ECrater is a 100% free online marketplace and a free ecommerce website builder. Sellers get a customizable online store and can list an unlimited number of items which are shown both in their own individual store and in eCrater's marketplace.

ECrater was founded by Dimitri Slavov and first launched on September 27, 2004.

The History of eCRATER.com

You have four options on eCrater for setting up your shipping.

Shipping Matrix - A weight (or number) based chart of shipping prices.
Fixed Shipping - A set shipping price for an item.
Free Shipping to US & Canada - Exactly what it says, no charge on shipping.
USPS Shipping Calculator - New option for exact shipping based on USPS rates.

The Shipping Matrix is a way to set up a shipping scale. For example if you set products weighing 1 pound ship for $2 and 2 pounds ships for $3 and a customer buys two 1 pound items they pay $3 shipping.

Many people find this system confusing because it doesn't allow you to charge the exact amount it costs to ship. I find it to be the exact opposite, I have shipping based on the average cost of shipping for each weight plus an estimate of packaging cost. Some orders will go over the actual shipping and packaging costs, some come in under, but it evens out.

Pros: Allows you the most flexibility. Allows you to factor in the cost of shipping materials and handling costs (such as time and gas cost to drive to the post office).

Cons: Confusing and less precise.

Choosing a Weight Scale
Choose the range of weights which your items fit into.

Choosing Shipping Zones
Select the Countries and Regions to ship to.

Setting Up the Matrix

Insert the shipping price you would like to charge for each weight, except for the last entry which is the amount you would like to charge for each increment over the max weight. In the example it's an extra $3.50 per 2lbs over 16lbs (therefore an order weighing 18lbs costs $22.50 + $3.50 = $26).

Other Ways to Use the Shipping Matrix

Fractional Weights: The shipping matrix rounds up to the nearest weight in the chart. So an item with a weight of 0.25 (you must include the zero before the decimal point) will be rounded up to 1. So a single item with a weight of 0.25 will ship for the cost set in the box for 1, and up to four of those items will all ship for the same cost.

Numerical Shipping: If you want to ship by the number of items instead of the weight list all items as weighing 1. fill in the chart treating the weight as the number.

Alternate Weight Systems: The Shipping Matrix says it's for pounds however it's up to you exactly what weight scale you are using. You could consider it to be ounces if you sell very lightweight items, or you could use kilograms if you are more comfortable with metric weights (or live outside the US).

International Fixed Shipping: Fixed shipping prices aren't available for international orders so in order to give a fixed price on an item for any weight put the same price in every collumn except the last collumn where you put $0.

Fixed shipping allows you to set a shipping price for a single item. I've found this works best for single unusual or very heavy items that need to be shipped individually.

Pros: Very simple to set up.

Cons: Costs add together, if a customer buys 1 item with $5 fixed shipping and another with $7 fixed shipping they will be charged $12 for shipping. This can quickly add up and either scare customers away, require you to send a separate invoice with correct shipping, or refund some of the shipping.

The free shipping option for eCrater only covers the United States and Canada. If you want to offer free shipping to other countries you need to use the shipping matrix, simply enter $0 in all the boxes of the matrix for the country you want to offer free shipping too.

Pros: It's very easy to set up and customers like it.

Cons: If you don't factor in the shipping costs in your product prices or as a business expense you could lose money especially for large or heavy items.

This is a new option that lets you choose from types of shipping offered by the US Postal Service and uses their shipping calculator to determine the cost.

Unlike the other shipping options the USPS calculator overrides all your other shipping options, it can't be selected per item like the other 3 options. If the USPS calculator does not return a result for the shipping price within 3 seconds the order will default to the flat rate or shipping matrix will be used instead so you should still fill in one of the two.

Check out this thread on the eCrater Forums for more information.

Pros: Charges the exact shipping for a package.

Cons: Sometimes it times out and doesn't return a shipping cost and it only works with the USPS not other shipping services like UPS or FedEx. Doesn't include costs of shipping materials.

This eCrater tutorial lens is a creation of Noadi's Art

This Lens Constructed By A Bonafide Giant Squid! Look For The Giant Squid Badge of Honor- Your Assurance Of Quality On Squidoo

Click here to start building your own lenses on Squidoo!