TL;DR
When a customer reaches your checkout and sees a list of shipping options, almost everything they see is controlled by presentation settings. The carrier logo, the estimated delivery timeframe, any badges (like "Fastest" or "Eco-Friendly"), optional upgrades they can add, and available delivery time windows are all configured here.
Most of these settings have sensible defaults inherited from your carrier template, so you may not need to touch them at all. But when you want to differentiate your shipping options visually — to highlight a sale, call out sustainability, or offer customers meaningful choices — presentation settings are where that work happens.
Badges
What Badges Are
Badges are small colored labels that appear alongside a shipping option in checkout. They are designed to draw the customer's eye to something worth noticing about that option — a promotion, a speed advantage, an eco credential, or a warning.
A badge has three parts: a short text label, an optional description (shown on hover or expanded view, depending on your checkout provider), and a color.
Available Badge Colors
| Color | Common Use |
|---|---|
default | Neutral gray, for general notes |
discrete | Muted/subtle style, for secondary information |
green | Positive news (savings, free shipping, eco) |
red | Urgency or warning (last chance, cutoffs) |
blue | Informational (recommended, new) |
yellow | Caution (limited availability, conditions apply) |
Practical Examples
- A green badge labeled "Carbon Neutral" on your bike courier option
- A red badge labeled "Order by 2pm" to signal a same-day cutoff
- A blue badge labeled "Recommended" on your most popular delivery method
- A yellow badge labeled "Limited Availability" during a busy season
Tip: Keep badge text short — three to five words at most. Checkout UI space is limited and long labels get truncated or look cluttered. Use the description field for any additional explanation.
Options (Customer Add-Ons)
What Options Are
Options are upgrades or extras that a customer can select on top of a shipping method. They appear as checkboxes or toggles within the shipping option card in checkout. Common examples include:
- "Notify me by SMS when my parcel is out for delivery"
- "Deliver on Saturday"
- "Leave parcel with neighbor if I'm not home"
Each option has the following fields:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
id | Machine identifier for this option (e.g., sms_notification, saturday_delivery) |
description | Customer-facing text describing the option |
type | The option value type: bool (checkbox), string (text input), number (numeric input). Most options are bool. |
fee | Optional price surcharge when this option is selected |
currency | Currency for the fee (ISO 4217) |
color | Badge-style color for the option chip in checkout (same values as badge colors) |
required | When true, the option is always applied and cannot be deselected by the customer |
Tip: Only present a fee-bearing option as the default experience through
requiredif it genuinely applies to all customers. If it adds a fee, let the customer actively choose it.
Delivery Windows
What Delivery Windows Are
Delivery windows let customers choose a time slot for home delivery — for example, morning (8am–12pm), afternoon (12pm–5pm), or evening (5pm–9pm). Each window has a label and can carry an additional fee on top of the base shipping price.
This feature is most relevant for home delivery methods where the carrier offers time-slot booking. Not all carriers support it, and your carrier integration must be set up to pass the chosen window through to the carrier at the time of booking.
When to Use Them
Delivery windows are valuable when:
- Your carrier supports time-slot delivery in the customer's area
- Your customers frequently complain about missed deliveries
- You offer a premium same-day or next-day home delivery product
If your carrier does not support time slots, adding windows in Shipit will have no effect on the actual delivery — the selection will not be passed through meaningfully.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
date | A date descriptor telling the carrier when this window applies (e.g., today, tomorrow, a specific date) |
time_from | Start of the window in HH:MM 24-hour format (e.g., 08:00) |
time_to | End of the window in HH:MM 24-hour format (e.g., 12:00) |
fee | Optional surcharge for selecting this window (decimal) |
currency | Currency for the fee (ISO 4217) |
Note: The display label shown to customers is derived from
time_fromandtime_to. There is no separatelabelfield, and the cost field isfee(notextra_cost).
Carrier Add-Ons
Carrier add-ons are advanced extras passed directly to the carrier's API when a shipment is booked. These are distinct from customer-facing options — the customer may not see them at all. Examples include:
- Doorbell ring instructions
- Insurance above the standard coverage level
- Signature-required delivery
These settings are configured with your carrier integration team and are typically not something you set up yourself. If you need to enable a carrier-specific service that is not available through standard options, contact your Shipit account manager.
Estimated Delivery
Text Description vs. Day Range
You have two ways to communicate when an order will arrive:
| Field | What It Is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Estimated Delivery Text | Free-form sentence shown in checkout | "Ships in 2–4 business days" |
| Min / Max Days | Numeric range used for dynamic display | Min: 2, Max: 4 |
The text field is entirely freeform — write whatever is most accurate and helpful for your customers. The min and max day fields provide structured data that some checkout providers use to display a calculated estimated arrival date based on the order date.
Tip: If your checkout provider supports dynamic date calculation from the day range fields, use those instead of relying solely on the text field. A message that says "Arrives by Thursday, April 10" is more compelling than "Ships in 2–4 business days."
Icon and Choice Type
Carrier Icon
The icon is the carrier logo shown next to the shipping option name in checkout. In most cases, this is set automatically from your carrier template and you will not need to change it. If you are building a custom or white-labeled shipping option not tied to a specific carrier, you can supply a custom image URL here.
Choice Type
The choice type controls how the shipping option is rendered in the checkout UI — for example, as a radio button (one selection from a list) or a dropdown. This is generally determined by your checkout provider's capabilities and the template you are working from. Changing it manually is rarely necessary unless you are building a highly customized checkout layout.
Shipment Info and Metadata
Shipment Info
Shipment info is a freeform list of key-value pairs displayed to the customer as supplementary information on the shipping option. Examples include the estimated parcel weight class, dimensions, or any other display-only detail that helps the customer understand what they are selecting.
Metadata
Metadata is a set of arbitrary key-value pairs that are passed through to your checkout provider's context — not displayed to the customer. This is typically used by developers integrating Shipit with other systems and is not something most merchants need to configure manually.