Setting Up Delivery and Shipping in GrownBy
GrownBy has features to help make Delivery and Shipping of your products and shares go as smoothly as possible. Delivery is linked to geographic Delivery Zones, which you define through zip codes. Shipping is similarly linked to Shipping Zones, which you define by State. Once you set up Delivery/Shipping Zone(s), they will only be available to Customers whose address falls within the defined zone.
Note: Your customers’ addresses are saved and can be viewed and edited by the Farm Admin or the Customer in their account.
Adding a Shipping or Delivery Zone
The first step is to define a Zone. To begin, click on Locations & Zones in the Menu on your Dashboard.
Next, choose Add Delivery Zone or Add Shipping Zone which will bring you to a page like this:
To create a zone, first enter a Shipping/Delivery Zone Name and Delivery nickname. Next, enter a Shipping/Delivery fee (you can also leave it as $0). Finally, add all states or zip codes that make up the Shipping or Delivery Zone. Customers will only be able to place an order if their address is in one of the states or zipcodes defined in the zone. For delivery, to help you determine which zipcodes to include, try this tool. As you enter each zip code or state, it will populate below the entry field. To remove one, click the X next to it. When you’re done, click Save at the top right. You will be redirected back to the Locations & Zones page.
What your Customers Will See
In your Shop, when a customer clicks on a product that has an available Delivery or Shipping schedule attached to it, they will see that option. In this example, the product has all three types, pick-up, delivery, and shipping:
If the customer is signed in and their address matches the delivery or shipping zone, they will see a message that confirms that they can receive the product via that method:
If they are not signed in, they will be asked to enter their address:
Creating a Schedule for Your Shipments or Deliveries
The next step is to Create a Schedule for your delivery. Click Schedules in your Dashboard Menu, then Add Schedule:
First, select the Zone from the drop down and then assign it a name. For example, if this is an every Friday route in your “downtown” zone, you can name it simply “Friday”. Optionally, you can add a Note which will be included with the delivery reminder that customers receive the day before delivery. This is helpful if you want to let folks know when to expect their delivery or reminders about their delivery, such as to leave out a cooler.
The Order Cut off window field defines the latest time that a customer can place an order before the distribution. This allows farms to have time to harvest, pack, or order in other products, if needed. This time is shown to customers when they place an order. If they try to order after this time, their order will be for the following distribution in a schedule. Order cut-off windows are now calculated by hours, counting backward from the end of your distribution. The minimum cutoff is 0 hours which allow for same day shopping. The red text shows when the next cut-off is for this schedule.
Finally, choose either Seasonal or Year-round and set the dates, times, and frequency for the Schedule.
There is also a checkbox where you can easily temporarily close the schedule to prevent customers from buying from it.
How Delivery and Shipping Fees Work
There are a few important things to know about how fees behave in GrownBy:
- As of GrownBy 3.9, delivery and shipping fees are included in the order invoice, not invoiced separately as they previously were.
- If a customer pays for the order in full at the time of purchase, all of the delivery fees are paid at that time. If the customer pays in installments, the delivery fees are incorporated into the installments.
- If the customer claims vacation for a delivery, GrownBy provides the value of one week of the share in farm credit, but automatically provides a partial refund for the delivery fee to the original payment method, if a credit card or ACH was used.
- Orders that are placed with the same delivery location and day are bundled together and only charged one fee.
Rescheduling and fees
- If an admin reschedules a customer's delivery to a day that customer already has a delivery, there will be two fees on that day. One fee will have to be adjusted off an invoice or refunded if already paid.
- Shoppers can only reschedule ALL items on a given day at once. The fee will stay with the invoice.
- However, admins may reschedule a portion of items without rescheduling them all. When a portion of an order (but not the whole order) is moved to another day, no new delivery fee is generated.
Exception Days
You can choose to skip or reschedule some of the days in the schedule within the system. You might want to do this if your regularly scheduled delivery falls on a holiday or if you want to establish a less regular or frequent schedule during some times of the year or month.
To Reschedule a date in the Schedule, click once on the date and then once on the date that you want ro reschedule it to. The original date turns red and the reschedule date green. To skip a day entirely, double click on that date in your schedule. It will turn blue. A summary of your reschedule and skip days will appear to the right of the calendar under the heading, List of Exceptions. To remove one, just click the X next to that item.
Making Your Products Available for Shipping/Delivery
Each product needs to be set up for shipping or delivery before it will be available to your Customers. Go to Products and, if in the thumbnail view, click Edit on the right hand side. If you’re in the list view, click the three horizontal dots and then choose Edit.
In the Product Detail page, scroll down to Schedules & Availability and select a Schedule from the drop down menu. After you choose the Schedule, each of the next selectors narrow the Availability to a subset of the Schedule. So, if you have a Weekly schedule, you can use the Frequency selector to make it biweekly or monthly and the Start and End dates to make it only available for part of the year. Click Submit.
Note: Each Product must be made available individually through the Products Menu in your Dashboard.
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Still have questions?
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