Set up shipping zones by area

Tell your store where you deliver. A shipping zone groups places that share the same delivery prices, for example Amman, the other governorates, or the Gulf. This article covers adding a zone, how a customer's address is matched to it, and how to edit, switch off or delete one.

Shipping zones are on every plan. To add or change them, your role needs the Manage shipping rates and delivery providers permission, which the Store owner and Store manager roles have. Sales staff hold View shipping rates and delivery providers only: they can open the page and read every zone and rate, but a change they try is refused and nothing changes: a save or a delete shows You do not have permission to do this. See Staff roles: what each one can see and do.

Zones, rates and delivery providers: how they fit together

Three things decide what a customer pays for delivery and who brings the parcel:

A shipping zone says where: one or more countries, and if you want, only some regions or cities in them.
A shipping rate says how much and how fast. Every rate belongs to one zone, and a zone can have several, such as standard, free over an amount, and same-day.
A delivery provider is the company that carries the parcel. A rate can name one, and every shipment you create uses one. See Add a delivery provider.

At checkout, the customer chooses their country and types their address. We find every active zone that matches the address and offer that zone's active rates that fit the cart. The cheapest one is chosen for them, and they can pick another.

Layal Boutique delivers like this:

Zone	Where	Rates
Amman	`JO`, region Amman	Standard delivery JOD 2.500 under JOD 60, free delivery from JOD 60, same-day delivery JOD 4.000
Other governorates	`JO`, the other eleven governorates	Standard delivery JOD 3.500 under JOD 60, free delivery from JOD 60
Gulf (GCC)	`AE`, `SA`, `KW`, `QA`, `BH`, `OM`	Gulf express JOD 12.000

To find the page, in the sidebar, under Operations, open Shipping rates. The page is called Shipping zones & rates. Three counters sit at the top: Zones (all your zones), Rates (every rate in every zone, switched off or not) and Active zones. Below them, each zone has a row with its name, its country codes, its status (Active or Inactive), how many rates it has, and Edit (the pencil) and Delete (the bin). Zones are listed in alphabetical order.

The Shipping zones & rates page of Layal Boutique: counters Zones 3, Rates 6 and Active zones 3, then the zones Amman (JO, 3 rates), Gulf (GCC) (AE, SA, KW, QA, BH, OM, 1 rate) and Other governorates (JO, 2 rates), each marked Active — Each row is one zone. Select a row to open it and see its regions and rates.

If the page cannot load your zones, it shows Could not load shipping zones and Try again. with a Try again button. If a zone you select cannot open, it shows Could not load this zone’s rates. in place of its details, with its own Try again. Select the button; if the message stays, check your connection and reload the page.

Add a zone

Adding a Europe zone with four country codes, then giving it a rate of JOD 18 that takes 5 to 8 days

In the sidebar, under Operations, open Shipping rates.

The Shipping zones & rates page with no zones: every counter at 0, and No shipping zones yet with an Add zone button in the middle — Before your first zone the page is empty. Both Add zone buttons open the same form.

Select Add zone at the top right of the page.

The empty Add zone form: Zone name, Countries with an Add button and the hint Use 2-letter ISO country codes, Regions and Cities with their own Add buttons, Zone is active ticked, then Cancel and Save — The form opens empty, with Zone is active already ticked. Only the fields with a red star are required.

In Zone name, type a name for your team, for example Amman.
In Countries, type a 2-letter country code, such as JO, and press Enter. Do the same for every country in the zone. See Countries as 2-letter codes.
To cover only part of a country, add Regions or Cities the same way. Leave both empty to cover the whole country. See Regions and cities.
Leave Zone is active ticked.
Select Save.

The Add zone form filled in for Zarqa & Russeifa: the country JO, the region Zarqa, and the cities Zarqa and Russeifa, each as a chip with a cross — Every country, region and city you add becomes a chip. The cross on a chip removes it.

The form closes, Shipping zone added. appears at the bottom of the screen, and the zone joins the list with 0 rates. Checkout does not offer it yet: give it a rate next. See A zone needs a rate before checkout offers it.

