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How to Surcharge Rates Over a Certain Weight Threshold

Implement weight-based surcharges for heavy shipments to optimize shipping costs

Overview

A common scenario for ShipperHQ merchants is to use shipping rules to apply an extra fee based on the order's weight. For instance, if a cart weighs more than 50 lbs, a merchant might want to collect an additional surcharge. This guide will show you how to apply a surcharge of $5.00 on UPS Ground for a cart weight over 50 lbs.

Table of Contents

Requirements

Before you begin, ensure you have the following:

  • Your Carrier set up with selected and defined shipping methods

Setup

To create a surcharge rule based on cart weight, you'll need a shipping filter and a shipping rule. The shipping filter will determine when the rule applies.

Creating a Shipping Filter

  1. Click on Filters from the left-hand navigation in ShipperHQ and then click +New.

    Location of Filters option under Shipping Rules menu.

    Click New to start creating a new filter.

  2. On the filter setup page, enter a name for your filter. We’ll use “50 LBs +” in this example.

    • Select Filter Applies to Origin
    • Add a brief description for the filter’s purpose in the “Internal Description” textbox

    Example showing details to be filled in Overview section of the filter.

  3. Set a Weight Range of 50 lbs & No Maximum Weight.

    Example showing how to set up weight-based filter.

  4. Save your new filter. You can now select this option when building your new shipping rule.

Creating Your Shipping Rule

  1. Navigate to the Shipping Rules option in the left-hand navigation menu.

    Location of All Shipping Rules option under Shipping Rules menu.

  2. Click Add New to create a new shipping rule.

    Location of New button to click and create a new shipping rule.

  3. Select Surcharge Rates for the action that you would like the rule to perform.

    Location to select Surcharge Rates as the action for this shipping rule.

  4. Select the flat rate or percentage you would like to surcharge. In this case, set a flat rate of $5.00.

    Setting to select how the surcharges will apply for this rule. For example, Flat Rate, Percentage Rate, or both. Example showing details to be filled to create a Flat Rate surcharge rule.

  5. Specify how the surcharge should be applied.

    Setting to select how the surcharge will apply to the cart.

  6. Choose the shipping methods to be used in this surcharge rule from a list of all available shipping methods.

    Example showing how to select shipping methods on which this rule will be applicable.

  7. Select the option to use Weight for the rule condition to apply this surcharge to the selected methods, then click Continue to proceed.

    Location to select Weight as the condition for the surcharge shipping rule.

  8. You will be prompted to enter the weight to use for your rule. If you have not created the weight filter yet, you can do so here.

    Example showing how to configure weight condition for the rule.

    If you have already created a weight filter, you can choose to Apply an Existing Filter.

    Setting to create a new filter for the shipping rule.

  9. Select the existing weight filter from the drop-down menu.

    Example showing selecting a weight-based filter for this example.

  10. After selecting the weight filter and proceeding, a summary of the shipping rule will be displayed. Add a title for the new rule so that it can be easily identified.

    Sample showing the summary of a shipping rule before you click Finish and complete the rule creation.

  11. Click Finish to save the new rule. This will apply the rule immediately.

Once the rule is created, use the Test your Rates feature to confirm the new rule works as intended. 😊