Using Australia Post Shipping

Spiffy Stores links in with Australia Post to calculate the cost of shipping an item to your customer based on the weight of items in their cart. To add an Australia Post shipping rate, go to the "Preferences >> Shipping & handling" section of your Store Toolbox, and follow the instructions below.

Supported Services

The Australia Post shipping agent supports the following Australia Post shipping services.

Domestic Services

• Regular Parcel
• 500g Parcel Post Satchel
• 3kg Parcel Post Satchel
• Express Post
• 500g Express Post Satchel
• 3kg Express Post Satchel
• 5kg Express Post Satchel
• Express Post Platinum
• 500g Express Post Platinum Satchel
• 3kg Express Post Platinum Satchel

Optional Domestic Services

• Registered Post

International Services

• International Air Mail
• International Sea Mail
• Registered Post International
• Express Courier International Merchandise
• Express Post International
• Pack and Track International

Enabling Australia Post as a shipping agent

If you haven't already enabled Australia Post as a shipping provider, go to the "Preferences >> Shipping & handling" section of your Store Toolbox, and follow the instructions below.

1. Click on the "Add a shipping agent" button in the top right of the "Shipping & handling" page
2. From the list of available shipping agents, click the "Activate" button in the Australia Post section
3. Select the services from Australia Post that you want to offer to your customers. Currently, the following services are supported;
   • Regular Parcel Post (Domestic)
   • Registered Post (Domestic)
   • Express Post (Domestic)
   • International Air Mail
   • International Sea Mail
   • Express Courier International Merchandise
   • Express Post International

We're currently unable to provide shipping costs for Australia Posts' Platinum Express or Registered Post International services, as the Australia Post API doesn't provide these costs.

Creating a weight-based shipping rate using Australia Post

1. Click on the "Add a weight-based rate" link under the country that you want to add a new shipping rate for.
2. Name your shipping rate. This name appears in your checkout when a customer places an order, so generally you would write the carrier that it's being shipped by... for instance "Australia Post".
3. Add the weight range that this postage rate applies to. The first box is the starting (lowest) weight that applies for this weight range. The second box is the ending (highest) weight that applies for this weight range. Note that the Australia Post maximum rate is 20kg.
   
   Note: In order for the weight range to apply to the current contents of the shopping cart, the weight of the cart must be greater than or equal to the lowest value in the range, but less than the highest value in the weight range.
4. Select the Shipping Service that applies to this shipping rate in the section titled "Choose a Shipping Rate Calculator", for example if you're creating a rate for "Australia Post Parcel Post", then choose "Australia Post".
5. Choose whether you want to add any "handling days". In the checkout, the customer is currently shown a delivery date estimate, for example, Delivery Estimate: 10th Sep, 2010. If you want to give yourself an extra day or two before you ship the item, adjust the handling days. If you add two handling days, the delivery date estimate in the example above would then be adjusted to read Delivery Estimate: 12th Sep, 2010.
6. Choose whether you want to add a handling fee. If you want to charge a customer for packing up the item and so on, you can now add a handling fee. This amount is just added to the shipping cost in the checkout. It's not displayed as a separate handling fee.
7. Adjust your shipping rate by a percentage amount. If you want to charge a little extra (or a little less) for your shipping to cover costs, you can adjust the calculated shipping fee by a percentage amount. This also allows you to compensate for any errors in rates that a shipping carrier might return.
8. Set your fall-back option. If for any reason the shipping carrier fails, you can set a default rate or set it to ignore that carrier.
9. Click the "Save Rate" button.

Parcel Dimensions

When you use shipping dimensions for your variations, you will need to remember to ensure that they conform with the minimum and maximum values as specified by Australia Post.

For further information on Parcel Dimensions, please refer to the Parcel dimensions page on the Australia Post web site.

Coming soon: If you want to adjust the price for different regions in the country (including custom regions that you've created), edit the rate that you've just created, and use the arrows to adjust the rate up or down. You can also disable the rate for any regions as well, so you can create a custom rate that only applies to customers in your local area, or a rate that applies only to a range of postcodes.