In this article, you will learn:
One of the important aspects of running your Shopify store is order fulfillment. Order fulfillment is important as it ensures that your customers receive their orders promptly and as expected. Further, as an eCommerce seller, you would always want to reduce costs associated with inventory management and shipping.
Thus, to ensure that your orders are fulfilled efficiently, correctly, and on time, you must optimize both your inventory and shipping.
To understand how to optimize inventory, read our article on eCommerce inventory management practices. As for optimizing the shipping part, continue reading this article.
Shipping can be challenging to set up and manage as it requires you as an online merchant to have proper knowledge of shipping carriers and how you can work with fulfillment services. Besides this, shipping can turn out to be one of the major costs that you might have to bear per order and it can be challenging for you to determine how much of the cost you need to pass on to your customers.
Therefore before setting up shipping for your Shopify store, it’s important to understand how shipping works in Shopify, what are the different shipping carriers, the various shipping rates that you can offer to your customers, and how you can work with the fulfillment services.
Once you understand the dynamics associated with Shopify shipping, you can configure the shipping settings in your Shopify store like shipping zones, shipping rates, and shipping profiles.
In this article, we are going to walk you through the entire process of how to set up shipping in Shopify. Besides this, we are also going to discuss about what are the various shipping settings and how you can configure these settings.
Shipping Settings Shopify
Before setting up shipping in Shopify, there are a host of aspects about shipping that you need to know about. The following section discusses each of the aspects in detail and allows you to form your shipping strategy basis that.
I. Shipping Methods
The first aspect that you need to consider before setting up shipping in Shopify is the shipping method that you must use and how much you must charge for shipping. That’s because shipping products to customers costs money and deciding who pays for such a cost impacts your profits as a Shopify store owner and your customer’s likelihood to purchase from your store.
Your Shopify store incorporates default shipping rates depending on your store’s location. However, if you want to enhance the conversion rates, you must adjust the default shipping rates in your Shopify store so that they are appropriate for you as well as your customers.
There are three ways in which you can charge shipping rates to your customers:
- Flat Rate Shipping
- Free Shipping
- Carrier-Calculated Shipping
Let’s discuss each of the above methods.
A. Flat Rate Shipping
As the name suggests, the Flat Rate Shipping method is a method in which you as a Shopify store owner charge either a single flat shipping price for all products or set price-based or weight-based conditions that showcase a specific shipping cost at checkout.
In simple words, you charge specific shipping amounts to your customers based on the order they place on your Shopify store.
For instance, you can set up a flat shipping rate of $10 if you want to charge $10 for shipping each time your customers place orders on your Shopify store.
You must use the flat rate shipping strategy when you want to keep your shipping costs consistent and predictable and hence want to set clear expectations for your customers.
However, you must be aware that whenever you use this method, you always undergo the risk of charging too high or too low shipping costs. To avoid this, it is best that you take into account the average price of shipping a package.
Now there can be two types of flat shipping rates that you can charge on the products your customers purchase. These include General Rates, Price-Based Rates, and Weight-Based Rates.
a. General Rates
If you choose to set general shipping rates, then you must charge a flat rate shipping cost irrespective of what is in the cart of your customers.
For instance, you can set up two general flat rates, one as regular shipping costing $10 and the other as expedited shipping costing $20. These rates then get displayed as options during checkout for any customer order.
b. Price-Based Rates
The other way in which you can use flat rate shipping is to set up priced-based rates. If you choose to use this method to set up your shipping rates, you can set minimum and maximum cart values for your flat shipping rates.
Let’s say that you want to charge different shipping rates for orders below and above $100. If you choose to use priced-based rates, you can set a flat shipping rate of $10 for orders under $100 and a flat shipping rate of $20 for orders above $100.
c. Weight-Based Rates
Finally, you can also set weight-based rates under the flat rate shipping method. Just like the price-based rates, you can set minimum and maximum weights in place of the minimum and maximum cart values that qualify an order for your flat shipping rates.
