In this tutorial, we loo at how to add tax rates in Magento 2, how to configure and manage payment methods, how to configure shipping methods, how to create promotions and how to manage customers in Magento 2.
Further reading:
How to manage content in Magento 2
Magento2 extentions, themes and advanced tutorials
Magento2 products and cateories management tutorial
Magento 2 overview, installation and configuration tutorial
Magento 2 maintenance and advanced tutorials
How to Add Tax Rates in Magento 2
In Magento 2 you will be able to create and set different Tax Rates for certain locations and/or product types.
To manage your Magento 2 Tax Rates, you need to know how to:
- Step 1: Add a Tax Rate
- Step 2: Add a Tax Rule
Add a Tax Rate
To create a new Tax Rate, login to your website's admin area and navigate to the Stores ? Tax Zones and Rates section from the main admin panel.
Click on the Add New Tax Rate button.
Now you will be able to configure the tax rate:
- Tax Identifier - The name of the tax used for internal identification
- Zip/Post is Range - If selected you will be able to set up a Range of Post codes in the two fields below this one
- State - The State on which you wish to impose the Tax Rate (If your country does not have States, this option will be grayed out)
- Country - The Country on which you wish to impose the Tax Rate
- Rate Percent - The Tax Rate percentage the customer will need to pay
When you are done, click on the Save Rate button to save the Tax Rate.
Further reading:
How to manage content in Magento 2
Magento2 extentions, themes and advanced tutorials
Magento2 products and cateories management tutorial
Add a Tax Rule
Once you have configured a Tax Rate you will want to implement it in a Tax Rule. To accomplish that, you will need to navigate to Stores ? Tax Rules from your admin dashboard.
In the Tax Rule Information part of the configuration, you will need to put a Name for the Tax Rule and select the Tax Rate for it.
If you expand the Additional Settings you will see a few more options to configure:
- Customer Tax Class - Customer Tax Classes are used in certain cases when the purchase is not retail (wholesale for example)
- Product Tax Class - Different types of products have different Tax Classes (food and electronics for example). To better manage your products, you can create a new Tax Class here that corresponds to the product's type
- Priority - The priority of this class when calculating from multiple tax rules (If two classes have the same priority they will be added during tax calculation)
- Sort Order - Modifying this will change the display order of the tax if more than one tax can be selected (lower is higher with 0 being displayed on top)
For additional settings regarding the Taxes calculation of your Magento 2 Store you will need to visit the Stores ? Configuration section of your admin dashboard and then access Sales ? Tax.
Further reading:
How to manage content in Magento 2
Magento2 extentions, themes and advanced tutorials
Magento2 products and cateories management tutorial
How to Configure Payment Methods in Magento 2
In this tutorial, we will show you how to configure a payment method for your Magento 2 Store from within the back-end of your website.
Please refer to the Stores ? Configuration section of your admin area.
Now access the Sales ? Payment Methods menu. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will use the PayPal Express Checkout method, so you will need to find it and click on its Configure button.
Open the Express Checkout options and click on the Get Credentials from PayPal button.
This will open a new window of your browser to PayPal's login page. Once logged in, Magento 2 will copy the required information from your account to the Magento 2 configuration without you having to look for the API Keys yourself.
From the Basic Settings you can configure:
- Title - The title of the payment method
- Sort Order - Modifying this will change the display order of the payment method if more than one are available (lower is higher with 0 being displayed on top)
- Payment Action - Here you can choose between Authorization and Sale. If you choose Authorization, you will have to authorize the payments before they can be processed. With the Sale option, the customer will be charged immediately after they pay.
- Display on Product Details Page - Setting this to Yes will allow the payment method to be visible on the details page of every product (recommended)
Further reading:
How to manage content in Magento 2
Magento2 extentions, themes and advanced tutorials
Magento2 products and cateories management tutorial
In the Advanced Settings you will be able to configure:
- Display on Shopping Cart - Select Yes to display the method in the shopping cart (recommended)
- Payment Applicable From - If you want to allow only some Countries to use PayPal Express choose them here
- Debug Mode - Enable/Disable Debug mode during development
- Enable SSL verification - Enable/Disable SSL protection
- Transfer Cart Line Items - Enabling this will show all of the purchased item in the PayPal Transaction details during the payment process
- Transfer Shipping Options - Transfers the Shipping Options from your Magento 2 Store to the PayPal window during the payment process
- Shortcut Buttons Flavor - You can choose either dynamic or static shortcut buttons
- Enable PayPal Guest Checkout - Enable/Disable customers with no PayPal account to use this for purchase
- Requires Customer's Billing Address - If set to Yes the customer will have to fill his billing address (not recommended as it adds additional step to checkout process)
- Billing Agreement Signup - If enabled, once a customer makes a purchase, he can choose whether or not his next purchases to ask for his billing details or directly use the one he has used before (we recommend using the Ask customer instead of Auto, if you wish to have billing agreement as a selectable option)
- Skip Order Review Step - With this option the client will skip the Order Review step during checkout
You will also be able to set the front-end looks by adding a logo and choosing the style and colors for the PayPal Merchant Pages.
