Countries in Shipping, what are they based on

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1

Could anyone tell me what the Country list within shipping is based on? Is it an ISO list?

Regards

Mark

2

Hi Mark,

I believe it is. Is there something wrong with it ?

Regards,
Donogh

3

Hi Donogh

Not wrong exactly. We have different tax rules for Guernsey and Jersey and they are, depending on which ISO list is used, specified as different countries, which would make the setting up of our tax rules much easier.

As we have to set both as counties of the UK (which they are not) to ensure that VAT is not added it means that the county field on checkout is compulsory. Unfortunately counties within the UK are complicated, they were originally historic or ceremonial, some boundries were changed in the 1970s, and many were changed into administrative counties for local government in the 1990s.

Royal Mail previously maintained a list, however these have been abandoned by the Royal Mail since 1996,.some have recently been re-introduced or renamed. In Wales some are also in the welsh language so are difficult to find when customers are looking for the English spelling. Many people are reluctant to enter the “correct” county, preferring to use either a previous one for historical reasons.

In a nutshell, if the Channel islands of Guernsey and Jersey could be listed as a country, we would be able to have the tax set against the country and get rid of the confusion with regards to the counties for our UK customers.

4

I see, that is rather complicated.

Do you have the ISO country codes for them, please?

5

Mark,

I don’t know if this is endorsed by Nitrosell but we had the same problem way back when we set up the system. Our Nitrosell partner at the time simply advised us to rename one of the existing countries (that we know we will NEVER export to) to “Channel Islands” so we were able to set up their VAT status (exempt) accordingly.

It all works fine and not had any problems in 5 years. Customers seem able to find it in the country list and use it successfully (ie they don’t choose United Kingdom as their country).

Emma

1 Like
6

Hi Donogh

Using ISO 3166 they are listed as the following (two character, three character and the numeric code):

Jersey, JE, JEY, 832
Guernsey, GG, GGY, 831

Emma: Many thanks for the input, we also raised this a long time ago, but went down the county route. Hopefully if they can be added as countries it will resolve the issues. I looked for Channel Islands, but they are not listed in the ISO 3166.

Regards

Mark

7

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the info. I’ve added those countries (with the 2-letter codes) to early adopters’, beta, and alpha.

Let us know if you need any further assistance.

Regards,
Donogh

8

Hi Donogh

Many thanks for your help and speedy resolution.

Regards

Mark