Shipping States & Taxes page in Settings
Lots to do here, this page is a doozy and will require your time and attention. Plus it is very highly connected to the next page in Settings called Shipping Rates, which also requires an attentive mindset during setup, plus ongoing status checks throughout the year. Mainly because the status of a state allowing wine shipments changes, sales tax rates change, and your shipping rates from carriers or a fulfillment company will change (most likely increase!).
Setting up your shipping parameters is important for many of your employees to understand.
The Shipping States & Taxes page presents a list of all 50 states in the USA, with four columns of options available in each state.
1. You are able to adjust each state manually as “Ship To” or “Prohibited”. This will determine which states (that customers reside in) are available for online ordering.
-There are some options however, and this is where the Shipping Rates page in Settings comes into play. Available where it applies—some sites don’t support all features.
-You will be able to create multiple shipping and pickup methods in Shipping Rates. Then, by clicking on each state on the Shipping States & Taxes page (or ‘Edit’ button next to a state) a window will pop up allowing you to select that state’s access to specific shipping methods (available where it applies—some sites don’t support all features).
-Therefore, if a customer lives in a state that your winery or wine retailer can’t ship to, but that customer has a wine storage account with Vinfolio, Domaine, 55 Degrees, etc, you can activate only the transfering or pickup methods for that state, while the shipping methods remain hidden. That will allow your customer to keep buying and have the wine picked up or transferred to their storage account.
2. You are able to adjust the sales tax rates for each state. If you are using ShipCompliant you will not need to fill in these cells as their system will populate the sales tax for your orders through a Figure API. If you are not using ShipCompliant, consult your accounting team and/or legal team to determine proper sales tax rates for each state.
3. For your shipping rates, the Zones drop down column allows you to designate or group each state into accurate pricing ranges. For example, if your winery or retail shop is in California:
-Shipments staying in state could be set as Zone 2
-Shipments to OR, WA, ID, NV, and AZ could be Zone 3
-Shipments to MT, WY, CO, NM and TX could be Zone 4
-Shipments to the midwest states could be Zone 5
-Shipments to the Eastern seaboard could be Zone 6
-Hawaii and Alaska could be Zone 7.
The above recommendations would be similar to the map below, but of course you should modify the zones in accordance with the costs your customers will pay, which is of course dependent on the rates you receive from your fulfillment company. Possible adjustments...Texas is big, and due to shipping costs you may want to move it into Zone 5 if need be, again, depending on your shipping rates.
You will see this correlation between zones and costs on the Shipping Rates page. Once you create shipping methods (Ground, 2Day Air, Overnight, etc), you will be able to set up rate tables for each of those methods, based on the zones you have set on the Shipping States & Taxes page and the number of bottles in an order.
4. The last column is for applying tax to the freight costs. Some states require this and others don’t. Consult with your accounting team, legal team, and/or ShipCompliant (if you choose to engage their services) to make sure you are collecting the correct taxes.