You should have an active BigCommerce account and be signed in as an administrator, or have administrative privileges of your e-store, in order to understand and use the instructions below.

Overview:

1. Preparing BigCommerce
2. How to obtain API authentication key for FedEx
3. Choose Your Plan
4. How to enable or disable a carrier
5. Integration of application to the FedEx rating API
6. Identify drop ship locations and warehouses
7. Quotes Setting
8. How to enter shipping parameters of the product

Other information:

• What your customer sees
• How to use import CSV Utility to update products

To display live carrier quotes at checkout, you need a third-party calculated shipping rates feature on your BigCommerce plan. This feature is normally available on the Advanced BigCommerce plan, but you can also contact BigCommerce Customer Support to request this feature on other plans.

First, to set shipping zones and rates, Go to Settings.

Then, go to the Shipping and click on Add Shipping Zone (zone name if you don’t have a predefined domestic shipping zone). Here, you can select multiple shipping zones and set shipping rates for each individual zone.If you have a predefined domestic zone, you can edit it by clicking the Configure button.

You will have two options: 1. Static Shipping Quotes, or 2. Real-time shipping quotes. You can choose ‘Free shipping’, ‘Flat Rates’, etc from static shipping quotes or you can select a carrier or application from Real time shipping quotes. Once you’ve chosen your preferred option, click Done.

 

If you choose to use a carrier or app to calculate rates: Do not worry if you see an alert message stating that there are no available services for your selected countries. This can be rectified later in application preferences.

If you have drop ship locations or warehouses in more than one country, you will have to add the App as a shipping method to the zones for all countries. Otherwise, this application will only provide rates for shipping zones to one country.

Note: In the above guide Connecting with SHIPMOUNT is must in order to get rates.

Start by opening the BigCommerce menu and select/open SHIPMOUNT application.  In the new window, you will directly land on the Home page where you can see the details of all the available plans. If you are not on the Home page you can locate and select Home from the side menu, please see the following screenshot.

 

On the Home page, you will see an overview of the current plan you are using. Buy Now button will turn into ‘CURRENT PLANT’. You can examine and compare the features of other plans and apply for an upgrade, or you can downgrade depending on your requirements. To make changes to your plan, make sure that you are signed into the BigCommerce store as a store owner. You can change your plan by simply clicking the subscription rate of your desired plan.

In the SHIPMOUNT app, locate and click Marketplace from the side menu where you will be able to enable/disable carrier(s) from the given list. Please see the screenshot below:

In this step, we will guide you on how to connect the application to the FedEx rating API. Click Carrier Settings from the side menu to access settings of that particular carrier. In the screenshot shown below, you can see that the Connection Settings page is used to create a connection between the App and web services of FedEx. It’s extremely simple. Enter the required data and click Submit. We recommend that you first click on the Test Carrier button before submitting the given details. If credentials entered are correct, you will see a success message.

Billing Account Number: Your primary account number is also your FedEx billing account number. This same account number should be used whenever you ship a parcel. If you don’t have one or you don’t know what it is, contact FedEx.

Meter Number: As mentioned in the previous step, you receive your Meter Number after completing the process of attaining the Authentication Key.

Password: As explained in the previous step, after performing the Authentication Key process, you will receive an email which contains your Production Password.

Authentication Key: Please see Step 2 whereby you retrieved the Authentication Key. It is your FedEx API Authentication Key.

Shipper Account Number: Often this is the same as the billing account number. If you are uncertain, contact FedEx customer support, and they will provide a unique number which can be used as a “Shipper Account Number.”

Billing Address: Enter the billing address for your main account on FedEx.

Physical Address: Your physical address is the address linked to the Shipper account number.

Third Party Account Number: The Third party account number is assigned to you by FedEx Freight only when your given shipment destination addresses are different from the address on the file. If you have that number, enter it in this field.

To add drop ship locations and warehouses, simply click the Location option given under Products and then choose Add Location. For warehouses, it is necessary to have a complete inventory of products; otherwise, it is considered drop shipped. If two or more warehouses are on the list, the one nearest to the shopper will be considered to calculate shipping rates.