Suppose, you want to charge different shipping rates for orders below and above 10 kg. If you go with the weight-based rates, you can set a flat shipping rate of $5 for orders under 10 kg and a flat shipping rate of $ for orders over 10 kg.
B. Free Shipping
The next is the Free Shipping method. If your Shopify store is new, you can always go for a Free Shipping strategy to attract new customers to your Shopify store.
However, free shipping does not mean that you do not charge any shipping costs to your customers. How can you pay the shipping costs to deliver products to your customers out of your pocket?
A free shipping strategy is one in which you include a part of your shipping fees in your products’ prices. This means shipping is never actually free for your customers. So how do you account for a portion of shipping costs in your product prices? Well, you must determine the average cost to ship your product and then add this cost to your product prices. Thus, when you showcase the products in your Shopify store, the MRP of those products would cover the shipping costs, though, during checkout, customers would see shipping costs as zero.
Note that the free shipping strategy enhances the cart conversion rates of your Shopify store. That’s because none of the customers like to pay for shipping and hence would most likely give preference to your store over the competition for making a purchase.
If free shipping is something that makes your product prices uncompetitive, then you can always combine free shipping with a flat-rate shipping strategy by offering free shipping on the cart value and increasing your total order value. For instance, for orders that are above USD 100 value, you can offer free shipping.
C. Carrier-Calculated Shipping
The final strategy to determine shipping costs is the Carrier-Calculated Shipping. This method allows you to charge the exact shipping costs on the products during checkout. That’s because the shipping costs are calculated after taking into account a host of factors including origin and destination country, product weight and size, and delivery time.
Typically, a shipping carrier takes into account the following to determine the shipping costs:
- Shipping origin
- Shipping destination
- Weight of the shipment
- Value of the shipment
- Dimensions of the shipment box
- Dimensional weight
- Requested speed of delivery
Note that the Carrier-Calculated shipping carriers or apps provide the shipping costs that you can then add to your Shopify store. How does this work? Well, the moment your customers reach the checkout page on your Shopify store, the customers’ cart information is sent to the shipping carrier or app. The carrier in return sends what you should charge for shipping.
Thus, if your Shopify store is new and has limited resources to bear the shipping costs, then you must go for carrier-calculated shipping as passing on shipping costs to your customers is a better strategy.
To calculate the exact shipping costs through carrier-calculated shipping methods, you can always use Shopify Shipping, provided you have your Shopify store in the United States, Canada, or Australia.
Shopify Shipping is a tool from Shopify that helps you connect your Shopify account with Shopify’s shipping carrier accounts. As a result, you get the shipping rates and shipping labels all within your Shopify account.
What this means is with Shopify Shipping, you can buy and print shipping labels directly from your Shopify admin, get discounted rates for your shipping labels, and display calculated shipping rates to your customers at checkout.
Get Package
II. Shipping Carriers
Shipping carriers are the service providers that deliver your customers’ orders. Note that most shipping carriers allow you to drop off your packages at their location while others let you schedule pickups from your location. Besides this, some carriers can pick up packages from any other warehouse or order fulfillment service that you use.
Now, to deliver your packages to your customers, these shipping carriers charge you a fee. Shopify partners with a variety of shipping carriers and has integrations with many of the major carriers.
The shipping carrier that is appropriate for you would depend upon the location of your business and whether your Shopify subscription plan has the carrier-calculated shipping feature.
The following table showcases the shipping carriers with whom Shopify has partnered.
| Location | Carrier-Calculated Shipping | Available Carriers And Rate Types |
| Canada | Activated |
|
| Deactivated |
|
|
| United States | Activated |
|
| Deactivated |
|
|
| Australia | Activated |
|
| Deactivated |
|
|
| Rest of the world | Activated |
|
| Deactivated | N/A |
III. Shipping Zones
A shipping zone in Shopify includes a group of countries or regions that have the same shipping rates. You can create Shipping Zones to target specific locations including countries, states, provinces, or even specific zip codes for shipping. Note that you can create shipping zones for any country or region in the world.
