Set up your account
Note: Use the following to set up your account before going live with the Duty and Tax app on Shopify, BigCommerce, or Magento, or with the WooCommerce module.
- Go to Dashboard -> Settings -> General.
- Enter your store information (business address and email). The EIN number is not needed with this integration.
- Go to Dashboard -> Settings -> Team.
- Ensure everyone who needs to use Dashboard can access it. Add as many users as you like. Learn how to manage your team.
- Go to Dashboard -> Settings -> Billing.
- Review your payment plan, payment method, primary billing contact and their information and make changes as needed.
- Go to Dashboard -> Settings -> Landed cost settings.
- Select a default country of origin (where most of your products are manufactured) and input a default HS code. These defaults will be used to calculate a duty and tax quote if your products are not assigned a country of origin or HS code at the product level in your ecommerce store. If you do not know your HS codes for your products you can use Classify to look up your HS codes by product descriptions. Shopify integrations on GraphQL will auto-classify items with no HS code in Catalog or Shopify to provide a classification during the checkout. These classifications will carry through to the label, but they will not be added to your Catalog.
- Go to Dashboard -> Settings -> Buffers.
- Optional—Shipping buffers can increase your margin or build certain costs into the amount your customer pays. You can add buffers on the shipping amount either per carrier or per shipping service level.
- Go to Dashboard -> Settings -> Tax IDs.
- Using the Zonos Landed Cost guarantee allows you to use our international tax IDs for low-value tax schemes like UK VAT, EU IOSS, and Norway VOEC.
Other countries can require a tax ID if you sell above a certain threshold to them annually. If you have your own international tax IDs for Australia (ATO) or New Zealand (IRD), enter them in Dashboard. Additionally, let a member of our team know if you exceed the thresholds for Australia, New Zealand, or Singapore. If you do not meet the thresholds for these countries, you can skip this step.
- Go to Dashboard -> Settings -> Shipping rates.
- Connect a carrier. If you want to use live rates from a carrier, click Connect carrier account in the top right. Live rates will use the weight of your products to calculate the shipment cost. If your products do not have weights in your eCommerce platform, please contact us to help you set up a factor to estimate them.
- Second, add your warehouse locations by clicking Create warehouse.
- Optional—If you have a rate sheet (a spreadsheet provided by your carrier, shipper, or 3PL) to upload for your rates, click Create custom service level to add your rate sheet to Dashboard.
- Create a shipping zone.
- Within the shipping zone that you create, select the countries you want to ship to, the warehouse that ships there, and the shipping service levels you would like to offer to customers in those countries. You can create multiple shipping zones if you want these settings to vary by country.
- Optional—If you want to create shipping rules (such as free shipping over a certain amount or flat 10 USD shipping), learn how to create flat-rate shipping options in the shipping zone.
- Go to Dashboard -> Settings -> Shipping labels.
- Optional—If you ship all products in the same size box, you can enter your box dimensions here. Doing so will pre-fill the shipping box dimensions when printing labels from Dashboard. Otherwise, you can skip this step.
- Go to Dashboard -> Settings -> Catalog.
- Optional—Without product-specific information, we will return a landed cost using the defaults you have set up in your Landed Cost Settings. However, some information (such as HS codes, country of origin, weights, dimensions, and more) can vary on a product level. If you do not have this information in your eCommerce listings, you can enter additional product information into Catalog, which you can find in Dashboard. Use Import/export on the left sidebar to upload products in bulk.
Some eCommerce platforms do not communicate certain product information. In that case, use Catalog to supplement your product information so that it can be used in our calculations.Find out what product information your eCommerce platform passes by default and what information should be entered into Catalog.
You can also use Catalog to restrict items from being sold internationally.
Optional—Cartonization allows you to quote shipping costs based your shipping box sizes rather than your item weights or item dimensions. In order to use cartonization, you must input your item dimensions into Catalog and provide Zonos Support with a spreadsheet of your shipping box dimensions.
Note: Cartonization is only available with a Premium setup fee (or Premium platform fee when on Shopify).
Test your account
Test shipping rates
To test your shipping rates, create a mock checkout in Dashboard:
- In Dashboard, go to Orders -> Mock Checkout.
- Click on the Test product description and modify the order to be reasonable for your items.
- Click Generate checkout.
- Enter a valid international address. If you need to look up an address, use a random address generator.
If your shipping rates were successfully connected, you should see your shipping service levels in the middle of the page.
Test shipping labels
If you plan to print your labels from Dashboard:
- Ask your Project Manager to place a test order through Mock Checkout. Alternatively, you can briefly enable Zonos on your site, place an order, then disable Zonos again. If you do this, remember to cancel and refund your order after testing the label creation.
- Navigate to Orders, and click on your test order.
- Click Create label.
- Enter your shipping information.
- Click Create label.
Your shipping label should generate if done correctly. If it does not, troubleshoot the label error that appears.
Note: Shipping service levels added via a rate sheet cannot generate labels in Dashboard. The rate sheet tells us the rate to quote for the shipment, but we need a connected account for the service level to generate a label.
After testing, remember to void your shipping label, then cancel the test order.
Account setup
Get your Zonos account up and running.Use the following checklists to get your Zonos account set up and tested prior to attempting to go live with any of the Zonos apps, Zonos Duty and Tax, or Zonos Checkout.