Shipping

When selling physical products, you'll need a way to ship those products to your customers. Sometimes you may want to offer multiple shipping options & the prices may vary on the customer's location.

Simple Commerce includes the concept of Shipping Methods. Allowing you to create shipping methods for different shipping options (eg. one for Next Day Delivery, another for Standard delivery or in-store pickup).

Configuration

Shipping Methods can be configured on a site-by-site basis which is helpful if you have different sites for different countries or regions you serve.

// config/simple-commerce.php
 
'sites' => [
'default' => [
// ...
 
'shipping' => [
'methods' => [
\DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Shipping\FreeShipping::class => [],
],
],
],
],

The methods array should contain an array of Shipping Method classes, with the ::class syntax. You may also specify a configuration array as the second parameter.

Third-party Shipping Methods

There's a few third-party shipping methods on the Statamic Marketplace that you can pull into your project:

Templating

During the checkout process, you'll want to let the customer enter their shipping address and then select the shipping method they wish to use for the order.

1. Prompting the customer for their shipping address

Fields for shipping & billing addresses are included in the default order blueprint.

To let your customer enter their details, simply update those fields using the {{ sc:cart:update }} tag.

{{ sc:cart:update }}
<input type="text" name="shipping_name" placeholder="Name" value="{{ old:shipping_name }}">
<input type="text" name="shipping_address" placeholder="Address" value="{{ old:shipping_address }}">
<input type="text" name="shipping_city" placeholder="City" value="{{ old:shipping_city }}">
<input type="text" name="shipping_region" placeholder="Region" value="{{ old:shipping_region }}">
<select name="shipping_country" value="{{ old:shipping_country }}">
{{ sc:countries }}
<option value="{{ iso }}">{{ name }}</option>
{{ /sc:countries }}
</select>
<input type="text" name="shipping_zip_code" placeholder="Postal Code" value="{{ old:shipping_zip_code }}">
 
<button type="submit">Update Shipping Address</button>
{{ /sc:cart:update }}

If you're using the Starter Kit, customers will be asked to enter their shipping details at the first step of the checkout process.

Hot Tip

As mentioned, the default order blueprint also has Billing Address fields. You may do the same thing to allow customers update them - the field names are just billing_ instead of shipping_.

2. Allowing the customer to select a shipping method

You should also use the {{ sc:cart:update }} tag to allow customers to select the shipping method they wish to use.

You can use the {{ sc:shipping:methods }} tag to loop through the available shipping methods for the order.

It'll provide you with variables like name & cost for each of the available shipping methods.

{{ sc:cart:update }}
<p>Please select a shipping method for your order.</p>
 
<select name="shipping_method" value="{{ old:shipping_method }}">
<option value="" disabled selected>Select a Shipping Method</option>
{{ sc:shipping:methods }}
<option value="{{ handle }}">{{ name }} - {{ cost }}</option>
{{ /sc:shipping:methods }}
</select>
 
<button type="submit">Select Shipping Method</button>
{{ /sc:cart:update }}

Once the customer has submitted the form, Simple Commerce will update the order totals using the chosen shipping method.

Default Shipping Method

Normally, Simple Commerce won't calculate the Shipping Total for an order until the customer's entered their shipping address & selected the shipping method they'd like to use.

However, there are some use cases (like for those with only one available shipping method) where you may want to set a default shipping method.

The default shipping method will be used when calculating the Shipping Total for an order if no other Shipping Method has been selected.

'sites' => [
'default' => [
...
 
'shipping' => [
'default_method' => 'free_shipping',
 
'methods' => [
\DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Shipping\FreeShipping::class => [],
],
],
],
],

Warning

Simple Commerce won't check if the Default Shipping Method is 'available' before using it for orders.

Building Custom Shipping Methods

To get you up & running quickly, Simple Commerce includes a command to generate the relevant boilerplate for a new shipping method.

php please make:shipping-method YourNewShippingMethod

That command will create a Shipping Method class in your app\ShippingMethods folder. It'll look a little something like this:

<?php
 
namespace App\ShippingMethods;
 
use DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Contracts\Order;
use DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Contracts\ShippingMethod;
use DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Orders\Address;
use DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Shipping\BaseShippingMethod;
 
class FirstClass extends BaseShippingMethod implements ShippingMethod
{
public function name(): string
{
return 'Name of your shipping method';
}
 
public function description(): string
{
return 'Description of your shipping method';
}
 
public function calculateCost(Order $order): int
{
return 0;
}
 
public function checkAvailability(Order $order, Address $address): bool
{
return true;
}
}

Here's a quick rundown of what each method does.

  • name: Should return the name of your shipping method (will be shown to customers)
  • description: Should return a description for your shipping method
  • calculateCost: This method should be where you return the cost of the shipping, based on the order's entry data.
  • checkAvailability: This method is where an Address object is passed in and you should return a boolean of whether or not you ship to that location.

Inside your shipping method, if you need to accept configuration options (for example: an API Key), you can do so by using the available config method.

// app/ShippingMethods/FirstClass.php
 
$this->config()->get('api_key');

Then, inside your config file, setting configuration values looks like this:

// config/simple-commerce.php
 
'sites' => [
'default' => [
// ...
 
'shipping' => [
'methods' => [
\App\ShippingMethods\FirstClass::class => [
'api_key' => 'blahblahblah',
],
],
],
],
],