Understanding Shipping Fees

This article explains how return shipping fees work in Route Returns and how to choose between flat-rate fees and carrier-quoted dynamic fees for each shipping zone.

Fee types

Each shipping zone has a Fee Type that controls what the shopper pays (and sees) for return shipping on the Portal review page:

• Flat: A fixed amount you set for the zone. The shopper sees and pays this amount regardless of what the label actually costs.

• Dynamic: A live quote from the shipping provider connected to the zone, based on the actual label cost for the return. The shopper sees the real cost before confirming.

Prerequisites for Dynamic

To use Dynamic fee type on a zone, the zone must be connected to one of these shipping providers:

• EasyPost

• Shippo

• Global-e

You set Fee Type per zone, so you can mix approaches across regions. For example: flat fees for domestic returns, dynamic fees for international.

FAQ

Question: How does the fallback rate work for dynamic fees?

Answer: In the event that the live API call to the carrier fails when quoting the fee, we will use the fallback rate.