When you are ready to proceed, click on the Save Config button to save and apply the settings for PayPal Express Checkout.
Congratulations, you have now activated a new payment gateway for your customers to use. You can activate more payment gateways by following the same steps used in this tutorial.
Further reading:
How to manage content in Magento 2
Magento2 extentions, themes and advanced tutorials
Magento2 products and cateories management tutorial
How to Configure the Shipping Methods in Magento 2
Magento 2 comes with 7 shipping methods, ready to be enabled by you and used by your Store's customers.
Managing the Shipping Methods in Magento 2 will include to:
- Step 1: Configure the Shipping Settings
- Step 2: Enable a Shipping Method
- Step 3: Configure the UPS Shipping Method
Configure the Shipping Settings
The first thing you will need to do is to log in the back-end of your website and access the Stores>Configuration section.
Once in the Configuration section of your admin dashboard, please navigate to Sales>Shipping Settings and add your Store's information.
Click on the Save Config button and refresh the Configuration and Page Cache.
Enable a Shipping Method
Once in the Configuration menu of your website, navigate to the Sales>Shipping Methods section. As the Flat Rate shipping is enabled by default in Magento 2, we will use the Table Rates method for this tutorial. Click on the Table Rates shipping method to expand on its settings.
- Enabled - Select Yes to enable this shipping method
- Title - The name of the Shipping Method as viewed by your customers
- Method Name - The Name of the Shipping Method
- Condition - The condition on which the method works. Here you can choose between Weight vs. Destination, Price vs. Destination and # of items vs. Destination the Standard Condition for Table Rate shipping methods is Weight vs. Destination.
- Include Virtual Products in Price Calculation - This will add virtual products in the price calculation (not recommended)
- Calculate Handling Fee - The handling fee should reflect the resources you spend to keep and handle your inventory for the order. If you calculate that you spend 3 dollars on average on order for preparing the products for shipment, restocking etc, then the handling fee should reflect on those costs and be at least 3 dollars (high handling fees will lead to significant increase in abandoned carts, so make sure you don't try to make a profit off this fee)
- Displayed Error Message - If the customer is not eligible for this shipping method, he will see this message as an error
- Ship to Applicable Countries - To only use this method in certain Countries, select them from the list below this option
- Show Method if Not Applicable - We recommend you to keep this method hidden, if the method is not applicable to a customer
- Sort Order - This will change the display order of the shipping method if more than one can be selected (lower is higher with 0 being displayed at the top)
When, you are ready configuring, click on the Save Config button to apply the changes.
Further reading:
How to manage content in Magento 2
Magento2 extentions, themes and advanced tutorials
Magento2 products and cateories management tutorial
Configure the UPS Shipping Method
Of course, there is a number of Package Delivery Companies you might want to use for handling your shipping, the largest of which is United Parcel Service (UPS) and will be the center of this tutorial step. To configure the shipping method for it, click on the UPS label to expand the method and you will be presented with the following options:
- Enabled for Checkout - Select Yes to enable the UPS Shipping Method
- UPS Type - If you want to have the most precise Shipping rates available to your clients, select United Parcel Service XML (requires UPS account)
- Live account - Select Yes to confirm that the account is active
UPS XML extra settings:
- Access License Number - Your personal Access Key
- Password - Your UPS Account Password
- User ID - Your UPS User ID
- Mode - Choose between Live and Development
- Origin of the Shipment - Select the Location from which you are Shipping the orders (might not be store location, if you are using a storage else were)
- Enable Negotiated Rates - If you have negotiated Shipping Rates with UPS enable this option
- Gateway URL - This is the URL that will connect your Magento 2 Store with the UPS shipping calculator and service
- Title - The title for the shipping method
- Packages Request Type - If you send UPS the weight measures for each product of an order separately, select the User Origin Weight option.
- Container - The packaging that will contain the customer's order (use customer packaging unless you are absolutely sure what container to use from the options provided)
- Weight Unit - Select the Weight Unit which your store uses (LBS or KGS)
- Destination Type - Residential or Commercial, depending on whether you are supplying average customers or whole businesses.
- Maximum Package Weight - The maximum Weight an order can have that will be sent using this method (150 LBS is the limit)
- Pickup Method - If you have setup an agreement with UPS to come and pick packages daily select it here from the drop-down menu. If you want to drop the packages in the nearest UPS office choose Customer Counter.
- Minimum Package Weight - The minimum shipping weight for a package
- Calculate Handling Fee - Choose either a flat fixed fee or a percentage fee
- Handling Applied - You can choose the handling fee to be applied per order or per package (we recommend per order)
- Allowed Methods - Select the Shipping Methods you wish to have available
- Free Method - Here you can select a Method and make it Free of Charge. Some companies offer slower shipping that is free (7-14 days)
- Free Shipping Amount Threshold - If you want to enable free shipping after a certain amount of money spend on an order, enable this and specify the amount
- Displayed Error Message - If the customer is not eligible for this shipping method, he will see this message as an error
- Ship to Applicable Countries - To only use this method in certain Countries, select them from the list below this option
- Show Method if Not Applicable - We recommend you to keep this method hidden, if the method is not applicable to a customer
- Debug - If you wish to Debug this method, select Yes.
