Zest's Shipping Settings page gives partners full control over how products are shipped, when orders are fulfilled, and what information gifters and recipients see throughout the gifting experience.
Configuring these settings correctly ensures a smooth, on-brand experience for your customers while keeping your fulfillment operations running efficiently.
The Shipping tab is organized into three sections:
Shipping Profiles
Shipping Methods
Shipping Requirements, Restrictions, and Scheduling
Shipping Profiles
Shipping profiles let you group products under specific shipping rules, rates, and zones. Each profile can have separate rates for direct-ship orders and a flat rate for e-gift orders, giving you flexibility across your product catalog.
Assign shipping profiles to your various products from the Products page to ensure correct rates are applied.
Review how many products are using each profile to avoid orphaned or misconfigured products.
Set up direct-ship rates and an e-gift flat rate for each profile where applicable.
To create or manage a shipping profile:
Navigate to Settings > Shipping.
Review the list of existing profiles under Shipping Profiles.
Click View/Edit on a profile to view and edit its zones and rates.
To add a direct-ship rate, click Add rate under the Direct-ship rates section. To add an e-gift flat rate, click Add flat rate under the E-gift flat rate section.
Fill out the zone details in the modal and confirm. Changes are saved immediately.
To create a new profile, click Add profile, enter a name, and you'll be taken to the profile detail page to configure rates.
Shipping Methods
Shipping methods define the carrier options available to your customers and are used when configuring shipping zones within a profile.
Navigate to Settings > Shipping.
Scroll to the Shipping Methods section.
Click Add to create a new shipping method. You will need to provide:
Name — a display label for the method.
Value — the identifier that will be pushed to your ecommerce system. Depending on your system, this may be the same as the name or a different identifier.
Note: The shipping method value you enter in Zest must exactly match what your fulfillment system expects, including capitalization.
Shipping Requirements, Restrictions, and Scheduling
PO Box Settings
Control whether gifters and recipients can ship to PO boxes. This setting can be bypassed on a case-by-case basis via Concierge.
Navigate to Settings > Shipping.
Scroll to the Shipping Requirements, Restrictions, and Scheduling card.
Under Shipping to PO boxes, select one of the following:
Block shipping to PO boxes — Gifters and recipients will be blocked from shipping to PO boxes.
Allow shipping to PO boxes — Gifters and recipients will be able to ship to PO boxes.
Custom Shipping Information
Add help text for your gifters about shipping in the "Send your gift notification" section. You can add up to three lines of help text, and reorder them by dragging.
For example:
You are selecting the ship date and not arrival date. Orders arrive in 1–2 days.
Orders will be shipped via UPS or FedEx from NYC and may be delivered up until 9PM.
We are unable to ship to PO Boxes or International Addresses.
Direct Ship Date Help Text
Use the Direct ship date help text field to display a message in the date picker when customers select a date for a direct-ship order — for example, "As a reminder, this is the date your gifts will ship." (75 character limit.)
Order Scheduling
Configure how Zest handles customer-selected shipping or delivery dates relative to when orders are submitted to your ecommerce system.
Select one of the following options:
Hold orders in Zest — Orders stay in Zest and are released to your ecommerce system a set number of days before the customer's selected date, controlled by the Lead time required (days) setting.
Collect a shipping date and submit orders immediately — Customers select a shipping date. The order is submitted immediately to your ecommerce system with the ship date attached.
Collect a delivery date and submit orders immediately — Customers select a delivery date. The order is submitted immediately to your ecommerce system with the delivery date attached.
Calendar Rules
Valid days of the week — Configure which days of the week customers can select.
Blocked dates — Select specific dates that customers will not be allowed to choose.
Lead time required (days) — Control how many days ahead of the scheduled date the order is submitted for fulfillment (when using "Hold orders in Zest"), or how many days ahead orders need to be placed (for the other scheduling modes).
Maximum order delay (weeks) — Control how far in advance orders can be scheduled.
Infer Date on ASAP Orders
Note: This setting only appears when order scheduling is set to "Collect a shipping date" or "Collect a delivery date" — it does not apply when using "Hold orders in Zest."
When a customer chooses ASAP shipping, the behavior depends on this setting:
Attach a date to orders where a date is not selected — The system automatically assigns the earliest available date based on your calendar rules (lead time, valid days, blocked dates) and includes it in the order submitted to your ecommerce system.
Do not attach a date to orders where a date is not selected — No date is pushed to your ecommerce system, which can cause issues with downstream fulfillment flows that depend on a date field.
Enable the "Attach a date" option if your fulfillment system requires a date on every order.
Shipping Timeframe
Let your customers know when they can expect their gifts to ship. This message appears in the gifting experience as: "Gifts will ship [your text] after recipients enter their shipping addresses."
Enter a number of days as a range — for example, 2–3 days.