Drop shipping is a method of supply chain management where a retailer does not keep products in stock. Instead, it transfers customer’s shipment information to another retailer or manufacturer who then delivers to the customer on your behalf. The checkout shopping cart will show a single figure estimate if drop shipped products are included in the order. The single figure rate represents the total after calculating shipping requirements for each item.

Residential delivery: We’ll automatically detect your location via our Global Positioning System or your own entered address.

At SHIPMOUNT we use advanced geolocation technology to detect your exact location. Specify your delivery address and we’ll find you at the right place, at the right time, at the right price.

Address type detection: For Automatic detection of  Address type, you need to have a Standard Plan or higher. If you are not already on the required plan, you will see the words “Standard Plan required.” If you wish to upgrade your current plan to a higher plan, simply click on “Standard plan required” and upgrade it. To perform this upgrade, you must be logged in as the store administrator.

SHIPMOUNT will determine the address of every order to find out if it is a residential address or not. Once that is determined, the quote will automatically add the carrier’s residential charges.

Surcharge: Calculated and charged once per order and in special instances.

At SHIPMOUNT we’re truly transparent about fees and all costs incurred on a parcel. Handling fees are an additional cost to the order subtotal and shipping fee. They’re applied per order rather than per item and are carefully calculated based on factors like your parcels warehouse storage, packaging, and the time taken in handling and preparation. There might be a special handling fee added if the parcel is kept for collection or delivered on weekends. Some of our partner carriers do, however, have a fixed handling fee.

3D Bin Packaging: We select the most optimized packaging for your parcel based on our assessment of its weight and dimensions, providing you with minimal packaging and the lowest possible shipping costs as a result.

When we can use one package for multiple items, the application will automatically detect the appropriate box(es) and convey the packaging solution to the carrier while requesting rates. The step-by-step graphical representation of the packaging solution is saved on the Order Details page. The use of the same instructions is recommended to pack the products.

If this feature is enabled, there will be a charge of 3 cents for every individual packaging solution until/unless the capped amount is reached. In order to increase the capped amount, simply increase the set amount.

Capped amount: The amount in this field represents the limit of the amount that can be charged on the ‘Standard Box Sizes’ feature in a billing cycle. This feature will stop working once the set amount limit is reached. This occurrence can display inaccurate rates. To avoid this, increase the capped amount upon reaching the limit.

How to add Boxes

Add box button: A form to get parameters of the box when you click the Add button.

Nickname: This nickname will be displayed in the graphical representation of the packaging solution.

Length: Enter the length in inches.

Width: Enter the width in inches.

Height: Enter the height in inches.

Max weight: Enter the max weight in pounds.

Box weight: Enter the box weight in pounds.

Available: Selecting this box will make the box available to the algorithm, which checks packaging solutions.

Separate Package:

Having the ‘Standard Box Sizes’ feature enabled will display settings on the Product Shipping Parameters page that will show if the items need to be shipped as multiple packages. When these settings are applied, the product will show on the ‘Box Sizes’ page. They appear in the “items that ship as multiple packages” section.

Click on the Add box button to add a box. Then, you will see a popup containing the following details about the box:

Quantity: Enter the number of boxes

Nickname: This nickname will be displayed in the graphical representation of the packaging solution.

Length: Enter the length in inches.

Weight: Enter the weight in pounds.

Height: Enter the height in inches.

Width: Enter the width in inches.

Congratulations! You are finished with application settings, you can now move on to product settings. You will use the same instructions for each product that you want to ship through LTL freight.

Locate and click on the product from the menu list located on the left. This will take you to the product’s detail page. On this page, you will see the list of products. Click on the Edit Settings button of any product that you wish to enter the parameters of.

You will be redirected to the Product Setting page, where you will have to enter product details like dimensions, weight, freight class, etc. Fill in all of the blank fields by entering the required information. Then, choose Save at the bottom of the page.

Weight: When you enter the product weight, make sure it’s in pounds. It should also include the weight of any material involved in the packaging of the shipment, such as pallets, shrink wraps, cardboard, etc.

