Create your first shipment in the merchant panel

Purpose#

This tutorial walks you through creating your first parcel in the merchant panel: filling in the form, checking the price before saving, and what happens after Save parcel.

Who can use it#

Merchant accounts only. A merchant who belongs to a delivery company can create parcels too, but only through that company.

What you need#

• An active merchant plan for platform merchants (whenever the platform offers merchant plans). Without one the panel redirects you to the plans page. A plan may also cap parcels per subscription period; the message then starts "You have reached your plan limit:". A merchant who belongs to a delivery company needs that company's subscription to be active instead.
• At least one active pickup location. A merchant who signed up on their own gets one automatically, named after the store.
• Balance in your shipping wallet that covers the amount shown as "Deducted from your balance now" (the summary note tells you when a larger guarantee balance is required).
• The recipient's name, mobile number and address.

Steps#

1. Open the form

   Press New parcel in the merchant menu or on My parcels.

2. Fill in "Sending"

   Choose Where do we pick up the parcel? (pickup location) (its address and phone appear under it, with a Manage pickup locations link), then Delivery company. The list shows your own company ("— my company"), independent delivery companies open to merchants ("— delivery company") and enabled external carriers ("— shipping company"); if there is only one, it is selected for you. Some shipping companies add options: Shipping via my own account with this company (shown when you have linked your own account with that company) and Who pays the shipping fee? (Paid by me — deducted from my balance, Paid by recipient — paid on top of the COD amount, or Included in the COD amount — deducted from it, as the company supports).

3. Fill in "Recipient"

   Name, Mobile number and Governorate (default "Automatic from location"; needed when the company prices by governorate). For Address, type it or search for it, then click the map or drag the pin to the exact delivery spot.

4. Fill in "Parcel"

   Parcel currency (only currencies the company accepts), Amount collected from the recipient (empty or 0 = prepaid), Weight (kg) (default 1), Order / invoice number and Note for the courier. Under Additional options (optional): delivery type (required, preselected with the first option), category, goods price (documentation only), and packaging (shown only if active packaging options are defined).

5. Check the price, then save

   The Parcel summary card refreshes by itself a moment after you change the delivery company, pickup location, weight, governorate, collection amount, parcel currency, Who pays the shipping fee?, the own-account option, or the address or map point (below the form on narrow screens). Other fields, such as name, mobile number or note, do not refresh it. It shows Collection from recipient, Delivery fee and Deducted from your balance now, then the calculation details (method, governorate, distance, weight) and your shipping balance with a top-up link. With shipping companies the card adds rows such as COD commission, Held until delivery, The recipient pays the courier and Net to you after delivery, and a Platform share row appears only when you ship through your own account. Then press Save parcel.

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1. Choose the pickup place
2. Choose the delivery company
3. Enter the recipient's name and phone
4. Set the cash-on-delivery amount
5. Your invoice number, to recognise the parcel later

How the fee is calculated#

The fee is always calculated on the server; you never type it. For delivery companies the company sets the method: a fixed amount by the recipient's governorate, by weight, by distance, or by distance and weight, plus the company's base fee (and never below its minimum fee), with the weight rounded up to the next kilogram. Distance is the road distance when it can be looked up, otherwise an estimate from the straight line. Shipping companies quote their own price, which the summary card shows. The preview uses the same calculation as saving. The amount your balance must cover may include the full fee (independent delivery companies and shipping companies) or only the platform fee (your own company).

Expected result#

• A success message, "Parcel successfully added."; with an external shipping company: "Shipment created successfully! Shipping company tracking number: ...".
• You return to My parcels with a "Parcel added" bar showing the tracking number and the buttons Print shipping label, Customer tracking link and Another parcel.
• The tracking number consists of the tracking prefix configured for the company site you are signed in on (default "DS"), followed by today's date (yymmdd) and 6 random upper-case letters or digits. The status becomes "Received Warehouse", under the Being prepared tab.
• The parcel and its charge are saved together. With a shipping company the shipment is then sent to the carrier; if the carrier rejects it, the charge is refunded automatically, the new parcel is removed and you see the error.

Validation messages#

The browser first checks the required fields ("Parcel not saved, missing:"). Server validation errors appear under "The parcel was not saved because:"; the balance message, shipping-company errors and any unexpected error appear as pop-up notifications.

Common mistakes#

• Insufficient balance. Your input stays in the form. Top up your wallet and save again.
• Coverage message. A company that limits its coverage may reject the parcel: "“Company” doesn't deliver to (Recipient). Supported governorates: ..." (the end reads "(Sender)" when it is the pickup location that lies outside the company's coverage) or "We couldn't determine the ... governorate ... Choose the governorate explicitly." Pick the governorate or choose another company.
• Pricing by governorate. "The delivery company prices by governorate: we could not determine the recipient governorate ..." means you should choose the governorate manually. A company with no price for a governorate does not deliver there.
• Pricing by distance. The recipient point on the map is required ("The delivery company prices by distance: set the recipient location on the map."), and the pickup location needs a map location, set on the pickup locations page.
• The map does not appear. The map script loads from unpkg.com, and the map background, address search and automatic address fill rely on OpenStreetMap. If the browser cannot load the script from unpkg.com, the map does not work and the page script does not copy the typed address into the form, so the address is requested again on save. If only OpenStreetMap is unreachable, the typed address is still sent, but the map background, the address search and the automatic address fill after a map click do not work.

Limits and permissions#

• A company's merchant sees only that company, and the fee comes from the merchant's balance with the company when the account uses wallet mode.
• Maximum weight, accepted currencies and coverage are set by each company; the number of pickup locations depends on your plan.