Labels & rates

Intro

This is the heart of Shipments: turning an Awaiting shipment into a Shipped one. You configure the package, record the packaging, review the rate, and click Create + Print Label — StoresBoost purchases the label, prints it, stamps who packed it, and advances the shipment.

Before you start (one-time setup)

Without a warehouse and a carrier, no rates can be quoted.

Configure the package

Open an Awaiting shipment (from a list, from an order, or via Scan & Ship). The Configure Shipment card:

1. Check the ship-to address — validation badges show Validated / Corrected / Not Verified.
2. Note the Requested shipping method from checkout — the customer-facing name(s). On a split shipment only the methods this box's items paid for are listed (joined with " + "), when the order was priced per item by Shipping Rates.
3. Set Ship From (warehouse), Shipping Account (which carrier account), Service, Package, Weight (lbs / oz) and Size (in) L × W × H. Account and service are pre-selected for you: an existing label's, else the account named by a store shipping-method mapping, else the first account that offers the requested service (resolved from your mappings, the checkout rate code or the method name); the service follows the same order. Only services enabled on the carrier account can be pre-selected — see Carriers.
4. Adjust Options when needed: address type (Auto-detect / Residential / Commercial), Signature (none / required / adult), Insure this shipment, C.O.D., dry ice, Saturday delivery, alcohol. Reference on label is filled for you: the shipment label (for example #1052-2 - SDC) is printed in the carrier's reference field — UPS Reference No., FedEx REF — so the box can be matched to the shipment at the bench and by the receiver. Leave it blank to keep that; type something (max 35 characters) to print a different reference on this label only. After a split the new shipment's own label is used automatically.
5. Pick the label format — PDF, ZPL (Thermal), or EPL (Thermal); the pre-selected one is the Default label format from Advanced → Printing.

Prefilled weight and size

With the View rate shopper permission, weight and size are prefilled from the items: item weights × quantities are summed, and dimensions are stacked (largest length and width, heights added up). If a label already exists, its dimensions are reused. Fix product weights in Products → Bulk Editor when the prefill is regularly wrong.

The prefill follows the lines. When you split or merge a shipment (from the shipment page or from Scan & Ship), Configure Shipment clears the parcel, refills weight and size from the items now on this shipment, and re-quotes the Cost Review price and rate comparison. The shipment the items left is re-priced as well, so both halves open with their own weight. Anything you typed by hand before the split is replaced — check the parcel once before Create + Print.

Packing

The Packing card records what went around the product:

Container and material costs are snapshotted onto the label when you buy it, which is what Reports and Packer performance use.

Weather

When the Weather app is enabled, a Weather card shows the destination forecast (current temperature, low–high, conditions). Refresh it before packing anything temperature-sensitive.

Compare rates

Cost Review

The Cost Review card shows the price for exactly what is selected in Configure Shipment — the line under the price names the account and service it was quoted for (for example FedEx · FedEx Priority Overnight). Change the service, package, weight or size and the price re-quotes on its own; use the refresh control to force a fresh quote.

The card shows a placeholder while accounts and parcel defaults load. With Rate Shopper's Shop the rate when a shipment is created on, the comparison is saved when the shipment is created and is usually already there when you open it.

More rates

More rates opens Compare rates across every connected account and service. It is available to anyone who can buy a label on the shipment, on every plan — no Rate Shopper subscription or permission needed (without the app, results rank by the store default policy and nothing is pre-selected). The comparison is priced for the parcel — weight, size, package and options; it re-runs when the parcel changes, when you switch what to Compare (below), or when you press Refresh in the dialog.

Compare selector

The row of buttons at the top of the dialog decides what is compared:

On open, the highlighted entry is the one already in effect: the rule that matched this shipment, or All accounts & services when none did. That automatic comparison is what pre-fetch and Auto-select winner use, and the only one recorded for savings. There is no separate Recommended entry.

When the account + service selected on the card is not in the list you are looking at (a Ground rule while you picked an overnight service, say), a note says so and offers to compare that service on every account. The service dropdown alone does not change the comparison — only the Compare buttons do.

The same choices sit in a Compare dropdown at the bottom of the Cost Review card, showing the same highlighted entry. That one goes a step further: picking an entry runs the comparison and applies its winner — account, service, box and price fall into place without opening the dialog. If nothing quotes under the entry you picked, a No rates notice appears and the form is left as it was. Opening another shipment resolves the matching rule again. (In the dialog, the buttons only change what is listed; you still press Use.)

The header reads Ranked by Cheapest price / Cheapest within deadline / Best value (price + speed), plus via rule "Name" when a Rate Shopper rule applied — (store default policy) when that rule has none of its own — and the box name when packaging optimisation chose one. Below it: N rates from M accounts · $min – $max, the Recommended row with a Use this button, and the ranked table (#, Account, Service with its carrier code, Transit — n/a when the carrier gives none — and Price with the +$x.xx difference to the cheapest or the struck-through list price when your negotiated rate is lower).

