Testing the app
To test Better Shipping the app can be in either Test Mode or Live mode, and you must have created at least one shipping (see the Shipping Rate Help page for information about creating a shipping rate).
In this example, we have setup our products to ship for $5 per product and have called the shipping rate "Shipping". To make sure that we are getting what we expect from our shipping rate, it is always a good idea to make some test orders in our store.
A test order is just a normal order in your shop. We are just pretending to be a customer to make sure everything is working the way we expect it to. So to create a test order in our t-shirt shop, we just head to our store's customer facing front page, choose a product and add it to the cart.
We have added a t-shirt to our cart. So we expect to see a shipping cost of $5 at checkout. Please note, you must go to the last page of the checkout, after you have entered the customer address to see the shipping rate. This is because Shopify does not request a shipping rate until the customer address has been entered.
Also if the app is still in Test Mode, make sure to use the first name "Better" and last name "Shipping" in the shipping information (see our Test Mode help page for more information about using Test Mode)
You will see that the shipping rate is now $5 for "Standard Shipping."
If you then go back to our cart by clicking on the cart button from the checkout page
And change the quantity of our t-shirts to 2, then checkout again, we can see the shipping has updated to $10 ($5 + $5) as expected.
We can also change the shipping price in Better Shipping and see the changes instantly. Go back to the Better Shipping app, and on the products rates page of the shipping app, let's change the shipping on that t-shirt to $7. To do so, head back to the Better Shipping app and onto the main "Shipping Rates" page by using the left-hand menu inside the app.
Then, find the shipping rate that you are using for testing, for our example is it called "Standard Shipping" and click on the "Edit product rates" link to go straight to the product rates page of the Standard Shipping shipping rate.
Now on the product rates page, change one of your products to $7 shipping and click the "Update and Save" button to save the change.
Now we go back to our store page, go to the checkout and click "Checkout" again. We can see that the shipping price has instantly changed for 2 items and is now $14, which is $7 + $7 and what we expected!
If you went to the checkout and the price did not change, a couple of things could have happened. The first and easiest is you forgot to click the "Update and Save" inside the Better Shipping app. The update and save button must be clicked in order for the shipping price to be updated, and the change made 'live'.
The second is that your shopping cart has been cached by Shopify. What this means is that Shopify has 'saved' your address and cart into their database, so when you are checking out, instead of requesting a new shipping rate from us, they just spit out the 'saved' (cached) shipping rate instead. This is a step that Shopify uses to save on how much data they need to send, and won't affect your customers, however, as you are testing your shipping rates, it can affect how often they are updated.
There is an easy workaround for this. Shopify will request a new shipping rate from us if the cart weight has changed or the customer address has changed. The easiest thing for us to change is the customer address. To do so, from the checkout page, we can click on "Customer Information", then change the zip code (I usually just increment it by 1. So if the zip code is 10000, just change it to 10001 and so on). Then click "Continue to shipping method". You should see the updated price now.
If you had problems with getting your rates to generate, please don't hesitate to email us at better.shipping@atomyard.com. We are always happy to help.