Articles on: Rates

Rate Modifiers

Learn how to apply Modifiers to your Rates so that they are dynamically adjusted based on the postcode of the order.


When editing a Rate you will see a third panel called ‘Rate Modifiers’. This panel allows you to create a set of conditions under which the calculated price of the Rate will be reduced or increased.

To get started, click the Add a Rate Modifier button within the ‘Rate Modifiers’ panel:



This will open a set of six fields that will allow you to enter details about your new Rate Modifier:

Reference - This is an internal name for this modifier to help you to identify it quickly. Customers will not see this reference.

Title - An optional title for this Rate that will be appended to the Rate description that is displayed to the customer. For example if you add a Rate Modifier with a title of “20% off” that is applied to a Rate with a description of “Includes insurance”, the full description returned to the customer would be “Includes insurance - 20% off”

Type - The type of modifier affects how the modification price is calculated. Your can choose between ‘Flat amount’ which modifies the Rate price by a specific amount and ‘Percentage’ which modifies the Rate price by a specific percentage.

Effect - The effect of a Rate Modifier determines whether the modifier increases or reduces the price of the Rate.

Adjustment - The adjustment field allows you to specify the amount by which this Rate Modifier should change the Rate price. If you selected ‘Flat amount’ as the Rate type, this field will be a money amount e.g. $5. If you selected ‘Percentage’ as the Rate type this field will be a percentage value, e.g. 5%.

Behaviour - This field allows you to set whether this Rate Modifier should ‘Stack’ or ‘Terminate’ (see Rate Modifier Order and Stacking below).

Rate Modifier Order and Stacking



Behaviour and ordering is important to understand if using Rate Modifiers. Rate Modifiers are applied in the order that they appear within the ‘Rate Modifiers’ panel. If you have more than one Rate Modifier you are free to drag and drop your modifiers into the order that you require (note this is easier to do if all your Rate Modifiers are displayed in their ‘collapsed’ form).

If a Rate Modifier is applicable (based on its rules - see below) and has been set to ‘Stack’ then it will be applied to the Rate and the next Modifier in the list will then be evaluated. If the next Modifier is also applicable and also has been set to ‘Stack’ then the next Modifier is evaluated and so on.

However if a Rate Modifier is applicable but is set to ‘Terminate’ then any subsequent Rate Modifiers are ignored.

Example:
ACME Inc. have create 4 Rate Modifiers for a Rate. None of their Rate Modifiers have any rules set which means they are all potentially eligible to be applied.
1 Rate Modifier A is set to stack
2 Rate Modifier B is set to stack
3 Rate Modifier C is set to terminate
4 Rate Modifier D is set to stack
When an order is received that this rate is applicable, the following rate modifiers would be applied: A, B and C.

The above example is a little contrived as ACME Inc. did not set any rules for their Rate Modifiers - in fact, Rate Modifier D would never be applied in the scenario above. In most cases you will probably want to add rules to your Rate Modifiers to determine whether or not they are applied.

Rate Modifier Rules



When creating or editing a Rate Modifier you are free to add Rules that determine whether or not that Modifier is applied. To get started, click the Add new rule group button:



The Rate Modifier Rule builder follows the same conventions seen in the Rate Rules builder. The only difference is the order of ‘features’ that you can use as the basis of your rules.

At time of writing you may create rules that are based on one feature of the order, specifically the postcode of the destination address. For example you may wish to apply a surcharge for users that have a postcode of 1234, 1235, 1236 and 1237. Currently only full postcodes are supported.

Updated on: 22/11/2022

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