: Asia/Bangkok
    • Shipping Rate Options at Checkout
       → Controls how many shipping options are shown.
       → Default value: Display All Rates
       Options include:
      • Display All Rates: Show all matched shipping options (✅ default)
      • Lowest Rate: Only show the cheapest option
      • Highest Rate: Only show the most expensive
📏 2. Measurement Formats

These define the units used in shipping calculations:

  • Distance
     → Default: Kilometers
  • Weight
     → Default: Grams
  • Dimension Format
     → Default: Millimeters
  • Volumetric Dimensional Factor
     → Used to calculate volumetric weight.
     → Default value: 5000
     📦 Formula: (Length × Width × Height) / Volumetric Dimensional Factor

💡 If you use a specific courier (e.g., DHL, Kerry), confirm their dimensional factor and update here only if needed.

📅 3. Appearance Settings

Customize how dates and excluded days appear for delivery calculations:

  • Date Format
     → Default: MM/DD/YYYY
  • Excluded Days
     → Used to skip certain days (e.g., non-working days) from delivery date calculations.
     → Default: Saturday and Sunday are excluded

⚠️ ShipEZ will not count excluded days in delivery/processing estimates.

🌍 4. Google API Settings (Optional)

This is only needed if you want to create distance-based rules.

  • Google API Key
     → Leave blank unless you plan to calculate based on real-time distance using Google Maps.
  • Distance Travel Mode
     → Default: Driving
     Other options: Walking, Bicycling, or Transit

Final Tip:

If you’re not using special features like volumetric or distance-based rules, you can confidently leave all settings as-is ✅

You’re now done with all the basic setup! 🎉
Let me know when you’re ready to move on to Rule Settings — the heart of ShipEZ!