How To Prepare For Black Friday

Black Friday starts now!

We want you to succeed this Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so now is the time to get your store ready. Intuitive Shipping is a mission-critical app. If our servers go down, your store can’t complete sales.

That’s why we’ve made major investments to ensure stability and performance during peak season. As the busiest time of year approaches, you can be confident your partners are prepared to support you.

 

Ask Questions

Ask your third-party app providers these key questions to confirm they’re ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday:

• What hosting provider do they use? Cloud hosting is essential. Shared or VPS hosting doesn’t scale well and lacks proper failover.
• Do they have a status page so you can monitor outages? Here’s ours: Intuitive Shipping status page.
• Has a third-party agency reviewed their server architecture? This is critical for apps that impact checkout.
• If not, does their team include a server architect who has reviewed their setup?
• Will they provide 24/7 support?
• Have they done load testing to make sure their servers can handle the surge?
• Are their servers scalable to prevent cart abandonment caused by slow load times?

Not every app needs this level of prep, but when your sales depend on it, it’s worth checking.

 

Prepare for Flash Sales and High Sales Volumes

If you’re planning a flash sale or expecting a major spike in orders during Black Friday, it’s important to prepare. Shopify advises extra planning if you expect more than ten times your normal daily sales within a two-hour window.

Third-party apps like Intuitive Shipping are subject to Shopify’s API request limits. A sudden surge in checkouts can cause rate calculations to stop temporarily.

• Review Shopify’s flash sale documentation for tips.

• Let Intuitive Shipping know if you’re expecting high order volume or running a flash sale.

• If you’re on Shopify Plus, contact your Merchant Success Manager to request a temporary increase to your API limit.

These steps will help keep your checkout running smoothly and your sale on track.

 

Create A Backup Shipping Method

If you’re using live rates at checkout, not having access to those rates can devastate your Black Friday sales. With Intuitive Shipping, you can create a fallback system to ensure you always have rates available.

Set Up An Alternative Parcel Service Shipping Method

During high-traffic periods like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, your carrier may experience heavy demand that causes rate calls to time out. To prevent checkout issues, set up a backup parcel service shipping method.

For example, if you normally use real-time carrier rates from UPS, create a backup method using another carrier like FedEx. If UPS has an issue preventing them from returning rates, your backup FedEx shipping method can quickly be enabled to provide rates to your customers, ensuring you don’t lose sales. Once UPS service resumes, you can easily switch back.

 

To create a backup shipping method with another carrier:

1. Click Shipping on the sidebar menu, then select Scenarios from the drop-down list.

 

2. Click Edit beside the Scenario with your existing parcel service shipping method.

 

3. Scroll down to Shipping rates and services, then click the Create shipping method button.

 

Select A Parcel Service

1. Click the downward arrow beside Parcel Services to display a list of live rate carriers.

 

2. Select a backup carrier from the list, such as FedEx.

 

3. Click the Next button.

 

4. Select a zone. Be sure to select the same zone used by your primary parcel service shipping method.

 

5. Click the Configure shipping button.

 

General

1. Enter a shipping method title like ‘FedEx’. 

 

2. Leave the Title type set to 'Service titles provided by the carrier'. The service title(s) provided by the carrier in the rate calculation, such as ‘FedEx Priority Overnight,’ ‘FedEx 2 Day’ or ‘FedEx Ground,’ will be displayed as the shipping method title(s) at checkout. This is the default setting.

 

3. Change the Status to 'Off'. Rates from this shipping method will not be displayed, even if the Scenario conditions are met. We'll show you how to enable your backup shipping method later in this guide.

If you want to test your backup shipping method first, set the status to 'Test' to ensure it's working correctly. The shipping method will only be visible at checkout when using ‘Intuitive’ on the checkout page.

When using the 'Test' setting:

• For Shopify - enter ‘Intuitive’ as either the customer’s first or last name.
• For BigCommerce or Shopify B2B - enter ‘Intuitive’ in the optional address field for ‘Apartment/ Suite/ Building’.

 

4. If desired, configure the description and additional display settings to match or be similar to your original shipping method.

 

Packages

1. To ensure orders are packed consistently, select the same packing algorithm used in your primary shipping method.

 

2. To ensure orders are packed the consistently, select the same packages used in your primary shipping method.

 

Shipping Origin

1. To ensure rate calculations are consistent, select the same ship from location used in your primary shipping method.

You have two (2) settings to choose from:

• Dynamic origin location - carrier rates for the shipping method will be calculated based on the distance between the customer’s address and your primary eCommerce platform address. This is the default setting.
• Specify origin location - carrier rates for the shipping method will be calculated based on the saved address selected.

If you need a location that isn't listed, you can add it directly from the shipping method. 

 

Account

If you have an account with the carrier you selected for your backup shipping method, you can use it to access your discounted or negotiated rates. If you’ve already connected your carrier account to Intuitive Shipping, it will appear under 'Carrier accounts' as a selectable option.

Some carriers also offer standard retail rates, which are available to anyone without needing an account. If the selected carrier provides retail rates, a ‘Standard retail rates’ option will appear under 'Carrier accounts' and be selected by default. If the carrier doesn’t offer retail rates, no option will be shown.

 

1. Select a carrier account for your backup shipping method or use standard retail rates, if available. For this example, we're selecting our FedEx account. 

Because our example uses a FedEx OAuth shipping method, only FedEx accounts with OAuth credentials that have been added to Intuitive Shipping will be displayed as selectable options - there is no 'standard retail rates' option. If no account is displayed, you can add your account details directly from the shipping method.

