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. 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.
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Review Shopify’s flash sale documentation for tips.
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Let Intuitive Shipping know if you’re expecting high order volume or running a flash sale.
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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 Fallback System
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 busy times like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, your preferred carrier may experience heavy demand, causing rate calls to time out. To avoid checkout issues, set up an alternative parcel service shipping method.
For example, if you’re using live UPS rates, create a backup method using another carrier like FedEx. If UPS fails to return rates, your backup will kick in.
Most major carriers offer standard retail rates that don’t require an account.
To create an alternative backup shipping method with another carrier:
- Click Shipping on the sidebar menu, then select Scenarios from the drop-down list.
- Click Edit beside the Scenario with your existing parcel service shipping method.
- Scroll down to Shipping rates and services, then click the Create shipping method button.
- Click the downward arrow beside Parcel Services to display a list of live rate carriers.
- Select a backup carrier from the list, such as FedEx.
- Click the Next button.
- Select a zone. Be sure to select the same zone used by your primary parcel service shipping method.
Learn more about zones.
- Click the Configure shipping button.
- Enter a shipping method title like ‘FedEx’. This title will not be visible to customers if you leave the ‘Title type’ setting in Step 10 as ‘Service titles provided by carrier’.
- Leave the Title type set to Service titles provided by the carrier.
The service title (or titles) 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 (or titles) at checkout. This is the default setting.
- Change the status to 'Off'. The Scenario will ignore the shipping method, even if the Scenario conditions are met. The backup shipping method will not be displayed at checkout.
If you want to test after setting it up, temporarily set the status to 'Test' to ensure it's working correctly. The shipping method will only be visible at checkout when you use the word ‘Intuitive’ as the customer’s first or last name. You can come back and change it to Off after you finish testing.
- If desired, configure the description and additional display settings to match or be similar to your original shipping method.
- To ensure that orders are packed the same way, select the same packing algorithm you used in your original shipping method.
- To ensure orders are packed the same way, select the packages you used in your original shipping method.
- To ensure rates are calculated the same, select the same Ship from location you use in your original shipping method.
- Select a carrier account or use standard retail rates, if available. If you have an account with the backup carrier but have not yet connected it to Intuitive Shipping, click Add carrier account to add account credentials and connect your backup carrier account. Once added, it will be displayed here as a selectable option.
- To ensure your backup rates are similar to your current rates, select carrier services similar to those you use in your original shipping method. For example, if you offer UPS Next Day Air and UPS Ground for your current rates and choose FedEx as your backup carrier, select FedEx Priority Overnight and FedEx Ground for your backup rates.
Be sure to select services that are available in the zone the shipping method is being assigned to.
For example, if this shipping method was assigned to a domestic zone, be sure to select domestic services. If this shipping method was assigned to an international zone, be sure to select international services.
- If desired, configure the additional service settings to be the same as or similar to your original shipping method.
- If desired, configure the optional settings to match your original shipping method. If you didn’t change any default optional settings on your original shipping method, skip ahead to the next step.
- Click the Save button to save your alternative parcel service shipping method.
You will now have at least two (2) parcel service shipping methods: your original, set to ‘On’ and your alternative, set to ‘Off’.
Toggle Between Parcel Service Shipping Methods
If your main carrier has an issue and rates from your primary shipping method are temporarily available, you can quickly toggle between your primary and backup shipping methods.
- Click Shipping on the sidebar menu, then select Scenarios from the drop-down list.
- Click Edit beside the Scenario with both your primary and alternative parcel service shipping methods.
- Scroll down to the Shipping rates and services section, then click Edit beside the alternative shipping method that is currently set to ‘Off'.
- In the General section, change the Status to ‘On’.
- Scroll to the bottom, then click the Save button to save your status change.
- 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.
- Click Edit beside the primary shipping method that was already set to ‘On’.
- In the General section, change the Status to ‘Off’.
- Scroll to the bottom, then click the Save button to save your status change.
Add Fallback Rate
If a backup carrier isn’t an option, you can turn on the Carrier Service Fallback Rating feature in your main shipping method.
This lets you set a custom flat rate that only appears if the carrier rate request times out. Timeouts happen when rates aren’t returned within six seconds or if the carrier’s servers are down.
Fallback rates won’t appear for other errors like
- oversized packages
- overweight orders
- invalid addresses.
When carriers rates are down, we will update our Status page and you will receive a notification within the app.
To add a fallback rate:
- Click Shipping on the sidebar menu, then select Scenarios from the drop-down list.
- Click Edit beside the Scenario with your existing parcel service shipping method.
- Scroll down to Shipping rates and services, then click Edit beside your parcel service shipping method.
- Scroll down to the bottom, then click Show optional settings.
- Scroll down to the Carrier service fallback rating section, then select Define a fallback rate.
- Enter a shipping cost. This cost will only be displayed when the carrier service times out and the fallback cost is activated.
The fallback shipping cost is multiplied by the number of packages required for the customer order.
If you set a fallback rate of $15.00 and an order requires three packages, the customer will be charged $45.00 at checkout if the fallback rate is triggered ($15.00 per package).
Additional settings are available for fallback rate titles, descriptions, delivery times and service codes. In the event the fallback rate is activated, these settings will override the main settings.
- Click Show optional display settings.
- 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.
- Enter a fallback rate description. This description will only be displayed when the carrier rates time out and the fallback rate is activated.
- Enter a fallback rate delivery time in number of days. For fallback rates, consider 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.
To display a single, fixed number of days, leave either Min or Max blank.
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.
- Enter a fallback rate service code. 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.
Service codes are not visible to customers.
- 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 notification within the app.