Set Up Shipping Areas and Rates with Square Online

The default shipping profile applies to all of your shippable items except those included in a custom profile. To set up a default shipping profile for all items:

1. From your Square Online Overview page, go to Fulfillment > Shipping.
2. Under “Shipping profiles,” select Add shipping profile.
3. Enter a name for the profile and choose Default (all items) as your profile type.
4. Select +Add countries and check any countries you’ll ship to. Select Done.
5. Select Add rate to choose a rate option from the dropdown menu. Complete all other details and select Done.
6. Review your profile and select Save when finished.

Note: You can set up multiple default shipping profiles as long as the location information (e.g. states, prefectures, provinces, countries) are unique to each profile.

A custom shipping profile lets you set up unique shipping rates and regions for specific items. For example, you might sell items that you can’t ship to particular locations due to restrictions. Creating a custom shipping profile for these items lets you exclude any restricted regions. They also work with your default shipping profile to allow more flexibility in how you ship your items.

To set up a custom shipping profile for specific items:

1. From your Square Online Overview page, go to Fulfillment > Shipping.
2. Under “Shipping profiles,” select Add shipping profile.
3. Enter a name for the profile and choose Custom (specific items) as your profile type.
4. Select Choose items and check the items you want to include in the profile. Select Add items when finished.
5. Select +Add countries and check any countries you’ll ship to. Select Done.
6. Select Add rate and enter your details. Per order applies the rate to the entire order if any purchased item is part of the custom profile. Per item applies the rate to each purchased item that’s assigned to a custom profile. Select Done.
7. Review your profile and select Save when finished.

Note: You can set up additional custom profiles following the same steps, but you can’t add an item to more than one custom profile.

Note: Using Real Time Shipping requires an upgrade on your Square Online site.

Real Time Shipping (RTS) offers the most accurate shipping rates and helps avoid under or over charging for shipping in North America. While checking out from your Square Online site, carriers will provide dynamic rate estimates based on distance, weight, and the number of boxes needed to ship your items.

Learn more about setting up Real Time Shipping with Square Online.

Set a single price for shipping, and charge either per order or per item. This is a good choice if you want to keep things simple and know that your shipping costs don’t vary much.

Offer free shipping based on order weight, order price, or for all orders. Use this in conjunction with other rates to give your customers a deal on larger purchases (for example, “Free shipping on all orders over $50!”).

Set your own rates based on the weight of all items in an order. This can work well when you ship within a limited area. This option will not take into account the distance to the destination or what carriers actually charge.

To set up a shipping rate by order weight, you’ll need to make sure you’ve specified a weight for each of your items. To start:

1. From your Square Online Overview page, go to Items > Site Items.
2. Select an item from your list.
3. Under Fulfillment, make sure Shipping is checked so you can add a Shipping weight in the text box.
4. Select Save when finished.

Note: If the weight of all items in an order is 0, the weight will automatically default to 0.1 lb/kg.

Learn more about how to add items and categories to Square Online.

Charge shipping based on the total price of an order. You could use this option to discount shipping for customers who spend more than a certain amount on a single order.

Charge shipping based on the number of items in an order. This is helpful if you’re selling items of a similar size and weight and your cost increases when you need to ship multiple items. This option will not take into account the distance to the destination or what carriers actually charge.

Rates for order weights, order totals, and item quantities have a fallback rate option, which is what applies when you get an order that doesn’t fit into any of the shipping conditions you’ve set up. This is so you don’t have to be responsible for shipping costs in cases where a customer orders a combination of items you hadn’t anticipated or didn’t account for during initial setup.

If you use Real Time Shipping, the fallback rate will apply when the shipping carrier can’t supply a shipping rate automatically.