Live rate timeouts

Forensik works out freight prices from your own approved rate cards and never calls a carrier's API at checkout. What can still be slow is the round trip between your store's checkout and Forensik. This article covers it.

Checkout rates timed out

The checkout shows your fallback rate, or no Forensik rate, because pricing timed out.

Cause. Checkouts do not wait long for shipping rates. Forensik gives itself 2.5 seconds to price a cart. For Shopify, if pricing takes longer, Forensik answers with your fallback rate. For WooCommerce and Magento, the plugin or extension waits for its Rates timeout setting (3 seconds by default, 1 to 10) and shows its own fallback rate if Forensik has not answered by then. With no fallback rate set, the customer sees only your store's other shipping methods. A very large cart, a busy moment or a slow connection from your store's host can all push pricing past the deadline.

Fix.

1. Set a fallback rate so customers always see a price. For Shopify, set it in the Live checkout rates panel on Integrations. For WooCommerce and Magento, set it in the plugin or extension settings. See Shopify checkout rates and Connect WooCommerce.
2. Keep your rate cards and fuel levies approved and in force, and every SKU's cartons set up, so carts price first time rather than failing.
3. For WooCommerce or Magento, if timeouts are frequent, raise Rates timeout a little, for example to 4 or 5 seconds.

Shopify asks again as the customer edits the checkout, and repeat requests for the same cart within a minute are answered from a short cache, so a one-off slow answer usually sorts itself out.

When to contact support. If the fallback rate keeps appearing on ordinary carts that price quickly on the Test a Quote page. Contact support with the time of a recent checkout and the destination postcode.