Length: Type the length of the product in inches. Include the length increase due to the packaging material which may be required when shipping the product.

Width: Type the width of the product in inches. Include the width increase due to packaging material, which may be required when shipping the product.

Height: Type the height of the product in inches. Include the height increase due to packaging material, which may be required when shipping the product.

Quote as an LTL shipment: As we are dealing with LTL shipment, check “LTL shipment” from the given options.

Freight Class: From the drop down list, choose the product’s freight class. You can also choose “Density Based” from the drop down list, which will measure the weight and dimensions of the product to calculate the freight class. In most cases, density based calculation will provide the accurate freight class, but it is your responsibility to check the accuracy of the freight class of your product(s).

Hazardous Material: To access this feature, you need to have a Standard Plan or higher. If you are not already on the required plan, you will see “Standard Plan required.” If you wish to upgrade your current plan to a higher plan, simply click “Standard Plan required” and upgrade it. To perform this upgrade, you must be logged in as a BigCommerce store administrator.

Hazardous materials/products are those that pose a risk to health, safety, property, or the environment when transported. Please note that if any hazardous material is included in the cart, the carrier’s hazardous material fee will be applied in the quote of that item.

Drop ship this product: This box should be checked if the item needs to be shipped from another location on your behalf.

Drop ship location: You can select the drop ship location from the drop down menu. These locations can be located on the Locations tab. The detailed explanation is provided in step 3.

Congratulations! If you have completed all of the preceding steps, your store on BigCommerce is ready to start quoting LTL freight. When more than one item in the cart is marked as shipping LTL freight, all other items are also shipped as LTL freight. This is the most economical method. It would make orders complicated if the items were split between more than one shipping method. The best practice is to always enter freight class, dimensions, and weight for each product, even when they are not defaulted to ship LTL freight. This will generate the best possible outcome.

The accurate representation of displayed LTL rates will depend on the selected options in the Quote Settings.

 

 

Using the import CSV Utility makes everything much simpler than navigating in and out of the user interface, especially when you have a variety of items/products. Import CSV Utility is the application’s default feature, which is useful when entering or updating the parameters of a product shipment.

In the app preferences, click on the Import CSV tab.

 

CSV will begin to download as soon as you click on the template link. Open it in Excel or a similar application. Every single row in the spreadsheet will display one of your products and the variants of that particular product. Remember that products must be present in BigCommerce before you download the CSV template because it can be used to update products, but it cannot be used to create products. SHIPMOUNT is an application that provides a quote for LTL and Parcel, and the template is useful for both Parcel and LTL Freight. You only have to import the file once, even if you have two or more SHIPMOUNT quoting applications installed.

The best practice is to save a copy of the CSV template file as a backup. Thus if an error were to occur, you can restore your previous shipping parameters from the saved backup.

Do not make changes to columns A and B. They contain unique identifiers from BigCommerce. Products and variants are represented by a row in the file, and columns C-J are there to assist you in identifying them. Columns K-X are used to populate usable data from the app.

All rows of products, or product variants, should be removed from the CSV Utility if they don’t require updating. This act will save these products from being updated in case you were to make a mistake while updating other information.

Deleting data from the user interface and deleting data from the fields’ columns K-X, have the same effect. For Example, You assign items to drop ship locations using columns Q,R,S,T,U. If those were filled out for an item when you received the CSV file, but you have removed the data before importing that particular file, then the product’s association with a drop ship location will no longer exist.

