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# 🛟 Setting a Fallback Delivery Zone

What happens when a customer’s zip code doesn’t match *any* of your delivery zones? Without a fallback, they may see no delivery option at all — and that often means an abandoned checkout. 😬

A **fallback zone** catches those orders. It acts as your safety net: if no other zone matches, the fallback zone’s rates are offered instead.

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# **📋 Before You Begin**

* ✅ You’ve created at least one delivery zone — see **How to Setup Delivery Rates and Zones?**  
* ✅ You know what “default” rate you want to offer unmatched customers

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# **⚙️ Step 1 — Mark a Zone as Fallback**

→ Go to **Rates** → **Edit** the zone you want to use as the safety net (or create a new one with **Add delivery zone**).

In the zone form, tick:

✅ **Mark this zone as fallback when zip codes in other zones don't match**

→ Click **Add Zone** / **Update Zone**, then **Save** in the save bar.

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# **👀 Step 2 — Confirm the Fallback Badge**

Back on the **Delivery Rates** page, your zone now shows a **• Fallback zone** label under its name in the zone list.

That’s your confirmation the safety net is active ✔️

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# **🔍 How Fallback Works at Checkout**

Understanding the order of evaluation helps you predict what customers see:

1. The app checks the customer’s zip code (or country) against all **non-fallback** zones first.  
2. If a zone matches and one of its rate rules applies, those rates are shown — fallback zones are skipped entirely.  
3. Only when **no other zone produced a rate** are fallback zones evaluated, using their own rate rules (price, weight, product, time, days, or multi condition).

⚠️ A fallback zone is always evaluated **last** — it never overrides a zone that matched the customer directly.

💡 Give your fallback zone broad rate rules (for example, a price rule from `0` to a very high maximum) so nearly every unmatched customer still gets a delivery option.

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# **💡 Tips**

* 💡 Use a fallback zone to cover “the rest of the country” while your regular zones handle specific zip codes.  
* ℹ️ Excluded zip codes from other zones also end up here — see **How to Exclude Specific Zip Codes from a Zone**.  
* ℹ️ If several rates match at checkout, the **Multiple Rates at Checkout** setting decides what’s shown — see **How to Setup Delivery Rates and Zones?**.

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# **🎉 Final Result**

Once saved:

✅ Customers outside all your zones still see a delivery rate  
✅ Fallback rates only appear when nothing else matched  
✅ The **• Fallback zone** badge makes the safety net easy to spot in your zone list

No more dead ends at checkout 🚀