Introducing International Shipping

Posted by Alexander Newman, Checkout Team Technical Writer

Are you a Checkout merchant who's been itching to ship internationally? Well, now you can, with some recent enhancements to our shipping and tax APIs that I'm delighted to be telling you about.

Wherever you are using <excluded-areas> or <allowed-areas> to define shipping restrictions or address filters, or you're using the <tax-area> tag to set tax rules, you can now add the <postal-area> tag to refer to international addresses. Here's an XML snippet that adds <country-code> and <postal-code-pattern> elements to the <postal-area> to define the island of Lesvos, Greece:

<postal-area>
    <country-code>GR</country-code>
    <postal-code-pattern>81*<postal-code-pattern>
<postal-area>

Excellent! Now, if you all wouldn't mind using the right two-letter ISO 3166 country code, a handy wildcard, and implementing that rule before July 19, I can send my cousin a birthday present. Hop to it, please! If you must, you can leave the <postal-code-pattern> out altogether and provide a shipping rule for the whole of Greece.

Don't miss the March 22 release notes for the Checkout API Developer's Guide, where the other new tag for international shipping, <world-area> is described, along with other new features.

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