Setting Up Shipping on Square
Ok buckle up, cause this is going to be a ton of information! This is an explanation of how I personally approach shipping, and the details about how and why. I'm not an expert by any means, but it should at least help you get started! If you just want a straightforward tutorial for setting up shipping on Square, skip on down to the TUTORIAL section. >>
First things first,
Before you set up shipping on your website, you'll want to decide what shipping service to use so you can know what to charge.
I ship small, lightweight items (under 1 lb), only to the US, and I would rather go with the cheapest option than the fastest, so I ship USPS Ground Advantage.
As a basic reference: Commercial pricing for Ground Advantage starts at $5.50. For packages between 1-10 lbs, other shipping services may or may not be cheaper, but they will likely be pretty similar. Flat Rate commercial shipping starts at $10-ish. UPS also has similar pricing, but I have not used them at all.
Ground Advantage Shipping
Ground Advantage calculates shipping costs based on the weight of the package and the distance it has to travel. The heavier the package, the more it will cost. And the more miles it has to travel, the more it will cost.
Here is a chart with the current rates of Commercial Ground Advantage: https://tinyurl.com/uspsgroundcost
Example: A package that weighs up to 4 oz will cost between $5.50-6.36, depending on how far it has to travel. Likewise, a package that weighs between 8-12 oz will cost between $6.03-6.74, again depending on how far it has to travel.
The distance a package has to travel is measured in Zones. There are 9 levels of Zones. The more miles it has to travel, the higher the Zone number is, and the higher the cost.
Example: You're shipping from Wilmington, NC and sending it to an address in Raleigh. The distance the package will travel is around 130 miles, which falls into Zone 2 (between 51 to 150 miles).
Example 2: You're shipping from Wilmington, NC and sending it to Denver, CO, which is a pretty long distance (just under 1800 miles). It falls within Zone 7, which represents distances between 1401-1800 miles.
Here is a map which calculates the distance between two zip codes and tells you what zone it is: https://www.pirateship.com/usps/zone-map
Flat Rate Shipping
Flat Rate is another way you may want to go for heavy items. I have not used it yet, but here's my understanding. The price is based on the size of the box, no matter the weight or the distance it has to go. You can get flat rate boxes free from the post office.
Other Shipping Services
Here is a list of all the services the USPS offers, if you'd like to check out other options.
Pirate Ship
I use Pirate Ship to purchase labels. It's free to join and you'll be able to buy shipping labels at a discounted rate (commercial pricing). Once you put in the information about your shipment, it will show you the different shipping options and how much they cost so you can easily compare. It's also great because it syncs with Square, so when you get an order, it will pull the address and other information and generate a label for you.
Other things
I highly recommend getting a digital scale so you can weigh packages accurately, especially if your package is less than a pound. If you don't have one, you can get one on Amazon for pretty cheap. Here's a good one that measures up to 11 lbs.
You can always take your package to the post office, have them weigh it, and pay directly at the counter, you'll just have to pay full retail price. Also if you are able to weigh and print from home, you can drop off your package at the post office even when they're closed.
TUTORIAL
On Square, you'll be setting up shipping profiles, where you'll choose the areas you want to ship to, and how much you want to charge. Within those areas, you'll be able to set different prices for specific conditions.
Step 1: From the Square dashboard, go to the menu on the left side and click: Settings > Account & Settings > Fulfillment Methods > Shipment.
If you haven't already, you'll need to add your address under Ship From Address.
Step 2: Select Add Profile.
Under Type, you can choose whether to apply these prices to your whole store or for individual items. To start with, we'll set the type as Order so it will apply to any order by default.
You can name it whatever you want, the customer won't be able to see the name. Mine is named Ground.
Step 3: Under Countries, select Add Countries. For this profile, select United States and hit Done. Click Edit States and Territories to choose which states you want to ship to. You can select all states or just specific ones. Then hit done.
Personally, for this profile, I selected all states except for North Carolina (I'll explain later).
Step 4: Now click Add Rate. Choose a name that you want your customer to see when they check out. (I called this one Economy.) Under type, you'll choose how you want to charge for shipping. Since I use Ground Advantage, which is based on weight and distance, I choose "Based on Weight Total." (I would use Real Time Shipping Rates, since it's the most accurate, but you have to pay for that.) Here you'll input a weight range and set a price for that weight range.
You can be as specific as you want, but to start I divided it up into 5 weight ranges:
0-0.5 lbs / 0.5-1 lb / 1-3 lbs / 3-10 lbs / and 10 lbs or more
To decide how much to charge for each weight range, I look at the Ground Advantage pricing chart and calculate the average cost of a package that size.
For example, a package that weighs more than 1 lb and less than 3 lbs would cost between $7.99-15.75 to ship, depending on where the customer is located. On average, the cost of shipping would be $11.68, so this is what I would set as the price for that weight range.
Let's say the package weighs 1.4 lbs. If you're shipping it to Raleigh, it will cost $8.08, but if you ship to California, it will cost $12.87. But since we set the price as an average, no matter where the customer lives, they would pay $11.68. You will technically be overpaying or underpaying for shipping on each order, but after a few orders it should average out.
Here is how I set up the weight ranges for this shipping profile:
(It's really, really unlikely I'll have any packages over 10 lbs, so that's why it's so high. I'll update that when the time comes.)
Lastly for now
Recall that I left North Carolina out of this shipping profile. The majority of my customers are in North Carolina, and the rest will be spread out across the United States at random. So to make the costs slightly more accurate, I charge North Carolina a lower shipping rate than the rest of the country (which would most likely be between Zones 4-9). If you want to do this, follow the instructions in Step 4 and create a new profile just for North Carolina.
Hope this helps! Please feel free to ask me any questions!!