Shipping: Advanced Settings
Configure advanced shipping settings to ensure customers complete their selections and maintain fresh session data. Set up validation rules, selection expiry, and inventory mapping for shipping orders.
Table of Contents
- What Advanced Shipping Settings Do
- Prerequisites
- Cart and Checkout Validation
- Inventory Mapping
- Common Questions
- Troubleshooting
- Quick Reference
What Advanced Shipping Settings Do
Advanced shipping settings are global configuration options that control how the shipping calendar validates and manages customer selections.
What this feature does:
- Ensures customers select a shipping date/time before checkout
- Expires old selections to maintain accuracy with cut-off times and preparation times
- Applies validation rules across the shopping session
- Maps Bird locations to Shopify inventory sources for accurate stock checking
What this feature does NOT do:
- Does not control shipping rates or pricing
- Does not manage or update inventory levels (managed in Shopify)
- Does not configure shipping availability schedules
Cart and Checkout Validation
Validate Selections
What it does:
- Makes date and time selection mandatory before the customer can proceed to checkout.
- Prevents checkout without a shipping date/time selection.
- Applies to all fulfillment methods (Shipping, Delivery, Pickup).
When to use:
- When you require customers to always select a shipping date
- When shipping date selection is essential for your fulfillment process
- To prevent orders without shipping slot information
Configuration:
- Go to Bird Settings > Validations
- Toggle Validate Selections to ON
- Click Save
Result: Customers must select a shipping date/time (if calendar is enabled) before proceeding to checkout. The checkout button will be disabled until a valid selection is made.
Enable Selections Expiry
What it does:
- Invalidates customer selections after a set period (1-24 hours).
- Forces customers to reselect shipping date/time after expiry period.
- Useful for ensuring that time-sensitive rules (like cut-off times) are correctly applied if a customer leaves a cart for several hours.
When to use:
- When you have cut-off times that could be missed if carts sit idle
- When preparation time rules need to stay current
- To prevent stale selections that no longer meet availability criteria
Configuration:
- Go to Bird Settings > Validations
- Check Enable selections expiry
- Choose the expiry window (1-24 hours)
- Click Save
How it works:
- Customer selects shipping date at 10:00 AM Monday
- Expiry is set to 4 hours
- If customer returns at 3:00 PM Monday (after 5 hours), their selection is cleared
- Customer must reselect shipping date based on current availability
Note: The expiry timer starts from when the selection was made, not from when the cart was created.
Inventory Mapping
What it does:
- Maps each Bird location to a specific Shopify inventory source (location/warehouse).
- Allows for multi-warehouse setups where different Bird locations source stock from different physical places.
- Ensures accurate inventory checking for shipping availability.
Configuration:
- Go to Bird Settings > Inventory
- Scroll to Inventory Mapping section
- For each "Bird Location" listed, use the dropdown to select the corresponding "Shopify Location"
- The system will use this mapping to check stock levels for that specific location
How It Works:
- Single Warehouse: Map all Bird locations to your main Shopify location.
- Multi-Warehouse: Map each Bird location to its specific warehouse or store in Shopify.
- Mixed: You can have some locations mapped and others using default behavior, but full mapping is recommended for accuracy.
Technical Flow:
When a customer adds items to the cart and selects shipping, the system checks the mapped Shopify location for that Bird location. It verifies that all items in the cart are available at that specific warehouse before allowing the order to proceed for that shipping location.
Common Questions
Do these settings apply only to shipping?
No. Both "Validate Selections" and "Enable selections expiry" are global settings that apply to all fulfillment methods (Shipping, Delivery, and Pickup).
When you enable these settings:
- Shipping orders require date/time selection
- Delivery orders require date/time selection
- Pickup orders require date/time selection
Why should I enable selection validation?
Enable validation if:
- You need shipping date information for every order
- You want to prevent customers from checking out without selecting a date
- Your fulfillment process depends on knowing the shipping date upfront
Don't enable validation if:
- You use "No Date & Time" calendar mode (validation conflicts with this)
- You want to allow customers to checkout without selecting a specific shipping date
- Your shipping is flexible and doesn't require advance scheduling
Troubleshooting
Issue: Customers can't proceed to checkout even with a valid date
Possible causes:
- Selection has expired
- Solution: Increase expiry window or disable expiry if not needed
- Check: Look at when the selection was made vs current time
- Calendar mode is "No Date & Time"
- Solution: Disable "Validate Selections" if using "No Date & Time" mode
- These settings are incompatible
- Widget not properly initialized
- Solution: Check that widget is properly installed in theme
- Verify widget appears on cart page
Quick Reference
Settings Location: Bird Settings > Validations
Validate Selections:
- Makes date/time selection required before checkout
- Applies to all fulfillment methods
- Prevents checkout without selection
Enable Selections Expiry:
- Clears selections after specified time (1-24 hours)
- Applies to all fulfillment methods
- Ensures selections stay current with cut-off times
Inventory Mapping:
- Maps Bird locations to Shopify inventory sources
- Ensures accurate stock checking for multi-warehouse setups
- Configuration: Bird Settings > Inventory > (Inventory Mapping)
Note: Validation, expiry and inventory settings are global and affect Shipping, Delivery, and Pickup fulfillment methods.
Updated on: 01/18/2026
Thank you!