Press Use on any row to apply that account, service and — when the quote was priced with a box — its package and dimensions. Best per account hides all but the top quote from each account. Accounts that could not price the parcel are listed under Couldn't quote with the reason; they never block the others.

Buy and print

1. Review the Cost Review summary.
2. Click Create + Print Label. While the shipment is On Hold the button is disabled; hovering it says the shipment is on hold and the button stays disabled until the hold is released.
3. The label purchases and the shipment moves to Shipped. PDF labels open the preview / print dialog; ZPL and EPL labels go straight to the printer using the method chosen for this computer under Advanced → Printing (Sent to printer, Sent to DropPrint, or Label file saved). The packer, container, and materials are stamped on the label.

Cost limit (red button)

If the store has set Warn when a label costs more than in Rate Shopper settings, the button turns red and Cost Review shows Above your … label cost limit whenever the quoted cost is higher than that amount. Clicking it does not buy yet: a confirmation asks you to check the service and package (or open More rates for a cheaper option) first — Create + Print anyway buys the label, Cancel goes back. The limit is compared against the Cost Review price; when no price is known yet the button stays green. Reprinting an existing label is never affected. The limit comes with the Rate Shopper defaults, so it only shows for users who can view the Rate Shopper app.

After a label exists:

Void a label

1. Open the shipped shipment.
2. Choose Void Label and confirm.
3. The label is cancelled and the shipment returns to Awaiting — fix the package or address, then buy again.

Void only works on unused labels, within the carrier's void window. Voided labels are excluded from reports but counted against the packer in Packer performance. If the carrier account was saved without a carrier type, StoresBoost works it out from the label and repairs the account before voiding; the rare Void is not supported for "…" (no carrier type set on the account) message means it could not — fix the account under Carriers and void again.

Sync status

The Synced column on lists (and the sync icons on the shipment) show two connections: Shopify and your fulfillment provider. Hover for the state — synced, pending, or last attempt failed. Click to open the sync history. Use Force Sync on the shipment to retry; persistent failures also raise alerts.

Shipment detail layout

Use Blocks on the shipment to show or hide Ship To Address, Dates, Cost Summary, Items, Related Shipments, Timeline, Weather, and Notes. Prev / next arrows move through the list you opened the shipment from. The actions bar on an Awaiting shipment has a Scan & Ship button (opens the same shipment in Scan & Ship; needs Fulfill orders) and the Print document menu.

In Items, each SKU has an Open in Shopify icon and shows its Location, with the inventory available quantity at that location when inventory is tracked (untracked products show the location only); split mode offers Split into boxes… — split everything into boxes of N units, one shipment per box (see Split & merge). Ship To Address falls back to the customer's profile phone, marked (customer), when the address has none.

Cost Summary

Cost Summary shows what this shipment is worth to the customer — Subtotal, Discount, Shipping, Tax and Total — not the whole order.

• An unsplit, single-order shipment shows the order's figures.
• A split shipment shows only its own lines. When the order has a checkout breakdown, Shipping is the checkout rate for the groups in that box (the rate name sits under the amount; two groups show both). A group later split across shipments shares that one rate by the value of the group's own items. Order discounts and shipping tax are still shared in proportion to product value. Orders with no checkout breakdown (POS, drafts, older orders) share the Shopify shipping line the same way: a $100 order with $40 shipping split into two $50 shipments shows $20 shipping on each. Partial-quantity splits share line discounts and tax by quantity the same way.
• A merged shipment adds up each order's share, so several orders in one box read as one summary.

The Total column on shipment lists uses the same split, so the list and the open shipment always agree.

Notes

Notes are internal. They are shown on the shipment page, in the shipment drawer, on the Timeline, and on Scan & Ship — never sent to the customer or written to Shopify.

Adding a note needs edit access on orders. Notes also feed the shipment.notes_text field in Printing templates.

Change or clear the delivery date

The Dates card on an Awaiting or On Hold shipment shows Delivery Date and Ship By Date. Shipped, picked up, cancelled, and merged shipments are locked.

1. Open the shipment (the detail page or the drawer).
2. On Dates, click the pencil next to Delivery Date.
3. Pick a new date and click Save, or click Clear to remove it.

Clearing sets the delivery date back to Not set. The ship-by date that was calculated from it is removed at the same time. The change is written on the shipment timeline.

Two checkboxes in the same dialog control what else moves with the date:

The Ship By Date column on the shipments list has its own pencil. Saving or clearing there changes only the ship-by date and does not touch the delivery date or Shopify.

Documents (not the carrier label)

Packing slips, picking lists, item labels, and similar print from the Print menu on lists and shipments. The preview lets you switch template, re-sort rows, and narrow them by Location or Filter rows by condition for that print; item labels ask how to split multi-quantity lines before printing. Each print is recorded on the shipment's Activities and can drive automation (for example a Reprint tag when items change after the slip was printed). Layouts and their saved defaults are configured under Advanced → Documents.

Troubleshooting

Related

• Delivery Calendar — where the date was chosen at checkout
• Scan & Ship — same flow, barcode-first
• Split & merge — reshape before you label
• Shipment settings — store-wide behavior
• Reports — where the costs recorded here end up