Field	Required	What it is
Zone name	Yes	Your own label for the zone, up to 200 characters. Customers never see it.
Countries	Yes, at least one	The countries the zone covers, as 2-letter codes.
Regions	No	Governorates, states or provinces, written the way customers type them. Empty means the whole of each country.
Cities	No	Cities, written the way customers type them. Empty means every city.
Zone is active	Ticked at the start	Unticked, the zone is saved but checkout ignores it.

Countries as 2-letter codes

Each country is its 2-letter ISO code, not its name. To add one, type the code in Countries, then press Enter, type a comma, or select Add beside the box. You can type it in small letters: jo is saved as JO. Adding a code that is already there does nothing, and the cross on a chip removes it. Anything still typed in a box when you select Save is added too.

Country	Code	Country	Code
Jordan	`JO`	Iraq	`IQ`
Saudi Arabia	`SA`	Palestine	`PS`
United Arab Emirates	`AE`	Lebanon	`LB`
Kuwait	`KW`	Egypt	`EG`
Qatar	`QA`	United Kingdom	`GB`
Bahrain	`BH`	United States	`US`
Oman	`OM`	Germany	`DE`

The form checks only that a code is two letters, not that the country exists. UK passes, for example, but the United Kingdom's code is GB, so a zone with UK never matches an address.

At checkout, the Country menu lists the countries of your active zones that have at least one rate checkout can offer, by name and in the customer's language. When there is only one, it is already chosen for them.

Regions and cities

An address matches a zone when all of these are true:

its country is one of the zone's countries
if the zone has regions, the region the customer typed is one of them
if the zone has cities, the city the customer typed is one of them

Customers type their region and city themselves, in the State / Region and City boxes of the checkout. Capital letters and spaces at the ends do not matter, so amman matches Amman. Spelling does: Aman does not match Amman, and neither does the Arabic عمان.

City is required at checkout, but State / Region is optional. A customer who leaves the region empty matches no zone that has regions, and reads We do not deliver to that address yet. A zone built from cities always has something to match.

An address can match more than one zone. The customer then sees the rates of every zone it matches, and the cheapest is chosen for them. That is why Layal's second zone lists the eleven other governorates instead of JO alone. With JO alone, an address in Amman would match both zones, and a customer with a cart under JOD 60 would see two Standard delivery options, JOD 2.500 and JOD 3.500. Checkout picks the cheaper one, but the list is confusing, and if the outside-Amman fee were the lower one, Amman customers would get it. For the same reason, the Zarqa & Russeifa zone above would overlap Other governorates, which already has Zarqa.

The Other governorates zone opened: Regions Irbid, Zarqa, Balqa, Madaba, Mafraq, Jerash, Ajloun, Karak, Tafilah, Ma'an and Aqaba, then its two rates, Standard delivery JOD 3.500 for orders under JOD 59.999 and Free delivery for orders over JOD 60.000, both 2–4 days with Rawabi Express — An open zone lists its regions and cities above its rates. Selecting another zone closes this one.

Tip

Add every spelling your customers use as its own chip, in each language your storefront speaks. For Amman, that is Amman plus the Arabic عمان and عمّان.

What the form flags

The form stays open on a refusal. It keeps what you typed, turns the field red and writes the reason under it. For a missing name or country, Fill in every required field. also appears at the bottom of the screen.

The Add zone form saved empty: Zone name is red with Enter a zone name. under it, and Countries is red with Add at least one country. under it — Saved with nothing in it: the zone needs a name and at least one country.

The Add zone form with Lebanon typed in Countries, which is red with Use 2-letter ISO country codes (e.g. JO or AE). under it — A country name is refused. Type its code, LB, instead.

Message	Why	What to do
Enter a zone name.	Zone name is empty.	Type a name.
Add at least one country.	The zone has no country chip. This also shows when the only thing in Countries is a name or a code that is not two letters, such as `Lebanon`: it stays in the box and is not added.	Replace it with the 2-letter code, such as `LB`, and press Enter.
Use 2-letter ISO country codes (e.g. JO or AE).	You pressed Enter or Add on something in Countries that is not two letters, such as `Lebanon` or `JOR`.	Replace it with the code, such as `LB`.

