Intuitive Shipping lets you create zones that determine which countries or geographical regions your products can ship to. And in some cases, you have the ability to create more specified zones with either a single region or group of regions, such as islands, provinces or states within a country.
With Intuitive Shipping, you can further localize zones by creating sub-zones with postal codes or zip codes. This gives you the ability to restrict shipping from, or offer exclusive shipping options to, sub-zones within a parent zone. For example, if you’re based in the UK – or you ship to the UK – you can create sub-zones for specific areas within the UK that may have higher shipping costs, like the Scottish Highlands or the Isle of Wight.
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How It Works
When you create a zone in Intuitive Shipping, you have the option to add one or more sub-zones to it. Sub-zones are created by adding postal codes, ranges of postal codes, or a mix of both.
For example, if you want to target local shipping to specific zip codes in New York City, you can enter individual zip codes, separated by comma, along with ranges, like ‘10001, 10005, 10012:10025, 10029’.
Postal code ranges are separated by a : symbol.
Every postal code between – and including – the first and last postal code of the range is included.
For example, a range entered as 10001:10005 includes those two zip codes along with every zip code in between.
You can even enter postal code prefixes to make it easier to set up.
For example, if you want to limit shipping to a specific district in downtown Toronto, you can add ‘M5B’ to your sub-zone instead of creating a full-format range like ‘M5B0A1:M5B6E1. By simply entering the prefix ‘M5B’, you’re including every postal code that starts with that prefix.
Unlike parent zones, which can only include a country or region once, you can have multiple sub-zones with overlapping postal codes.
For example, you cannot have two parent zones that include the state of California. If California has been added to one zone already, it will no longer be selectable for new zones.
However, you can create multiple sub-zones within the parent zone containing California that include the same zip codes. This is useful if you have a shipping method that applies to multiple sub-zones while another only applies to a single zone.
For example, you might have one shipping method with the same shipping rate for both Malibu and Topanga, but others with a shipping rate that is exclusive to Malibu.
Once you’ve added sub-zones to your main zones, they’ll be selectable each time you create a shipping method. You only need to select the sub-zone.
For example, if you have a sub-zone covering Scotland – or parts of it – in your UK zone, you only need to select the ‘Scotland’ sub-zone when creating your shipping method. This will limit the rates for the shipping method to Scotland only. Customers who don’t live in any of the postcodes covered by your sub-zone will not get rates from that shipping method.
Add A Sub-Zone
Sub-zones must be added to the main zone where their postal codes or zip codes reside. That means, you cannot add UK postcodes to a zone that doesn’t include the UK.
A sub-zone can only be added to a zone. If you haven’t created any zones, you’ll have to complete that setup first.
Learn how to create a zone.
Click Shipping on the main menu, then select Zones from the drop-down list.
Click Edit beside the zone you wish to add the sub-zone to.
Scroll down to the Subzones section, then click Add subzone.
Enter a sub-zone title. We recommend naming your sub-zone after the local region (or regions) covered by the postal codes entered in Step 6.
Sub-zone titles are not visible to customers.
Set the sub-zone status.
You have three (3) settings to choose from:
Off – the sub-zone will be ignored. Shipping methods will not be visible at checkout for addresses in the sub-zone, even in Setup & Testing Mode.
Test – shipping methods will be visible at checkout for addresses in the sub-zone only when you use the word ‘Intuitive’ as either the customer’s first or last name.
On – shipping methods will be visible at checkout for addresses in the sub-zone. This is the default setting.
While in Setup & Testing Mode, ‘On’ will function the same as ‘Test’ until you have activated a billing plan to begin your 14-Day Free Trial.
Learn more about testing your Intuitive Shipping setup.
Enter the postal code or postal code ranges for your sub-zone. See Postal Code Formatting below for more details on acceptable formatting.
Select the postal code type.
You have two (2) settings to choose from:
Standard – any postal code or zip code that is not in the UK.
United Kingdom – UK postcodes only.
Because of the unique formatting for postcodes in the UK, a special lookup is required by Intuitive Shipping to confirm that the postcode is formatted correctly.
Click the Save button to save your sub-zone.
The sub-zone is added to your main zone, and can be edited or deleted at any time, without affecting the main zone.
Deleting the main zone will delete any sub-zones added to it.
Repeat Steps 1 to 8 to add even more sub-zones to the zone.
Postal Code Formatting
In order to ensure that the sub-zone functions properly, you must use the correct formatting for your postal codes or zip codes.
Standard (Non-UK) Postal Codes and Zip Codes
When you select ‘Standard’ as the postal code type, Intuitive Shipping does not validate the formatting. That means, if you make a typo, miss a character, or add an extra one, you can still save the sub-zone.
For example, if you want to create a sub-zone for Toronto that includes the postal code ‘M5J 2X2, but you accidentally enter it as ‘M5J2X’ (without the second ‘2’), you can complete the save. However, even though you can save the sub-zone, the postal code is not formatted correctly, and will result in rate calculating failures or errors.
Be sure that postal codes and zip codes are accurate, especially when entering a complete full-format postal code.
Spaces are not required, and are filtered out when you save the sub-zone.
For example, if you enter the postal code as ‘M5J 2X2’, with a space between the prefix and suffix, Intuitive Shipping will remove the space and automatically format the postal code as ‘M5J2X2’.
Similarly, Intuitive Shipping will remove any excess spaces before or after commas.
For example, if you enter ‘M1B , M5A’, with a single space to the left of the comma and two spaces to the right of the comma, Intuitive Shipping will remove the excess spaces.
UK Postcodes
When you select United Kingdom as the postal code type, Intuitive Shipping does perform a validation check before you can save the sub-zone to ensure that the postcodes are formatted correctly
For example, you can enter either ‘EH1’ or ‘EH10’ – or both – prefixes. Intuitive Shipping can distinguish between the two. And, when entering a full postcode, if you accidentally enter ‘EH11A’ instead of the correct ‘EH11AD’, you will be unable to save the sub-zone.
Unlike Standard postal code types, you cannot save sub-zones with postal codes or zip codes from other countries once you’ve selected the ‘United Kingdom’ postal code type.
For example, you cannot enter ‘90210’ as part of a UK sub-zone. The UK postcode must be formatted correctly, whether it’s the prefix or the full format.
Case Sensitivity and Special Characters
Regardless of which postal code type you select, alpha characters will always be entered in upper case, regardless of your keyboard settings.
Special characters entered in error, such as @ or %, are not accepted and you will be unable to save the sub-zone until the special characters are removed.
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