Get started with shipment rating

Before you can begin setting up your international shipping, you should know the following:

1. What countries are you shipping to?

2. Are you using live rates from your carrier?

   1. If so, which service levels you are using to which countries?

3. Are there any custom shipping options that you need to set up - free, flat rate, or tiered shipping?

   1. If so, which custom shipping options are you using for which countries?

4. Do you have any custom service levels created by rate sheets given to you by your carrier or 3PL?

   1. If so, which countries or zones are they for?

Once you have this information, Zonos recommends that you come up with a plan for how your international shipping will work, by country. Decide which countries you ship to and what types of shipping you are offering in each country. Then group the countries together based on countries with the same types of shipping being offered. All countries offering the same type of shipping can be grouped together to create a zone. You must have at least one zone, but may need more. Once you know what your plan is, it's easy to move through setting up each of the shipping types needed for your store. You may have different options for different countries or you may have the same rates and shipping options for every country.

Here are a few example shipping plans:

• A store wanting to use/offer their live carrier rates through a carrier account connection for all countries and also a custom option such as free shipping on orders $200 and up into the UK, would use both Methods 1 and 2 and would create two zones: one for the UK and one containing all countries other than the UK that you are shipping to.
• A store wanting to use their live carrier shipping rates into the EU, where there is no carrier account connection available, will need to use Method 3 and would add a zone containing all EU countries.
• A store that uses the same custom option such as a flat-rate shipping for all orders and countries would use Method 3 and would only need to create one zone containing all of the countries that are shipped to.

Once you know where you will be shipping and what rates you want to use, it's time to set up your shipping zones. Shipping zones allow you to split the world into regions with different shipping options.

Depending on your account setup, you may have a pre-created "Rest of world" zone which you can use as a starting point. All of the countries in this zone would have the same shipping options. If you don't have a "Rest of world" zone or wish to have a different configuration, follow our guide on setting up your shipping zones.

Once you decide on your setup, use the following setup process flows to set up each of the methods you will be using.

Once you have added rates to your Zonos account by either using a rate sheet, carrier account connection, or custom shipping, they need to be added to the shipping zone(s) you set up in step 2 according to your international shipping strategy. This can be done through Dashboard. Learn how to add service levels to a zone.

Finally, test your shipping setup to ensure it works as intended. Dashboard has a tool that makes testing easy. Learn how to [how to test your shipping rates](/docs/global-ecommerce/rating/rate and how to troubleshoot common issues.