 

Services

1. To ensure your backup rates are similar to your preferred rates, select services that closely match those in your primary shipping method. For example, if your main setup includes UPS Next Day Air and UPS Ground, and you’re using FedEx as your backup carrier, choose FedEx Priority Overnight and FedEx Ground to maintain similar delivery options and pricing expectations.

If a customer lives at an address where FedEx Priority is not offered, that service will not be displayed at checkout.

 

Additional service settings are available to filter services.

 

Optional Settings

Optional settings for carrier settings, fallback rating, cost adjustments, free shipping, custom shipping blending and rate blending give you further control of your custom shipping rates at checkout. These settings are not required for this setup, but can be adjusted if needed.

• Carrier settings provide additional controls, such as address type (residential or commercial) and package insurance, allowing you to match the settings used at the fulfillment stage. 
• Carrier service fallback rating can be enabled to ensure your customers receives a shipping rate at checkout even when rate request times out.
• Cost adjustments let you fully customize the final cost presented at checkout, regardless of the original rate calculation.
• Free shipping allows you to set a threshold for when free shipping is applicable on carts that would otherwise be charged for shipping.
• Custom shipping blending gives you the option to blend rates from the shipping method with product-specific shipping costs.
• Rate blending lets you combine rates from one shipping method with other shipping methods using simple or advanced blending. 

 

1. Click Show optional settings, then configure the optional settings as needed. For consistency, we recommend configuring optional settings similarly to your primary shipping method.

 

Save Your Settings

1. Click the Save button to save your backup shipping method.

 

Your Scenario now has two parcel service shipping methods: your original, set to ‘On’ and your backup, set to ‘Off’ (or 'Test').

 

Toggle Between Parcel Service Shipping Methods

If your preferred carrier has an issue and rates from your primary shipping method are temporarily unavailable, you can quickly toggle between your primary and backup shipping methods.

1. Click Shipping on the sidebar menu, then select Scenarios from the drop-down list.

 

2. Click Edit beside the Scenario with both your primary and backup parcel service shipping methods.

 

3. Scroll down to the Shipping rates and services section, then click Edit beside the backup shipping method that is currently set to ‘Off'.

 

4. In the General section, change the Status to ‘On’.

 

5. Scroll to the bottom, then click the Save button to save your status change.

 

6. Scroll back to the top, then click the button above the carrier logo. The button will include the title of the Scenario you're working in. This will return you to the Scenario page.

 

7. Click Edit beside the primary shipping method that was already set to ‘On’.

 

8. In the General section, change the Status to ‘Off’.

 

9. Scroll to the bottom, then click the Save button to save your status change.

 

 

Add A Fallback Rate

If a backup carrier isn’t an option, you can enable the Carrier Service Fallback Rating feature in your main shipping method instead.

This feature lets you set a custom flat rate that only appears if the carrier rate request times out. Timeouts occur when rates aren’t returned within six seconds or if the carrier’s servers are down.

Fallback rates will not appear for other types of errors, such as:

• Oversized packages

• Overweight orders

• Invalid addresses

When carrier rates are unavailable, we’ll post updates on our Status page, and you’ll also receive a notification within the app.

To add a fallback rate:

1. Click Shipping on the sidebar menu, then select Scenarios from the drop-down list.

 

2. Click Edit beside the Scenario with your existing parcel service shipping method.

 

3. Scroll down to Shipping rates and services, then click Edit beside your parcel service shipping method.

 

4. Scroll down to the bottom, then click Show optional settings.

 

5. Scroll down to the Carrier service fallback rating section, then select Define a fallback rate.

 

6. Enter a shipping cost. 

Let’s say your fallback rate is $15.00, and a customer order results in three (3) packages being required based on the selected packing algorithm. If the carrier rates time out and the fallback rate is activated, the customer will be charged $45.00 for shipping at checkout ($15.00 x 3 packages).

 

Optional Display Settings

Additional optional display settings are available for fallback rate titles, descriptions, delivery times and service codes, which can override the shipping method's general display settings when the fallback rate is activated and displayed at checkout.

1. Click Show optional display settings.

 

2. Enter a fallback rate title, such as ‘Shipping’ or the carrier’s name. This title will only be displayed when the carrier rates time out and the fallback rate is activated.

 

3. Enter a fallback rate description. This description will only be displayed when the carrier rates time out and the fallback rate is activated.

 

4. Enter a fallback rate delivery time in number of days. Consider entering a range that covers the average-to-longest delivery times for your carrier. This delivery time will only be displayed when the carrier rates time out and the fallback rate is activated.

• Min delivery time - enter the lower limit of your delivery time range.
• Max delivery time - enter the upper limit of your delivery range. When combined with the min setting, delivery times will be displayed like ‘3 to 5 business days’ at checkout.

For example, if you prefer to have delivery time displayed as ‘3 business days’ instead of ‘3 to 5 business days’, enter ‘3’ in either minimum or maximum and leave the other field blank.

 

If you have Delivery dates enabled in your General settings, this optional fallback setting will be displayed as 'Delivery date' rather than 'Delivery time' and you'll be able to enter a maximum delivery time in number of days. Intuitive Shipping will determine an estimated delivery date using your general delivery date settings, plus the number of days entered here.

 

5. Enter a fallback rate service code, such as 'FALLBACK'. The service code is pushed to your fulfillment service (if applicable) when a customer successfully completes their checkout. This service code will only be pushed to your fulfillment service when the carrier rates time out and the fallback rate is activated.

 

Save Your Settings

1. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, then click the Save button to save your fallback rate.

 

 

Check Our Status Page

If we become aware of known issues with carrier rates, we’ll post an update on our Status Page. You’ll also get a pop-up notification within the app.