- Sort Order - This will change the display order of the shipping method if more than one can be selected (lower is higher with 0 being displayed at the top)
Hit the Save Config button located at the top right corner of the page, when you have finished configuring the shipping method.
Congratulations, your customers can now take advantage of the shipping method best suited for their specific order and location.
Further reading:
How to manage content in Magento 2
Magento2 extentions, themes and advanced tutorials
Magento2 products and cateories management tutorial
How to Create Promotions in Magento 2
In Magento 2, there are two types of price rules which you can use to create a promotion. The first type is called Catalog Price Rules and with it you can discount products, before they are added to the customer's cart. The second type is Cart Price Rules and it is applied in the cart of the customer. In this tutorial we will showcase the creation of a Cart Price Rules. However, most of the configuration settings also apply for the Catalog Price Rules.
To create a new Cart Price Rule you will need to login to the admin area of your website and navigate to Marketing ? Cart Price Rules.
Click on the Add New Rule button to continue.
Now you will be able to configure the new rule.
Rule Information:
- Rule Name -The name of the rule (for internal purpose)
- Description -Short description of the rule (for internal purpose)
- Status -Set the Rule as Active/Inactive
- Websites -Select the Store to which you want to apply the rule
- Customer Groups - Select the customer groups that will be eligible for this promotion
- Coupon - If you wish your customers to use a coupon for the promotion, set this to Specific Coupon. If you set this to No Coupon, then the rule will be applied if the conditions are met
- Uses per Coupon - Here you can specify how many times a coupon can be used. If you are using auto generated coupons you can set this to one, but if you are using a pre-defined coupon, you might want to leave this field blank or set up a high amount corresponding to the expected order count
- Uses per Customer - If you wish to restrict customers from getting a discount multiple times, set this to 1
- From Date/To Date - The time period during which the promotion will be Active
- Priority - If you have other Rules, for the same time period, set the priority of this one here (lower number=higher priority with 0 being the highest)
- Public In RSS Feed - If you wish to post the rule on your RSS Feed, select Yes.
Let us move on to the second tab on the left named Conditions. Here you can add conditions and sub-conditions for the rule. You will also be able to change the wording of a condition as the ALL option can be changed to ANY and TRUE can be switched with FALSE.
To add a new condition, just click on the "+" button and select one from the drop-down menu.
Actions:
- Apply - Select the discount method
- Discount amount - Set the discount amount
- Minimum Qty Discount is Applied To - Select the quantity of products after which the discount will be applied
- Discount Qty Step (By X) - If you have selected the Buy X get Y free type of promotion, here you can specify the quantity of a product a customer must buy in order to get Y free (Y = discount amount, so if you wish to run a buy 2 get 1 free promotion, you must type 2 in this field and 1 in the discount amount). You can also use this with the Percent of product price discount type
- Apply To Shipping Amount - If you wish to apply the discount rule to the shipping cost, select b
- Stop Further Rule Processing - If you don't want to apply other rules after this one, set this to Yes
- Free Shipping - If you choose the For matching items only option, no shipping cost will be added for the products in the cart to which the rule applies.
Labels
The Labels tab allows you to set labels for your discount.
- Default Rule Label for All Store Views -The label for your discount
- Store View Specific Labels -Choose what labels to have on the different store views of your Magento 2 website (only applicable if you have muti-store view configured)
Make sure you click the Save button when you are done configuring the Cart Price Rule
Congratulations, you will now be able to use what you have learned in this tutorial and create awesome promotions for your clients.
Further reading:
How to manage content in Magento 2
Magento2 extentions, themes and advanced tutorials
Magento2 products and cateories management tutorial
How to Manage Customers in Magento 2
Separating your customers in different groups according to their needs, can be advantageous and increase the overall satisfaction from the user experience. In this tutorial, we will show you how to create a new customer and customer group from inside the admin area of your website.
To manage your customers in Magento 2, you need to learn to:
- Step 1: Add a New Customer
- Step 2: Add a New Customer Group
Add a New Customer
To manually add a new customer to your Magento 2 Store, you will need to refer to your admin area and navigate to Customers ? All Customers.
Here you will see all of the customers on your website and you will need to click on the Add New Customer button located at the top right corner of the page.
Now you have to populate the customer details in the appropriate fields in the Account Information tab.
You can add a billing and shipping address for the customer in the Addresses tab.
Add a New Customer Group
Unlike the previous Magento versions, the Customer Group section is inconveniently separated from the Customers menu and located in the Stores menu.
When you access the Customer Groups section, you will be able to see all currently existing customer groups, their tax classes and IDs. To create a new group, click on the Add New Customer Group button.
You will have to Name the group and select a Tax Class for it. Once you have done that, hit the Save Customer Group button to create this group.
As we made a customer group called Super Customers, we will now be able to move there the customers who spend the most amount of money on our store. They will benefit from the lowered Tax from the special Tax Class we have added for them which will certainly make them purchase even more goods from our Store.
