I came here via the YouTube video on setting up Table rates.
I was wondering if you had any luck with the additional module you mention in the video that you were testing - and could possibly recommend the module you alluded to?
I’m trying to set up a set or shipping rates for the UK where pricing over a certain weight, or shipping to the Scottish Highlands and Islands, IoM, Jersey etc are all priced appropriately, however it just doesn’t work with the basic install.
When I add my table like this, then test by typing the post code in a region that I’ve set, the Magento site just ignores the rate in the table for that postcode and posts the cheapest rate.
As far as I can tell, I’ve got everything set-up correctly, but it’s not clear where I’m going wrong, or if M2 just doesn’t handle the wildcards as it should.
Do I need to set-up region/state? Documentation is soooo poor for this.
Can you point me in the right direction?
FYI - something you mention in the video. I will be using the UPS module for international postage - it is fairly straight-forward to use if you have an account with UPS to get the details to plug in there. It just calculates the rates based upon your account details and rates with UPS and allows you to mark up if needed using handling fee.
Great videos by the way very helpful… I know Magento is international, but setting up from a UK perspective has it’s own challenges with delivery rates for example, so nice to see.
Just an addition that I experimented putting in specific postalcodes in my table which worked perfectly. So I added my own full postcode and put in a random outrageously expensive delivery and the front end of the site picked that up no problems at all.
So it seems to only really have problems with wildcards.
Magento can’t differentiate UK postcodes with the same starting letters but different numbers, for example IV5* vs IV9*
I do the same thing for one of my client that you are alluding to. We have 3 different couriers - Tuffnells, Royal Mail and ParceForce who have higher postage rates for certain postcodes (Cornwall, Highlands of Scotland, Wales, etc) but as you have found out the standard system does not let you have different prices for IV5 vs IV9 for instance as IV5* and IV9 dont work in the standard system. Most of the higher price postcodes are 2 letters and 1 number specific.
In Magento 1.9 we used WebShopApps Product Matric Rate which was a one off fee of around £200, out table had 7,000 rows so every product (we split products into 7 different product sizes for the various shipping options) would work perfectly in giving the best shipping rate based on the total basket content. It could differentiate IV5* and IV7* in our above example.
However, the Magento 2 version of WebShopApps is £1500 per month!!! We had a skype chat with them but no joy on reducing the price which works out £18k per year which was quite frankly ridiculous.
So, I looked at alternatives to and I’ve just finished (yesterday) configuring MagePlaza’s Table Rate Shipping and I’m very happy (sitting down with the client tomorrow and will have a huge smile on my face in that I’ve saved them £18k per year!)
It does almost everything the old system did, but it cannot combine BOTH volume and weight filtering at the same time.
To get around that, we will use “fudge” weights for the smaller items which previously put orders into Royal Mail Large Letter (250g), Large Letter (750g) or Small Parcel up to £20 rate based on the volume. By adding “fuged” weights for the smaller items we can achieve the same result. This client has a hugely diverse range of parcels from Royal Mail Large Letter at £2.39 up to 6 meter long items sent to Scotland at £800+ and everything in between!
Don’t forget, it you’re using Jersey, Isle of Mann and Guernsey and have them setup in Stores > Configuration > General > General > Country Options then you’ll need 2 rows fr them in your rate table. 1 for the UK version with JE* postcode and 1 for the JE country version with * postcards.
I was in a bit of a rush, so had already gone ahead and bought a different (cheaper) plugin called Matrix Rate that on basic principle works, but doesn’t have the same nice options as Mage Plaza’s and turns out is actually quite buggy and the suport have been unresponsive.
I’d just about got MatrixRate set-up and working but after seeing your reply, I went ahead and bought MagePlaza’s this morning and ported over my data, so I’m in the middle of setting up the rates now. So far it’s working beautifully.
I’m having a little problem in my table where for one of my rates, I can’t offer a pre 10:30 delivery specifically to BT postal codes (Northern Ireland).
So in my table I have removed BT% for this specific rate. However, because I have Birmingham in there B% now, whenever I’m testing, to show rates for BT postal codes, it is including my pre 10:30 rate as typing in BT is picked up with the B%.
Did you have a similar issue and did you figure out a workaround?
I think that is my last headscratcher.
Thanks once again for the detailed reply, you’ve really helped me out!
Hi Mick,
Glad the info helped you.
Yes, you’ve found the solution - adding B1%, B2%, etc, and thanks for sharing the answer to your question.
Really pleased it’s working for you.
