What are conditional rules and how do they work?
Delm uses a powerful Rule Engine to calculate delivery dates. This system is designed to be both Flexible and Scalable.
- Flexible: You have granular control over every step of the delivery promise. You can change your Processing Time without affecting your Transit Time, or create a specific schedule just for international orders without breaking your domestic setup.
- Scalable: You can manage delivery times for thousands of products as easily as ten. Instead of editing products one by one, you create a single rule (e.g., based on a "Collection" or "Tag"), and it automatically applies to every matching item in your store.
You can create different rules for each step of the delivery process:
Rule Type | Best Used For |
|---|---|
Visibility | Hiding the delivery widget for specific products. |
Processing Time | Setting longer lead times for custom or made-to-order items. |
Processing Schedule | Defining different working days for specific warehouses. |
Shipping Schedule | Adjusting shipping days for specific carriers. |
Transit Time | Increasing transit estimates for international shipments. |
Transit Schedule | Customizing transit days for specific regions. |
Delivery Schedule | Limiting delivery days (e.g., no weekends) for certain products. |
Adding conditions to a rule
By default, rules apply to all products. However, you can add Conditions to control exactly when a rule applies. A rule will only be active if all its conditions are met.
Condition | Description |
|---|---|
Product | Specific products or variants. |
Collection | Specific collections. |
Tag | Products with specific tags. |
Vendor | Products from specific vendors. |
Product Title | Matches the product title using text patterns. |
Variant Title | Matches the variant title using text patterns. |
SKU | Matches the SKU using text patterns. |
Product Availability | Products that are in-stock vs. out-of-stock. |
Stock | Total inventory count across all locations. |
Inventory Location | Products stocked at specific warehouse locations. |
Shipping Country | The customer's shipping destination (see note below). |
Current Date | Compares the current date. |
Note on Shipping Country: By default, Delm uses the customer's IP address to detect their location. If you prefer to use the country selected in the store, you can change this in the Delm Core app embed settings.
How rules are picked by the system
When a customer views a product, Delm evaluates your rules from top to bottom to find the single best match.
- Context vs. Conditions: Delm takes the current context (the Product being viewed, the current Date, and the Shipping Country) and compares it against the conditions in your rules.
- First Match Wins: The system checks your rules in order. The first rule where the context matches the conditions is the one that gets used.
- Stop: Once a match is found, the system stops looking. All rules lower down the list are ignored.
About default rules (no conditions)
If you create a rule without any conditions, it is considered a Default Rule. Because it has no restrictions, it matches every product and context.
Important: Default rules should generally be sorted last.
If you place a Default Rule at the top of your list, it will match immediately, and the system will never check your specific rules below it.
The priority system
Use Priority Numbers to control the sort order of your rules.
High Priority (Low Numbers, e.g., 1): Assign low numbers to rules that act as Specific Exceptions (e.g., "If Product Tag is Pre-order"). These are sorted to the top of the list, meaning Delm checks them first to see if the product needs special treatment.
Low Priority (High Numbers, e.g., 100): Assign high numbers to your Default Rules (no conditions). These are sorted to the bottom. Because default rules match everything, they must be last to act as a safety net for items that didn't match the exceptions above.
Real-world example: custom vs. standard items
Imagine you sell t-shirts (standard) and personalized mugs (custom).
- Standard Items: Ship in 1 day.
- Custom Items: Need 5 days to print.
To set this up, you would create two Processing Time rules sorted in this specific order:
Priority | Conditions | Processing Time | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
1 (Top) | Tag is | 5 Days | System checks here first. If the product is a mug, it applies 5 days and stops. |
10 (Bottom) | (None) | 1 Day | If the product wasn't a mug, the system falls through to this rule and applies 1 day. |
If you reversed this order, the "Standard Items" rule (with no conditions) would catch the mugs first, and customers would be promised a 1-day shipping time incorrectly.
Preview and testing
You don't have to guess if your rules are working. Use the Preview tool to simulate real customer scenarios and verify exactly which rules are being applied.
- Go to the Preview section in Delm.
- Input a context: Select a specific Product variant, a Start date, and a Shipping country.
- The system runs the calculation and highlights exactly which rules were picked for visibility, processing, shipping, transit, and delivery.
- Look for the green thumbs up icon next to the active rules.
Updated on: 17/02/2026
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