Courier Rules and Rates
Choose Each Parcel's Courier by Your Own Rules
The cheapest courier for a Mumbai parcel is rarely the best one for a COD parcel to Guwahati. Write the rules your team already follows in their heads, and every label run applies them, parcel by parcel, then says on the order which rule chose the courier and why.
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Kosha is a demo store on Mercayo. Its products, orders and customers are sample data.
In short
What It Does
Settings → Shipping and Delivery → Courier Rules is an ordered list of rules. When a parcel is booked, your courier account first says which couriers serve its PIN code, weight and payment today, at today's prices. Then the rules are checked from the top, and the first rule whose conditions all fit chooses among those couriers. Below them, always last, sits your default rule for every parcel no rule takes.
Conditions
A rule fits when all of its conditions fit (a rule with none takes every parcel that reaches it):
| Condition | What It Checks |
|---|---|
| Payment | Cash on delivery or prepaid (a parcel with cash to collect is COD) |
| Order value | The order's total, from and to |
| Parcel weight | The parcel's weight in kg, from and to |
| Number of items | How many units are in the order |
| Zone | Local, Same State, Metro, Special or Rest of India, worked out from your pickup PIN code |
| State and City | Where the parcel goes |
| PIN codes | Pasted many at once: 110001, a range like 110001-110099, or a start like 7900* (up to 2,000 entries) |
| Product category and Product tag | Any product in the order (a product in a sub-category counts for its parent too) |
| Pickup address | Which of your courier account's pickup addresses it leaves from |
Special is the North East, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep; Metro is Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
What a Rule Chooses
- Couriers in my order: a priority list, first choice on top. The first courier on it that serves the PIN code gets the parcel.
- A way to choose: Cheapest, Fastest or Best performing, among Only These Couriers (or every courier, when you list none).
Either kind can name couriers to Never Use, left out even when they are the cheapest or the fastest. When nothing a rule allows serves the PIN code, it either lets the next rule try (the start), or stops and lets you choose: the label run leaves that parcel for your team, with the reason, to be booked from the phone app's ship sheet.
Courier names are matched by family, the way couriers name themselves differently in different accounts: "Delhivery" matches Delhivery Surface and Delhivery Air (but not an ONDC service), while "Delhivery · Surface" matches only the surface service. The courier picker lists the couriers your connected accounts offer, the couriers your own parcels used, and well-known ones; ONDC and same-day services wait behind Show all couriers.
Best Performing, From Your Own Parcels
Best performing ranks couriers by the share of your own parcels they delivered (rather than returned) to that state in the last 90 days, once a courier has 20 finished parcels there; with fewer, its record for all of India counts; with fewer than that, it has no record and comes after those that do. Ties go to fewer failed attempts, then the lower price.
Test a Rule
Under the list, Test a Rule takes a PIN code, weight, payment, order value, items and optionally a category and a tag, and answers which rule takes that parcel, which courier it would get at what price and in how many days, and why, with each rule's outcome ("Not this: Payment", "Fits", "Not reached") and every courier that serves it with your delivered share. With a courier account connected, the couriers and prices are your account's own answer for that parcel; nothing is booked.
Courier Rates
Settings → Shipping and Delivery → Courier Rates shows your courier account's own prices:
- Rate Calculator: a destination PIN, weight, box size, payment and order value give every courier each connected account offers for that parcel, with its freight, COD charge, the charge if it is returned (where the courier gives them), the days, and Your Rules Pick on the courier your rules would choose.
- Rate Card: the cheapest and the fastest courier for each zone and weight (0.5, 1, 2 and 5 kg), prepaid or COD, from one PIN code per zone. REFRESH asks your account about 40 price questions, at most once every 15 minutes, and never books anything.
Prices are your courier account's own, before GST unless the courier says otherwise.
For your store
Why It Matters
Every store that ships a lot ends up with rules, usually kept in someone's head: "COD to the North East goes India Post", "heavy parcels never by air", "never that courier to those PIN codes, they come back". When the person who knows is away, the rules are not followed, and a returned COD parcel costs you delivery both ways.
Written down in Mercayo, the rules are applied to every parcel in every label run, by whoever presses the button, and the order page says which rule chose the courier, so a wrong choice is easy to trace and fix. Best performing goes further: it uses your own parcels' delivered and returned record by state, which no price list shows.
The rates screen answers the questions that come before a rule: what does a 2 kg COD parcel to a Special zone really cost from my account, and which courier is cheapest or fastest there. And because reading prices and testing rules never books anything, you can try a rule on any PIN code before a real parcel depends on it.
Step by step
How It Works
Open Courier Rules
In Settings → Shipping and Delivery → Courier Rules, Your Rules starts empty with the Default Rule at the bottom: today's way of choosing (the cheapest courier that serves the PIN code, to start with). Press CHANGE on it to choose cheapest, fastest, best performing or your preferred list instead. Rules on turns every rule on or off at once.
Add a Rule
Press ADD RULE, name it ("COD to the North East") and add its conditions under When All of These Fit. Under Then Choose, either list Couriers, First Choice on Top, or pick a way to choose among Only These Couriers; add any to Never Use, and choose what happens If None of These Serves the PIN. Press SAVE RULE.
