Rate

Introduction

Rates and rating play a key part in the shipping process. In order to ship out your shipments, you need a rate. We make a distinction between two terms here:

• Rating (or rate as in: to rate an order)
• Rates

Rating

Rating is the process of getting rates for orders and shipments. Every shipment has it's specific properties and the rating process is affected by this. It affects pricing, the delivery date, pickup date and optional extra services (required signature, insurance etc.). Rating an entire order (with it's underlying shipments) also has an affect on the rating process. This is because we can treat the shipments as multi colli.

Based on the rating, a decision needs to be made which rating to use for the shipment. This can be different for each situation.

Rates

So when rating a shipment, it results in a list of rates. Rates are all the different carrier products Wuunder offers that are applicable for your shipment that can be used to book. Rates have a carrier, a product, a price and an estimated pickup and delivery date. Depending on the contract you have with Wuunder the type of shipment, the rates that are available for a shipment, can change depending on the situation.

As noted before in the terminology section, a rate consists of:

• Carrier: The company that will ship the package. Think of DPD, PostNL, DHL etc.

• Product: The product/service the carrier offers to ship out the package. Some examples: PostNL Brievenbuspakket, DHL Express etc.

• Price: The price to ship out the package.

• Estimate pickup window: The date when the package will be picked up and the sender address.

• Estimate delivery window: The data when the package will be delivered to the receiver address.

• Expiration date: The date and time when the offer of a rate expires. Typically this is between 5 and 10 minutes. After that time, the rate no long valid and the shipment needs to be rated again.

• Tags: These are short labels that we applied to a rate in order to choose what rates are a best fit for the situation. See tags to learn more.

Rate example

An example of a rate, returned by our API:

• carrier code: POST_NL
• carrier product code: POST_NL_BRIEVENBUSPAKKET
• price: 2.10
• pickup_info:
  • date: 2024-10-01
  • time_window: 07:00 - 17:00
  • type: regular_pickup
• delivery_info:
  • date: 2024-10-02
  • time_window: 07:00 - 17:00
  • type: address
• expires_at: 2024-09-30 09:00:00,
• tags: cheapest

Properties of a shipment

Properties of your shipments, determine what rates are applicable for that shipment. The following properties of a shipment, can affect the outcome of a rate:

• receiver address
• type of receiver (business, consumer or parcelshop)
• sender address
• type of sender (business or consumer)
• package dimensions (width, height and length)
• package weight
• type of shipment (document, package, pallet etc.)

Two kind of rates

When retrieving rates, they are categorized into two categories:

Matched

Rates that match all the characteristics of the shipment and can be used to book the shipment.

Unqualified

Rates that cannot be used to book the shipment. A rate can be marked as unqualified by the system by one of the two factors:

1. The product of the carrier does not match the shipment characteristics. Think of volume, origin, destination etc.
2. The product rate of the carrier could not be retrieved due technical reasons. Some rates are retrieved externally via an API of a carrier. In that case, the carrier API responded back with a technical error.

Things to keep in mind:

1. As mentioned before: available rates are dependent on variables in your shipment. Think of width, length, height, type, destination etc.

2. Rates that are retrieved via the API, have a limited offer validity time. This time is around 10 min. Rates whose offer validity time expired, cannot be used for the booking process.

3. If a rate is requested and the characteristics of a shipment change in the meantime, the rate becomes invalid.

   Imagine the following situation:

   • You retrieve the rates for shipment.
   • In the meantime you update the characteristics of this shipment.
   • You book the shipment with the rate you received earlier.
   • Since the rate was calculated over an older version of the shipment, the rate becomes invalid. The rate cannot be used anymore for this shipment. You have to do a new rating request.