Now shipping zones are important in Shopify because Shopify calculates shipping rates at the checkout based on the shipping zones. Say, for instance, your business has a warehouse in France and you ship your products all over Europe at the same flat shipping rate. In such a case, you can create a shipping zone that includes all the European countries and charge the same shipping fee to all your European customers.
One thing to remember as a Shopify store owner is that your customers can purchase products from your store only when the country or region where they want the products to be shipped is included in one of your shipping zones. Further, such a country or region should also be a part of an active market. For instance, if the country or region where your customers want their orders to be shipped is an inactive market, then they cannot place orders on your Shopify store even if such a country or region is in a shipping zone with available shipping rates.
IV. Shipping Profiles
To calculate accurate shipping rates for your products, you must define shipping rules for the specific products or the locations where you want to ship orders.
Thus, a Shipping Profile is a set of shipping rules that you define for specific products or locations.
Based on the product type and the location where you want to ship your products, you can create custom shipping profiles that help you charge different shipping rates for specific products and locations. Accordingly, you can use these shipping profiles to calculate accurate shipping rates based on the specific products that you sell and the location where you deliver your products.
Depending upon product type and location, you can either use a default general shipping profile for all of your products or use custom shipping profiles for each of your products.
Also, you can include all the products having the same shipping rates in one Shipping Profile and then set up shipping zones and rates for each location that fulfills those products.
The following section explains in detail when to create a General or a Custom Shipping Profile.
a. General Shipping Profile
Note that your Shopify store already incorporates a general shipping profile by default. You may use the general shipping profile if you want to use the same shipping rates for all your products. This means you can add existing as well as new products to the general shipping profile that is already in place in your Shopify store.
b. Custom Shipping Profile
You can also create custom shipping profiles if you want to set different shipping rates for different products. The maximum number of custom shipping profiles that you can create in your Shopify store is 99 profiles.
To help you explain when can you create custom shipping profiles, let me give you an example. Say, for instance, you sell certain fragile items and hence demand more expensive shipping options. In such a scenario, you can create a shipping profile for the fragile items and charge different shipping rates on such items relative to the rest of the products that you sell on your Shopify store.
Now that we have an understanding of how shipping works and what are the different shipping settings you must consider before setting up your shipping in Shopify, let’s get to the steps to setting up shipping in Shopify.
V. Local Delivery
Note that as a Shopify store owner, you can also offer local delivery or local pickup options to your customers if your customers are located close to your business. This will not only help your customers speedily receive their orders but also add to their experience with you.
To offer local delivery or pick-up options to your customers, you can configure these in your Shopify store. While checking out, your customers can choose these options.
How To Set Up Shipping On Shopify?
In this section, we are going to discuss the steps involved in doing shipping settings in Shopify.
As mentioned before, you can set up free, flat, or calculated shipping rates that are displayed while the customer is on the checkout page of your Shopify store.
The following section describes the steps involved in how to set up shipping rates on Shopify including free, flat, and calculated shipping rates.
How To Set Up Flat Shipping Rates On Shopify?
As explained earlier, flat shipping rates are nothing but shipping rates that charge a specific amount for shipping the order at checkout.
Further, you can create flat shipping rates either for any order within a shipping zone or only for those orders whose weight or price is within a certain range.
You can also combine price-based shipping rates in your Shopify store. When you do that, Shopify combines rates that apply to the total price of the cart and showcases it to your customers while checkout. Likewise, you can also combine weight-based shipping rates in your Shopify store. When you do that, Shopify combines rates that apply to the weights of the individual products, with your store default package weight added to each product.
Say, for instance, you have a shipping rate by the name of ‘Discounted Shipping’ for $10 in two different profiles. This rate is offered on orders over $100. Suppose a customer places an order that contains a combination of products from both profiles and has a total of $110, then the checkout shows the Discounted shipping rate at $20.
