Introduction

In X-Cart, Zones are used to apply tax and shipping rates to customers' orders. Each Zone represents a collection of information for a specific geographical territory, defined by country, state(s), and zip/postal code(s).

X-Cart comes with a built-in list of 249 countries, where eleven of them contain states as well (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States). All the information is based on the ISO 3166-2 standard.

As an admin, it is your privilege to customize the countries, states, and zones in your X-Cart Online Store. This includes enabling/disabling countries, editing, deleting, and creating states and zones.

Understanding how X-Cart determines the customer's Address Zone

Considering the fact that all tax and shipping rates are based on the customer's address, the last-mentioned should be determined in a particular manner. In X-Cart, this is done simply enough to understand.

As soon as the customer address is presented, X-Cart consecutively goes through it (Country > State > Zip/Postal Code) to match it to the respectful Zone. The process is done as follows:

1. Country - The process starts by matching the address country to a Zone. If the matching Zone's state list is empty (i.e., applicable to all of the states in the country), the address is identified as belonging to the Zone. It the list is not empty, the process continues.
2. State - If the Zone's state list is not empty (including specific states of the country) and the address state is found in the matching Zone, the process continues. If the address state is NOT found in the matching Zone, X-Cart is going to start looking for another matching Zone.
3. Zip/Postal Code - When the state matches a Zone, its Zip/Postal Code list is checked. Similarly to the previous example, the Zip/Postal code list could be empty (i.e., applicable to all Zip/Postal Codes of the state) or containing particular Zip/Postal Codes. If the list is NOT empty, the process is going to continue until the code is matched, or if it does not, a new check for a matching zone is going to be initiated.
4. All Addresses (Default) Zone - This is a default, built-in Zone used when none of the address parameters (Country, State, or Zip/Postal Code) match a single zone. All customer addresses that do not match any of the zones are going to be automatically assigned to it.

Note that each Zone has a "weight" determining its dominance. If the customer's address matches multiple Zones, it is considered as corresponding to the Zone with the highest weight.

Accessing the Countries, States, and Zones

Now, straight to the point of our tutorial. To begin, please log in to your X-Cart Admin Area and navigate through the left-hand side menu bar to Store setup > Countries, states, and zones.

In this section, you are going to configure and manage the Counties, States, and Zones in your X-Cart store. As you can see, it consists of three separate tabs, each dedicated to the specific component.

Managing Countries

Let's start with Counties, as this is the tab opened by default when you access the page.

Under it, you can see a full list of all countries configured in X-Cart. By clicking on the Power icon in front of each country, you can enable (green) or disable (grey) it.

Ticking the checkboxes in front of the countries allows you to change their statuses in bulk.

You can also directly assign state(s) to a particular country by clicking on the corresponding "Add states" button. Note that countries already designated with states are going to have an "Edit states (#)" button instead. We are going to explain both of the processes in detail in the following section of this tutorial.

Whenever you perform any sort of changes, please make sure to click on the "Save changes" button to apply them successfully.

Managing States

Now, please switch to the second "States" tab. At the top of the page, you are going to see a list of all countries that currently have states assigned. The black text-color (non-clickable) indicates that you are currently located under this particular country.

In the table below, you can see a list of states assigned to the country in question. Each row consists of a checkbox, the state name, the state code, and a trashcan (delete) button.

In case you need to edit a state, you have to click on its name. This action is going to allow you to modify the name and the state code.

If you want to delete several states in-bulk, you have to tick the corresponding checkboxes and hit the "Delete" button, which is going to appear at the bottom of the page.

Supposing you need to add a new state, we believe you know what to do - click on the "Add state" button. Consequently, a new row appears where you have to specify the state name and its code.

Whenever you perform changes, do not forget to click on the "Save changes" button to apply them successfully.

Managing Zones

Finally, the most complex concept - Zones. Under this tab, you can see a list of all currently configured Zones in your X-Cart Online Store. We already mentioned the built-in "All Addresses (default zone)" intended for address unmatching any other zone. This is the only Zone you cannot delete. Although, you can edit and customize it. How - you are going to learn in a bit.

You are allowed to have as many zones as you need. This depends on the complexity and necessities of your business. Each Zone could be as general as a whole continent or as specific as a single city area. We are going to give you a simple example of how Zones could be used.

Let's say our business operates in the state of Delaware, and we would like to offer free delivery to customers located in it. To achieve that, we can create a Zone only for Delaware and configure free shipping for it.

The process of adding a new custom Zone is relatively simple. First, please click on the "Create zone" button. An additional row is going to appear where you have to enter the name of the Zone and then click on the "Save changes" button.

When the Zone is created, please click on the corresponding pen (edit) icon.

Under the Zone overview page, first, you have to select the applicable country(ies). To do that, you have to click on the county from the left list and use the right-pointing arrow button to assign it to the Zone. In case you need to select multiple countries, you can do so by pressing the ctrl (PC) / cmd (Mac) key on your keyboard.

Next, you have to assign the applicable state(s) in the same manner. You can use the "Show states for selected countries only" to display only the state belonging to the country you have previously selected.

The "City masks" and "Zip/postal code masks" content-boxes are intended for specifying a city and zip/postal code ranges. The percent sign (%) serves as a wildcard, meaning you can define only the first few characters of the city name or Zip/postal code. For example, 197% for all zip codes starting with 197. You can also specify the range in the following format: 19711- 19980. In any case, please make sure to place each mask entry on a separate line.

If no values are specified, all addresses in the given state(s) are going to be considered as matching.

When ready, please click on the "Save changes" button, and your new Zone will be successfully created.

Congratulations on getting familiar with the whole Zone concept in X-Cart, which is not considered as easy to digest. These new skills are essential, simply because this is not a point you can skip in the development or management of an Online Store. We hope you have found the information valuable and our instructions clear and easy to follow. In case you have any questions on the topic, please do not hesitate to contact our Support Team.