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Options for charging shipping in BackerKit
If you didn’t charge shipping during fundraising, we have different options to collect shipping for your pledge level rewards and add-ons using the BackerKit Pledge Manager.
Jump to: Whole Order Shipping Option
Charge Shipping Later Option (Beta Feature)
Whole Order Shipping Option
Whole order shipping is a weight-based profile that calculates the fee based on the total weight of pledge level rewards and add-ons in an order.
Prerequisites to use Whole Order Shipping option:
- You did not charge shipping during your Crowdfunding campaign.
- You know all of the weights of their products.
- You want the final shipping fee to be calculated based on the final weight of all items in the backer’s order (pledge level rewards + add-on items)
- Your shipping rates are finalized with your fulfillment partner.
When using whole order weight-based shipping, please make sure to follow these guidelines:
- Do not set up any pledge-level shipping.
- Make sure to enter the weights of all of your SKUs on the SKUs page.
- If your shipping quotes include the weight of the package and materials, please build these into the item weights.
- Only set up one shipping profile, as the Whole Order Weight-Based shipping profile will override any other shipping profiles.
- We required an Infinity Rule when using weight-based shipping, to ensure all weights are calculating shipping fees:
To create the Whole Order shipping profile, navigate to the Add Shipping Fees page >> click Create a New Shipping Profile >> and choose Recommended: Whole order weight-based shipping fee >> Name the profile and click 'Next'.
Whole order weight-based shipping tables look something like this:
Note: BackerKit defaults to LBS & OZ, if your shipping quotes are metric, kilograms & grams, please reach out to hello@backerkit.com requesting to switch to metrics.
Stackable Shipping Option
The stackable shipping option is best for creators that want to charge a flat rate for the pledge tier rewards and then create additional fees for any add-ons purchased. This gives you the capability to get as granular as you need for your project.
This is a big advantage if your campaign has items of all different sizes and or shipping classes and you need to set specific rates for specific items.
Example: Your main reward are books which qualify for media mail rates and need to charge regular fees for all non-book items. Or you have a poster that will ship by itself in a tube, which will need to charge its own shipping fee.
Prerequisites to use Stackable Pledge Level Shipping + Add-on Shipping profiles:
- You collected Shipping Fees during your campaign
- Or would like to charge a flat rate for your pledge level items and charge a different rate for your add-ons
- Your shipping fees have been quoted on the pledge level reward bundles and separate pricing for add-ons.
You can set your pledge level shipping fee up in bulk using our Batch Edit tool:
- On the lefthand side of your dashboard >> click on Review Pledge Levels
- In the upper right corner of the screen >> click the Batch Edit link
- Click on the Pledge level shipping fees tab.
- Create shipping fees per country by clicking Add New Shipping Fee or bulk Add EU Shipping Fees and enter fees.
- Please note, pledge level shipping requires individual countries, but you can create 'regions' for your add-on shipping profiles.
- Under 'Select the pledge levels that you want to apply the shipping fees to' section, check the box next to all pledge levels that you want to apply the shipping fees too.
- Click Apply - This will override any current shipping fees, so please use with caution.
Pro Tip: You can also add/edit shipping to individual pledge levels by clicking on " Edit Details" from the Review Pledge Levels page.
To setup Add-on Shipping Profiles, please read our Set up add-ons shipping profiles help article.
Learn more about the different types of add-ons shipping profiles here.
Charge Shipping Later Option (Beta Feature)
We are offering a new beta feature to creators who do not know how much to charge for shipping for their campaign. If you know how much to charge for shipping, then you do not need this feature.
Prerequisites for using Charge Shipping Later:
- You don’t know what you want to charge for shipping
- You want to set and charge for shipping closer to your fulfillment date
- You need extra time to finalize your shipping costs for your project
If you want to opt into this new beta feature, you can skip setting up all shipping fees for your project and send out the survey as you gather more information on how you need to collect shipping rewards.
Note: You can not use this feature and PayPal at the same time, so you would only be able to accept payments via Stripe.
Backers will be notified on their survey that " Shipping will be added and charged later" as shown in the image below.
Once you are ready to charge shipping you will need to reach back out to us so we can help with the next steps.
If this is something you’d like to try, please reach out to your Customer Success representative and ask them to enable it for you!
Additional Resources: