We have recently rolled out an updated delivery administration tool, so this a good time to recap how delivery works and how you can manage your prices.
How is the total delivery price for a basket calculated?
In your MagnoliaSoft store, you may have products fulfilled from multiple sources. For example, you may have framed prints shipped by Printer A, pre-printed products shipped by Printer B, and canvases shipped by yourself.
Because of this potentially wide range of products available from each printer, we use "per-shipment" and "per-item" charges to calculate the basket total; the same method as many other online stores that have a large and varied catalogue.
For your customers
Your customers pay delivery according to the following:
[Maxiumum per-delivery price of the items in the basket] + [Per-item charge for each item of that type in their basket]
For example, consider the following charges:
| Product type |
Per-delivery charge |
Per-item charge |
| Large canvas |
£5.00 |
£2.00 |
| Medium framed print |
£3.00 |
£1.00 |
For a basket containing 1 x large canvas and 2 x medium framed print, the delivery amount payable by the customer would be:
- £5.00 per delivery charge
- £4.00 per item charge
- Total of £9.00
This is calculated from the biggest per-delivery price in their basket, which is the large canvas charge (£5.00), plus the per-item charge for each item of that type in their basket (1 x £2.00 plus 2 x £1.00)
For you as a store owner
Potentially, a customer's basket may contain items shipped by different printers, so as a store owner you need to be aware that you will be charged for each item separately by each fulfillment partner. In other words, you will be charged whatever per-delivery and per-item cost prices are applicable for each item in the basket.
Using the above prices and basket as examples, then, you would be charged £12.00.
Managing trade/cost prices for items you ship yourself
As the fulfillment partner for these products, you can input your own trade delivery prices. To do this, you will need to use the Edit by country page in the admin:
As a printer, you will want to look at the following editable columns on this page:
- Delivery time (in weekdays)
- Cost prices (both per-shipment and per-item)
Some points to bear in mind:
- If you do not deliver a particular item to a country, do not enter any prices/delivery times for that item. If there is no delivery price set, then customers will not be able to complete their order - the country will not appear in the dropdown list of possible delivery countries, and they may see the message "Unfortunately, we cannot deliver your order to this country".
- Delivery times are in weekdays.
- If you do not know the estimated delivery time for any time, leave the delivery time empty or enter zero.
- Any selling prices left blank will be assumed to be "sold at cost".
- All prices exclude tax.
Not only are these cost prices your own cost price when we calculate your order margins, but if you also fulfill orders for other stores on the MagnoliaSoft network these prices are those stores' cost prices for your delivery service. This is, in effect, what you "charge" these stores to send out the items.
You can of course edit the selling prices of your own delivery charges on this page too, in much the same way as if the products were shipped by another fulfillment partner. Which brings us to...
Managing selling prices, or products shipped by others
You may also have products in your store that are fulfilled by other partners on the MagnoliaSoft network. For these items, you use the same delivery admin page...
...but you will only be able to edit the two right-hand columns, in other words:
- Selling prices (both per-shipment and per-item)
Again, some points to bear in mind here:
- Any selling prices left blank will be assumed to be "sold at cost". (See below)
- All prices exclude tax.
Sell at cost
Selling at cost is the default setting for all stores - delivery charges are passed on to the customer at zero margin. You can enable/disable this for any product item by clicking the checkbox on the main form.
As for previous functionality updates, we never "release and forget". We already have some plans to make bulk editing easier for both printers and store owners, for example, so watch this space.
