If you have trouble at any point of your Better Shipping setup, please email us at better.shipping@atomyard.com and we will be more than happy to get you unstuck and provide clarification and assistance for your specific setup!
What is per variant shipping?
'Per variant' shipping means you can setup a different shipping price for each variant of your products. Allowing you charge different amounts for each variant.
The 'per variant' shipping is the same as 'per product' shipping described on the Editing the Product Rates help page, with all the same features, such as tiered shipping, tiered groups, skip shipping etc. The 'per variant' part just lets to apply these features to each of your product's variants individually to really let you take control of your shipping prices.
Enabling per variant shipping
Currently the 'per variant' shipping is in beta, but can be enabled on your store by request! Please email us at better.shipping@atomyard.com and we can enable it for your store.
Once enabled, any current shipping rates you have will be converted with variant rates enabled, and any new rates you create will also have the feature enabled. You can view your product rates and variant rates by going inside the app, then, from the main shipping rates page, click "edit product rates" of an existing shipping rate. Or if you haven't created a shipping rate yet, click "Create new shipping rate" and follow the guided setup to "Step 2". You will see your products and the variants button on that page.
To view and edit your product's variants, and start adding prices to them, first, click on the variants button row underneath the product name int the "Product" column open the variants page. Please note, the variants button is only visible on products that have variants.
Then, if you would like the variant to use a different rate than that of the product rate, on the "Use product rate" column, turn the switch 'Off', which will activate the price and option fields. Remember to hit "Update and Save" to save your changes.
Per variant shipping features
All of the features for per product shipping are available for per variant shipping. This includes:
- Tiered shipping
- Tiered shipping groups
- Skip shipping rules
- Use product rate
With the exception of "Use product rate", more information about those features can be found on the Editing the Product Rates and the Creating Tiered Group Rates help pages
Information about the "Use product rate" can be found below on the heading Per Variant "Use product rate".
Per Variant "Use product rate"
One difference between the 'per product' rates, and the 'per variant' rates options is the "Use product rate" switch
For the product rate, this column is called "Use default product rate". This sets the product to use the 'default' product rate which is set at the top of the page. All new products are set to use the default product rate automatically, so that can be used to automatically set new products to something sensible. More information about that can be found on the Editing the Product Rates help page.
For the variant rate, the column is called "Use product rate". This means that if the switch is on, the variant rate will use the main product rate settings. All new variants will automatically be set to use the product rate settings.
For example, in the screenshot below, the product rate is set to $10 'per product'. And it's small and medium variants have the "Use product rate" switch on, while the large variant has the "Use product rate" switch off and has a price set for $12 per variant.
This means that if a customer was to order one of each size, the shipping rate would be:
$10 (for small) + $10 (for medium) + $12 (for large) = $32 total shipping
To take this example further, if the product rate was to be set to use the "default product rate" as well, then both the small and the medium variants would be also set to the default product rate, but the large variant would still have its own rate of $12.
For this setup, as shown in the image below, if a customer was to order one of each size of the product the shipping rate would be:
$6 (for small (default rate)) + $6 (for medium (default rate)) + $12 (for large) = $36 total shipping
Using variant rates message.
When you enable a variant rate for a product, once it is updated and you close the variant pop up, the product row will then show a new message.
To edit the product rate, or the variant rates again when you see this message, just click the "Variants" button again under the product rate name.
More information
If you have any trouble with the variant rates or any of your setup, we are always happy to help! Please email us at better.shipping@atomyard.com, and we are more than happy to get you unstuck and provide clarification for your specific setup!