Creating a Shipping Fulfillment Option

Fulfillments are the methods by which your customers will receive their orders. Castiron supports three different types of fulfillment: local pick-up, local delivery, and shipping. 

You can choose which of these methods you will use for your shop and for individual products. With Castiron, your customers will always be required to select a fulfillment option prior to paying and completing an order.

Many states allow in-state shipping and several allow shipping to other states (check your state’s cottage food regulations as they are updated regularly). 

Adding a Shipping Fulfillment to your Shop

To get started, on the left-hand side of your navigation panel click on the Fulfillments tab:

This will take you to your fulfillment home screen, where you can edit, delete, and add fulfillment methods to your store. Click on the "Add An Option" button at the top right to create a new option for your customers. Later you will be able to connect these to the products of your choice. 

Once you click Add An Option you will be given three fulfillment options to choose from: 

• Select Shipping 
• Title your Shipping option (ex: Nationwide Shipping, New York In-State Shipping Only, Overnight Shipping, etc.) 

• If you want this fulfillment option to be available to your customers as soon as your shop is live (or the new fulfillment is saved), keep it set to Active. You can set it to Inactive and your customers will not have it as an option until you go back and change it to Active. 
• Next, add your Shipping Details, including your standard processing time, and any details your customers may need to know below.
  • Standard Processing time: How much time the customer should expect between order and shipping. Lead time can be set in hours or days (leave as 0 if you want customers to be able to place an order and you plan to ship it right away). 

What Do I charge for Shipping?

• Remember to account for packaging (including shipping boxes, filler, shipping labels, etc.) 
• Consider an order minimum: While it's not always necessary to set an order minimum, sometimes it's helpful to only offer shipping when the price of the product makes it long worth your while! 
• Sign Up with a discount shipper: At this time, flat shipping rates are the only fulfillment option in Castiron. We recommend researching packaging and the cost to ship your goods and use a discount shipping program like Pirate Ship or Shippo. 
• Consider varying shipping cost by product: You can create multiple options for different types of orders. For example “Shipping for a Dozen Cookies” (at one $rate) and “Shipping for 2-3 dozen Cookies” (and a different $rate). You know your customers best and what they tend to order. You can also create a custom Order Form for any type of order and add the shipping charge you want per order when you review the quote. 

More About Lead Time in Castiron

For Local Pick Up and Local Delivery, you are able to set your "lead time" for certain orders. This means that your fulfillment option will only appear to customers when the date the order is placed aligns with the lead-time you've set.

Let's look at an example:

I have set my local pick-up to have a lead time of 6 hours. I had created a local pick-up fulfillment option for 9/21 from 11 am - 2 pm and 9/22 from 1 pm - 3 pm.

Today it is 9/21 at 10:30 am as I am attempting to check-out on this website. As the customer, when I attempt to check-out, I am unable to see 9/21 from 11 am - 2 pm as an option because I am outside of the 6-hour lead time window. I can only see pick-up for 9/22 because that applies to the lead-time rules I have set within my shop. Please note, the lead time calculates days as hours (2 days=48 hours). 

Shipping options will show “Processing time” so that customers know how much time to expect between placing the order and it being shipped. When marking a shipped order as “Fulfilled” from the Order screen, you will be given the option to send an email to the customer with the tracking number. 

If you have more questions about fulfillments, check out the article Everything to Know About Fulfillments