Settings & Configuration | Shipping Carriers & Rate Tester

Beyond zones and rates (covered in Settings | Shipping), the Shipping settings hold your courier connections and the tools to verify them: the Courier Integrations and Rate Tester tabs.

Courier integrations

Two ways to buy labels:

• Orbit Shipping — the built-in option. Buy labels directly; no carrier account needed. The tab shows your accrued spend, trust tier and recent charges.

• Your Carrier Accounts — connect your own carrier accounts (bring your own rates) when you have negotiated contracts.

How label billing works

Each label is charged to your card immediately when you buy it. After a few successful payments your account graduates to accrued billing with a spending threshold — labels then accrue and your card is charged when accrued spend crosses the billing threshold. A payment card is required to buy labels; add one on the Orbit Shipping tab.

International labels on Orbit Shipping are sent DDU/DAP — your customer pays import duties on delivery. To send DDP (you pay the duties), connect your own carrier account.

Rate Tester

The Rate Tester answers “what will customers actually see?” before you ship a change:

1. Enter a destination — country (state and postal code optional).

2. Build a sample basket: quantity, unit price and unit weight per line. Rates that vary by shipping class assume your default class.

3. Select Test rates. You get exactly the shipping options a customer would be offered at checkout, in the order they would see them.

Tips

• Test after every zone or rate change — a misconfigured rule is cheaper found here than in a support ticket.

• Test the extremes: your heaviest product to your furthest zone, and a single light item locally.

• Moving volume to your own carrier contract? Connect it under Your Carrier Accounts and compare against Orbit Shipping rates in the tester.