How Shipping Works in eCommerce Product Catalog
The shipping system in eCommerce Product Catalog lets you define shipping methods, shipping prices, optional shipping notes, and optional shipping address forms for products. At checkout, EPC combines the available shipping options from the products in the cart and calculates the final shipping cost based on your shipping settings.
1. Shipping Setup
You can configure shipping in two places:
- Global shipping settings – used as the default source for shipping labels, prices, and notes; Located at Catalog Settings > Shipping.
- Product shipping settings – used when you want a product to have its own shipping options; Located on the product edit screen.
Each shipping option can include:
- A label such as Standard Delivery, Express Shipping, or Local Pickup
- A price
- An optional note displayed below the option at checkout
- An optional shipping address form shown only when that option is selected – this option is visible only in inquiry and web store mode
2. Shipping Source Modes
EPC supports different ways to load shipping data for products:
- Option + Price per Product – both labels and prices come from the individual product settings.
- Price per Product – labels come from the global shipping settings, while prices can still come from the individual product.
- Global – both labels and prices come from the global shipping settings.
This gives you flexibility to keep shipping fully global, fully product-specific, or mixed.
The options are located at Catalog Settings > Shipping on the top of the settings screen:
3. What Happens at Checkout
When a customer opens the checkout form, EPC checks the products currently in the cart and builds the list of available shipping methods.
If only one shipping method is available, EPC selects it automatically.
If multiple shipping methods are available, the customer can choose the one they want.
The selected shipping method is then used to:
- calculate the shipping total
- update the order total
- save the selected shipping method with the order
- show the selected shipping price in notification emails
4. How Shipping Cost Is Calculated
EPC supports three shipping cost calculation modes:
- Highest cost of all products in cart – the cart uses the highest matching shipping cost.
- Sum of each product shipping cost – the cart adds shipping costs from the products together.
- Shipping cost calculation disabled – shipping options can still be shown, but no shipping amount is added to the order total.
The selected checkout method is always the method used for the final shipping amount saved with the order.
5. Shipping Address Collection
You can enable shipping address collection for selected shipping options in web store and inquiry mode.
When shipping address collection is enabled for an option, EPC shows an additional shipping address form only after that option is selected. This makes it possible to collect delivery details only when they are actually needed.
The shipping address form can include fields such as:
- Full Name
- Company
- Address
- Postal Code
- City
- Country
- State
- Phone
- Comment
The submitted shipping address is saved with the order and can also be included in notification emails.
6. What Is Saved With the Order
After checkout, EPC saves the shipping information together with the order. This includes:
- the final shipping total
- the selected shipping method label
- the shipping address, if collected
On the order edit screen, the order summary shows the shipping total as Shipping. The delivery details area can also show the selected shipping method and the saved shipping address.
7. Shipping in Notification Emails
EPC notification emails can include shipping data in two ways:
- Shipping price and selected shipping method
- Shipping address, when one was submitted
If your email template already includes the dedicated shipping shortcode, EPC uses it. If not, EPC can still insert the selected shipping information before the payment details section so the customer and the store administrator can see which shipping option was selected and where the order should be delivered.
8. Overwrite Existing Product Shipping Data
The Overwrite Existing Product Shipping Data tool lets you copy the currently saved default shipping settings into products that already exist in your catalog. This is useful when you update your main shipping setup and want older products to use the same shipping values without editing them one by one.
The tool always uses the currently saved shipping defaults. If you changed the shipping table above, save those settings first, and then run the overwrite action.
Depending on your current shipping source mode, the tool can overwrite:
- Shipping labels
- Shipping prices
- Both labels and prices together
Availability depends on the shipping mode:
- Option + Price per Product – you can overwrite labels and prices.
- Price per Product – you can overwrite prices only.
- Global – the overwrite tool is not needed because products do not keep separate shipping data.
To use it:
- Save your shipping defaults.
- Go to the Overwrite Existing Product Shipping Data box.
- Select which shipping values should be updated in existing products.
- Optionally enable Overwrite with empty defaults too.
- Click Apply Selected to Existing Products.
By default, EPC does not replace existing product shipping values with empty default values. This protects product data when a default field is blank.
If you enable Overwrite with empty defaults too, empty default values will also be copied to products. This can be used to clear old product shipping labels or prices in bulk.
A shipping price of ‘0’ is treated as a valid value, not as an empty one. This means you can overwrite an existing product shipping price with ‘0’ when you want to make a shipping option free.
The overwrite does not update every product instantly in one page load. EPC queues the task and runs it through the existing product data updater. During that time, the admin box shows the overwrite progress until all matching products are processed.
In short, this feature is meant for bulk maintenance. It helps you keep existing products aligned with your current default shipping configuration while still giving you control over whether labels, prices, or empty values should be overwritten.
9. Typical Example
For example, if a customer adds a product to the cart and chooses Express Shipping, EPC will:
- add the Express Shipping price to the order total
- save Express Shipping as the selected shipping method
- show the shipping amount in the order summary
- include the shipping method in the notification email
- include the shipping address in the notification email if that shipping option required delivery details
10. Summary
In short, EPC shipping works like this:
- Shipping options can be global or product-specific
- Customers select the available shipping method at checkout
- The selected method controls the shipping total added to the order
- Optional shipping address fields can appear only for selected methods
- Shipping price, selected method, and shipping address can all be saved and shown in order notifications
This makes the shipping system flexible enough for simple stores, product-specific delivery rules, and more advanced checkout flows where different shipping options require different customer details.