Adding Northern Ireland to Address option

Can anyone let me know what the problems with adding Northern Ireland to the Shipping address would be? Has anyone done so?

Hi
I'm not quite sure what you are concerned about, perhaps you could tell us more. Are you within the UK? If so then adding N.I. should/could be a case of adding a new zone to the UK country.
If you are using Royal Mail 1st, 2nd, etc. then the cost is the same anywhere within the UK.
If you are using a courier then it goes up when shipping from one zone to another - but you have to sort this problem anyway when shipping to the Highland and Islands - its not really that different.
So I guess it all depends really on your specific situation as to what the issues might be for you.
Thanks
Rob

Hi Rob,

Thanks fro getting back to me. Yes I am in the UK. I am juust checking the shipping costs via all methods will be the same as UK. In which case your uidea seems to be simplest way. Thanks.

Is there any reason why it is not added to the OC system as standard?

Paul

I should imagine places in n. ireland are already included, and n.ireland is treated as part of the united kingdom, not a seperate country.

Which in royal mail terms is correct i think.

Plus as the previous post said, royal mail charges are the same anywhere under united kingdom so it doesnt incur any issues with costs.

It is actually in there I think, just not as Northern Ireland, same way as Scotland and Wales and England aren't in. The counties of each part of the UK are listed instead.
It doesn't really help with shipping though as most couriers charge based on post-code, not county. The whole setup doesn't quite 'fit'. I don't really have the perfect solution for you. I think that Qphoria produces a shipping module that will match on postcode, but I haven't tried it as yet. There are some really odd UK postcodes that don't follow a set rule.
I'd be interested to hear what you decide to do in the end. I've never worked out the best thing to do -I know what works for me. It's easier to ship within the EU than it is to ship within the UK by courier! Standard Parcels, by Royal Mail can get you out of a lot of problems!

Rob

have you tried setting up NI as a country and adding in the counties, depends if you are offering flat rate to NI or using Royal mail codes and rates.