Live checkout rates on Shopify

With live checkout rates on, your Shopify checkout shows the freight price Forensik sets: the expected carrier cost from your approved rate cards and fuel levy, plus your markup rules. Forensik does not call any carrier's API at checkout; it prices from your own rate cards, so every price matches what Forensik later checks the invoice against.

What you need

• A connected Shopify store. See Connect Shopify.
• A Forensik plan that includes live checkout pricing: Growth plan and above, including the free trial. On Starter the panel shows a lock with an upgrade note.
• A Shopify plan that allows carrier-calculated shipping (third-party rates at checkout). If yours does not, Shopify refuses and Forensik shows what Shopify said.
• SKUs in Forensik that match your Shopify product SKUs, each with its cartons set up, plus an approved rate card, fuel levy and markup rule. See SKUs and cartons.

Turn it on or off

On Integrations, under the Shopify card, find Live checkout rates. A badge shows On or Off.

• Select Turn on. Forensik registers itself with your store as a shipping rate provider called "Forensik live rates".
• Select Turn off to remove it. Your other Shopify shipping methods carry on as before.

If your plan includes it when you first connect the store, Forensik turns live rates on for you straight after you approve the app.

At checkout, each carrier service Forensik can price appears as its own option, named by carrier and service, cheapest first. A line with free freight is answered at $0.

Fallback rate

• Fallback rate (AUD): the price shown if Forensik cannot price the cart in time, or the cart cannot be priced (for example a product with no SKU, or a SKU with no cartons). Enter dollars and cents, such as 14.95. Leave it empty to show no Forensik rate in those cases, so only your other shipping methods appear.
• Fallback rate name: what the customer sees, up to 60 characters. If you leave it empty, it shows as "Standard shipping".

Select Save to keep your changes.

GST

Send prices including GST is ticked by default. Forensik works ex GST and adds GST as its own component; this box decides which figure goes to Shopify. Untick it only if your store adds tax on top of shipping, otherwise customers pay GST twice.

Speed and caching

Shopify waits only a few seconds for rates. Forensik gives itself 2.5 seconds to price a cart; if it takes longer, your fallback rate is shown instead. When a customer edits their checkout and Shopify asks again for the same cart within 60 seconds, Forensik answers from a short cache.

When rates are not shown

Destinations outside Australia and carts with nothing to ship get no Forensik rate at all. If a cart cannot be priced, the fallback rate is shown, or nothing when no fallback is set. See Checkout rates not showing and Live rate timeouts.