Put the Rules in Order
The first rule that fits decides, so put the narrow rules above the broad ones. Drag a rule by its handle (with a mouse or a finger), use its arrow buttons, or the arrow keys on a focused handle; each move is saved at once. A rule's own switch turns it off without deleting it.
Test It Before It Ships
In Test a Rule, type a PIN code, weight and order value, choose COD or prepaid, and press TEST. The answer names the rule that takes the parcel, the courier, its price and days, and why each rule above it did not fit.
Test a Rule: a prepaid parcel to a Delhi PIN code is taken by the metro rule, with the couriers that serve it, on Kosha, a demo store on Mercayo. Check Your Account's Prices
Open Courier Rates from Courier Rules. Use the Rate Calculator for one parcel, or read the Rate Card for every zone and weight at once; REFRESH asks your account again (at most once every 15 minutes).
Courier Rates: the rate card by zone and weight, prepaid, on Kosha, a demo store on Mercayo (a sample card: a demo store never asks a real courier). Ship, and Read the Reason
Make labels as usual. Each parcel's card on the order page then says why its courier was chosen, for example "Courier chosen by rule: COD to the North East (number 1 on its list, the first that serves this PIN)" or "Courier chosen by your default rule (the cheapest that serves this PIN, ₹54)".
Settings
Settings You Control
Each one is in your admin. A new store starts with the value shown.
Mercayo
Mercayo's Controls
Mercayo's team can turn courier rules off (or keep them on) for a store, and set its default rule or preferred list, with a reason your admin shows on the Courier Rules screen; every such change is kept in Mercayo's audit log. Testing a rule, the courier picker and Courier Rates only read from your courier account: they never book, cancel or change anything there. A demo store never asks a real courier and shows sample couriers and a sample rate card, marked as samples. Who may change rules is set by your staff roles: anyone who can see settings can read the rules and run a test; changing them needs the right to change settings; the label run, made by your order staff, reads them.
Limits today
Good to Know Before You Start
- Rules choose among the couriers your default courier account offers for that parcel today; they cannot add a courier the account does not serve to that PIN code.
- A store keeps at most 30 rules, and one rule at most 2,000 PIN code entries.
- Best performing needs at least 20 finished parcels with a courier (to that state, or else in all of India) before it ranks that courier by its record.
- The rate card is refreshed only when you press REFRESH; nothing refreshes it on a timer.
- Prices shown are your courier account's own, before GST unless the courier says otherwise; what you are finally charged is on your courier account's invoice.
- A courier chosen by hand on the phone app's ship sheet is booked as chosen, with no fallback to another courier if it refuses.
Questions
About Courier Rules and Rates
What happens if no rule fits a parcel?
The default rule takes it: the cheapest, fastest or best performing courier that serves the PIN code, or the first of your preferred couriers that does. Every store has a default rule, so every parcel always gets a courier unless a rule you wrote says to stop and wait for you.
What if the courier a rule picks refuses the parcel?
The label run tries the next courier your rules allow for it (the next on the rule's list, or the next by its way of choosing, never one on its Never Use list), up to three tries a parcel. Each refusal is written in the order's history.
Do the rules work with Shipway as well as Shiprocket?
Yes. The rules choose among the couriers your default courier account offers, whichever of the two it is, and courier names are matched by family, so "Delhivery" means the same in both accounts.
Does testing a rule or reading rates cost anything?
No. Both only ask your courier account for serviceability and prices, which it answers without booking anything. A refresh of the rate card is limited to once every 15 minutes so your account is not asked too often.
Will my existing courier setting change?
No. Your earlier choice (cheapest, fastest or a preferred list) became your default rule as it was, so parcels ship exactly as before until you add a rule.
Can someone on my team see why a courier was chosen?
Yes, on the order page's parcel card, in plain words: the rule's name and why (its place on the list, the cheapest, the fastest or the best record), or that your default rule chose it, or that a teammate picked it on the phone app.
Related
Related Features
- Shipments and PickupsTabs, filters and search for every parcel; request pickups, print manifests and labels, check or cancel shipments in bulk as background jobs.
- Shipping LabelsSelect orders and press GENERATE LABELS: each gets a courier by your rules and an AWB, and one PDF of labels in your look, printed on the paper you choose.
- ShiprocketConnect your own Shiprocket account with an API user, add Mercayo's webhook, and make labels, book pickups and follow parcels without opening Shiprocket.
- Delivery ChargesSet delivery methods, group states into zones, price by weight, give free delivery above an amount, and add rules for PIN codes, then test any PIN code.
- RTO ShieldEvery cash on delivery order gets a 0-100 risk score with plain reasons, and your store chooses what happens to risky ones: a call, a code or part payment.
More in Shipping: Delivery Charges · Delivery Dates by PIN Code · Shipping Labels · Failed Deliveries · Order Tracking · Exchanges · Returns and Refunds · Packing Lists · Branded Shipping Labels · India Post and Your Own Couriers · Shipments and Pickups
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