One refusal comes as a message at the bottom of the screen after you select Save: Zone name must be 200 characters or fewer. Shorten the name.

When the zone already has other countries, Save does not stop for a wrong code left in the box: it saves the zone without it. Check the chips before you save.

If the save fails for another reason, for example because the connection dropped, a message at the bottom of the screen says so and the form stays open. Select Save again.

A zone needs a rate before checkout offers it

A new zone has no rates. Open it and you read No rates yet. Add a rate so this zone can be offered at checkout. Until the zone has an active rate, checkout ignores it, and its countries are not in the Country menu.

A Europe zone opened, with 0 rates, the Rates heading, an Add rate button and the line No rates yet. Add a rate so this zone can be offered at checkout. — A zone with no rate is saved, but customers cannot choose it yet.

Select Add rate in the open zone to price it. See Add shipping rates and free shipping.

This is also one of the setup tasks on your Dashboard. Set a shipping zone and rate is done when you have an active zone with at least one active rate. Until then it says No shipping zone or Your zone has no rate, and a store that has never published cannot open the Storefront Studio. See The setup list before your first publish.

Edit a zone

In the sidebar, under Operations, open Shipping rates.
Select Edit (the pencil) on the zone's row.
Change what you need. To take out a country, region or city, select the cross on its chip. To add one, type it and press Enter.
Select Save.

The Edit zone form for Other governorates: the country JO and eleven region chips from Irbid to Aqaba, Zone is active ticked — The form opens with everything the zone has. Change it and save.

Shipping zone saved. appears, and the next checkout uses the new zone. Editing a zone does not change its rates. Orders already placed keep the delivery charge they were placed with.

Deactivate a zone

Switch a zone off to stop delivering there for a while, for example the Gulf during a customs delay, without losing its rates.

Select Edit on the zone's row.
Untick Zone is active.
Select Save.

The Edit zone form for Gulf (GCC) with the six country chips and Zone is active unticked — Untick Zone is active and save to switch the zone off.

The row now shows Inactive and Active zones counts one fewer. Its rates stay as they are, but checkout offers none of them, and its countries leave the Country menu unless another active zone covers them. To switch it back on, tick Zone is active again and save.

The zone list with Gulf (GCC) marked Inactive and Active zones at 2; Amman is open, and its Same-day delivery rate is dimmed with an Inactive chip — A switched-off zone says Inactive. A single rate can be switched off too, inside an active zone.

Warning

If no active zone with an active rate is left, nobody can check out: the storefront's checkout says This store has no delivery options set up yet. Keep at least one zone and rate switched on while your store is open.

Delete a zone and its rates

Select Delete (the bin) on the zone's row.
The prompt Delete shipping zone says This deletes the zone and all of its rates. This cannot be undone. Select Delete to go ahead, or Cancel.

The Delete shipping zone prompt: This deletes the zone and all of its rates. This cannot be undone., with Cancel and Delete — Deleting a zone deletes every rate in it too.

Shipping zone deleted. appears and the zone leaves the list.

A zone your customers' orders used

Every order keeps the rate it was placed with, so a zone whose rates customers have already chosen at checkout cannot be deleted. When you confirm, the prompt closes, nothing is deleted, and a red message at the bottom of the screen says why: Customers have used this zone’s rates in their orders, so it cannot be deleted. Deactivate it instead.

The Shipping zones & rates page with all three zones still listed, Amman, Gulf (GCC) and Other governorates, and a red message at the bottom right: Customers have used this zone’s rates in their orders, so it cannot be deleted. Deactivate it instead. — Amman’s rates are in Layal’s past orders, so the zone stays. Deactivate it instead.

The zone and all of its rates stay as they were. To stop delivering there, deactivate the zone: untick Zone is active in its edit form and save. To stop offering only one of its rates, untick Rate is active on that rate instead. See Edit, deactivate or delete a rate. Your past orders keep their delivery details either way.

A zone that no order has used yet, such as one you added by mistake, deletes as above.

Next, add the rates for your zone, and add the delivery provider that will carry your parcels.