How to combine Amasty shipping extensions for advanced tasks

We at Amasty are working hard making our extensions as feature-rich as possible. We collect feedback and brainstorm on new settings which help you to boost your Magento store.

But sometimes you can also get immense results by combining several extensions. Today I’m going to show you how you can complete more tasks by combining Shipping extensions from Amasty.

I’m going to use Shipping Table Rates as the basic module. It handles an impressive number of shipping calculation tasks, and I have already described its possibilities before.

Let’s combine Shipping Table Rates with Shipping Rules and see what we can do here.

1. Shipping Discount for your own methods

Say, we have a simple method in Shipping Table Rates:

It calculates the Shipping Rate and multiplies weight by ten. Now, here are the steps to reach the Goal:

Let’s create a rule in Shipping Cart Price Rules with the coupon we need:

Now let’s configure the shipping rule which will be activated by this coupon:

Please pay attention to the fact that we marked the method name in Shipping Methods so that our shipping rule will be working only for the mentioned method.

Don’t forget to set the discount:

Now go and see if the rules are working. Shopping cart (no coupon):

Applying the coupon… And it works:

To make the result more vivid for the customer, let’s enable the discount display so the shoppers will see how much they actually save:

Final result: we enabled a promotion where buyers can apply the coupon and save 10% on shipping.

2. Free shipping for the chosen products

Again, let’s start with a simple method for Shipping Table Rates:

This method calculates shipping as 100 + 10 for each item in the cart. It satisfies us in general, but we want to offer free shipping for glasses when the total sum is over 500 (indeed, it’s not very fair to charge for the glasses shipping when the order is huge!).

Let’s configure the shipping rule:

Unlike the previous rule, we want this new rule to work always and for the other methods as well.

Setting up the condition:

And giving the 10 discount, as we have configured the rate as 10 per product.

Define the products to apply the new rate to:

Let’s check if it works. Here how the cart looks like without the coupon:

Now turn on the shipping rule:

 3. Make sure your promotion is efficient

Say, you have a carefully configured shipping method:

We did a great job calculating shipping prices for each location to save as much as possible. But we are going to run a promotion with such a big discount and make sure that this method will be efficient for us. To solve that issue, we need to add Shipping Restrictions to our technology stack.

More specifically, we’re just blocking this method for orders using the current promotion.

Say, our promotion is all set and running, the coupons have been generated, so let’s go to Shipping Restrictions.

Define the method you need to block:

Tell Magento that your shipping restriction will be activated by one of the coupons from the created promotion:

Now let’s check if we configured everything correctly.

No coupon in the cart. The Australia Post method is available:

Now we apply the promotion coupon, and the method is not available:

4. A special shipping method for those who have a coupon

Of course, this can be done in various ways, but using a secret coupon is the most convenient method of reaching our goal. Say, we have configured the special method and would like to restrict access to it:

Remember the very first example? We will act very similar here: create a Shipping Cart Price Rule with a coupon, and configure the Shipping Restriction then:

Please pay attention to the fact that we created the coupon for Do NOT Apply Restrictions With, and this means that tte coupon switches off the shipping restriction rule.

Now go and check on the frontend!

No coupon. Premium shipping is not available:

When the coupon is applied, the premium shipping option becomes available:

 5. Different shipping options for various customer groups

Using Advanced Customer Segments can also help us complete tasks connected with customer groups. You may have met its features on the article about using it with Follow Up Email.

And you can use this extension for setting up your shipping options! In fact, Advanced Customer Segments can be used everywhere with the Magento conditions tree: for example, with shipping cart price rules, or with extensions like Shipping Rules, Payment Resctrictions, and even third-party modules as well.

One for those who order for the first time, one for those who have bought before, and one for trusted customers with a rich history of buying at your store. At the same time we don’t want to create new customer groups and shift users between them.

Say, we have already created three different shipping methods in Shipping Table Rates:

Now we need three segments. Go to Advanced Customer Segments and create:

•  a segment for those who are ordering for the first time

• for those who have bought from you before

• for trusted customers

When you’re done with segments, it’s time to create restrictions so the necessary methods of shipping are shown only to particular people.

Here’s the rule for the first segment:

As you may have noticed, we have blocked almost all the carriers and all the methods from Shipping Table Rates carrier except Worldwide shipping. We did this to show only Worldwide shipping method for the current segment.

Don’t forget to specify the segment in Rule configuration – Conditions:

Configure the rule for the second segment:

And, finally, the settings for the last segment with trusted customers:

Thus, each of the three segments will have access only to one shipping method.

6. A nesting doll

And yes, I’m not crazy. And I think now you have ideas on how to do that!

As always, we start from the shipping methods:

Defining the segment:

Next, let’s create the discount for shipping, using Shipping Rules:

Go to Rule configuration – Rates:

And then to rule address conditions:

Now it’s time to set up the restrictions. Let’s start from blocking the methods for all the people who don’t belong to the segment:

And the last restriction to block the method when activating the promotion:

And Rule Configuration – Coupons:

You don’t have to specify the segment here, because the previous restriction already limits the methods by a single segment.

What’s the result? Mr. Bond and his family have two unique shipping methods available, the first one dissapears when Mr. Bond uses a discount.

Takeaway

Can we add anything else? Sure. For example, Auto Shipping extension can help you with configuring default shipping method. It lets your customers make less clicks and improves your conversion.

Of course, the described examples are the tip of the iceberg only. I don’t think I have enough fantasy to describe all the possible variants, and you won’t probably read such a big blog post 😉 The aim of it was to show you the logic of creating promotions and handling shipping using Amasty extensions.

Always begin your journey from specifying your goal. Need a new shipping method? Take a look at Shipping Table Rates. Want to hide any of the methods in some cases? Shipping Restrictions is at your service. Going to change the shipping rate for a specific product or case within the existing shipping methods? Here goes Shipping Rules.

I do hope the article was helpful for you. Please don’t hesitate to ask in comments if something is unclear!