A	Product ID	This is a very crucial column in the import process, do not disturb this column.
B	Varient ID	This is a very crucial column in the import process, do not disturb this column.
K	Quote Method	The default shipping method for the product is required, enter L for LTL freight or P for Parcel. If both apps are installed enter either S or L depending on your settings. Leaving this empty means the app will ignore this product.
L	Freight Class	This is required when you have only the LTL Freight Quotes application. Now enter the freight class for all products including parcel shipments. Parcel becomes LTL depending on the number of products in the cart, permitted values are: 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 77.5, 85, 92.5, 100, 110, 125, 150, 175, 200, 225, 250, 300, 400, 500, Density Based.
M	Weight	Weight should be entered in pounds (thousandths value of a pound), let’s say entered value for an item is 1.125 that weighs 1 pound and 0 ounces or 1 1/8 pounds. Data stored on BigCommerce will be in grams and column J contains the data that you entered on BigCommerce.
N	Length	The longest dimension of the item is the length and this must be entered in inches (thousandths value of an inch) Parcel Quotes: We recommend that you enter the length for both Standard Box Sizes and Non-standard Box Sizes. LTL Freight Quotes: Length is only required when you are using the Density based option for Freight Class, when carrier variant requires shipping to certain places and when carrier variant needs length to find out if the ‘excessive length fee’ applies.
O	Width	The width should be entered in inches (thousandths value of an inch), let’s say entered width for an item is 1.125 that has width of 1 1/8 inches. Parcel Quotes: We recommend that you enter the width for both Standard Box Sizes and Non-standard Box Sizes. LTL Freight Quotes: Width is only required when you are using  Density based option for Freight Class and when carrier variant requires shipping to certain places.
P	Height	The height should be entered in inches (thousandths value of an inch), let’s say entered height for an item is 1.125 that has a length of 1 1/8 inches. Parcel Quotes: We recommend that you enter the width for both Standard Box Sizes and Non-standard Box Sizes. LTL Freight Quotes: Width is only required when you are using a Density based option for Freight Class and when carrier variant requires shipping to certain places.
Q	Drop Ship Nickname	If you are shipping the item from one of your warehouses then leave this field blank but if the item is to be shipped from a drop ship location, enter a nickname for that location. It will automatically created if not already defined.
R	Drop Ship Zip	If you are shipping the item from one of your warehouses then leave this field blank, but you need to enter the Zip Code or Postal code if the item is to be shipped from a drop ship location. If drop ship is not predefined it will be created automatically.
S	Drop Ship City	If you are shipping the item from one of your warehouses then leave this field blank, but you need to enter the name of City if the item is to be shipped from a drop ship location. If drop ship is not predefined it will be created automatically.
T	Drop Ship State	If you are shipping the item from one of your warehouses then leave this field blank but you need to enter the two character abbreviation for the state or province if the item is to be shipped from a drop ship location. If drop ship is not predefined it will be created automatically.
U	Drop Ship Country	If you are shipping the item from one of your warehouses then leave this field blank but you need to enter the two character abbreviation for the country if the item is to be shipped from a drop ship location. For example: CA = Canada US = United States If drop ship is not predefined it will be created automatically.
V	Hazmat	This setting is applicable if you have the following features in your subscribed plan: 0 or Empty = represents that material is not hazardous. 1 = represents hazardous material.
W	Ships        Alone	This setting comes into play when you have the ‘Standard Box Sizes’ feature enabled. 0 or Empty = The item can be placed in a box with other items when identifying the packaging solution. 1 = separate package for the item.
X	Vertical Rotation	This setting comes in to play when you have the Standard Box Sizes feature enabled. 0 or Empty = Product may not be rotated while finding out the packaging solution for the product. 1 = Product may be rotated while finding out the packaging solution for the product.

Note: The file should be saved as a Comma Separated Value (CSV file). If you are using a Mac, you will have to save it either as Windows Comma Separated or as MS-DOS Comma Separated file, otherwise the import process will fail.

Locate and click the Import CSV tab in the application to import your populated CSV. Click the box to show that the file contains a header row, then select your file by clicking on the Choose File button.

Click Next after selecting your file. On the new page, locate the drop down list on the right side to map the headers of columns contained in your file with the shipping parameters. Choose Next when mapping is complete.

You will have to enter your email address. An email will be sent to you containing the details regarding the results of the import process. This whole process usually takes between 5 to 10 minutes. If you don’t get an email within 10 minutes, check your spam/junk folder. If you do not get an email notification, download and examine the CSV template to make sure the updates are still being processed. If the issue persists, email the downloaded CSV file to support@shipmount.com.