Likewise, say you have a shipping rate called Discounted shipping in two different profiles that gives cheaper shipping on orders over 5 kg. If your customers want to get this rate, they need to order 5 kg of products from the first shipping profile and 5 kg of products from the second shipping profile to qualify for the Discounted shipping rate.
Note that you must define your weight or order value conditions accurately if you are setting price or weight-based shipping rates.
The following are the steps to set general shipping rates.
1. Go to your ‘Shopify Admin’.
2. Then, go to Settings. Under ‘Settings’, select ‘Shipping and Delivery’.
3. On the ‘Shipping and Delivery’ page, you will see various sections including ‘Shipping’, ‘Expected Delivery Dates’, ‘Local Delivery’, ‘Local Pickup’, ‘Delivery Customizations’, ‘Saved Packages’, ‘Shopify Shipping’, ‘Carrier Accounts’, ‘Packing Slip Template’, and ‘Custom Order Fulfillment’.
4. On the ‘Shipping’ section, click ‘Manage’ where you can add a shipping rate.
5. Once you click on ‘Manage’, it will take you to the Shipping page where you can see various sections. These include Products, Shipping Origins, Shipping Zones, Not Covered By Your Shipping Zones, and Start Shipping To More Places.
6. Then go to the Shipping Zone section and click ‘Add Rate’. Note that you must add the Shipping Zone as well where you want to deliver your products. To know how to set Shipping Zone read the next section.
7. Once you click the “Add Rate” button, you will see a pop-up that will show you three options. One is the ‘Add Rate’ option, the second is the ‘Transit Time’, and the third option is the ‘Price’. Under the ‘Add Rate’ option, you can either select “Set up your rates” or “Use carrier or app to calculate rates” option.
8. Then under ‘Transit Time’ you must select the time it takes for the package to get delivered. From the drop-down menu that includes options like Standard, Economy, Express, and Custom Flat Rate, choose the option that is most appropriate for you.
9. Then under the ‘Price’ option, you can either add a flat rate or you can also add conditions by clicking on the ‘Add Conditions’ button.
10. Once you click on the ‘Add Conditions’ button, you can either enter the price based on the order weight or based on the order price.
11. Once you fill in all the required details, click on ‘Done’ and then click ‘Save’.
How To Set Up Calculated Shipping Rates On Shopify?
Note that when you add carrier-calculated shipping rates, you also need to enter accurate weights for each of your products. This will help you in providing accurate shipping rates to your customers at checkout.
The following are the steps to set up calculated shipping rates.
1. Go to your Shopify admin. Then, go to ‘Settings’ and then click ‘Shipping and Delivery’.
2. On the ‘Shipping and Delivery’ page, you will see various sections including ‘Shipping’, ‘Expected Delivery Dates’, ‘Local Delivery’, ‘Local Pickup’, ‘Delivery Customizations’, ‘Saved Packages’, ‘Shopify Shipping’, ‘Carrier Accounts’, ‘Packing Slip Template’, and ‘Custom Order Fulfillment’.
3. On the ‘Shipping’ section, click ‘Manage’ where you can add a shipping rate.
4. Once you click on ‘Manage’, it will take you to the Shipping page where you can see various sections. These include Products, Shipping Origins, Shipping Zones, Not Covered By Your Shipping Zones, and Start Shipping To More Places. Then go to the Shipping Zone section and click ‘Add Rate’. Note that you must add the Shipping Zone as well where you want to deliver your products. To know how to set Shipping Zone read the next section.
6. Once you click the “Add Rate” button, you will see a pop-up that will show you three options. One is the ‘Add Rate’ option, the second is the ‘Transit Time’, and the third option is the ‘Price’. Under the ‘Add Rate’ option, you can either select “Set up your rates” or “Use carrier or app to calculate rates” option. Select the ‘Use carrier or app to calculate rates’ option.
7. Once you choose the ‘Use carrier or app to calculate rates’ option, a drop-down menu will open. In that menu, choose ‘shipping service’ for which you want to add calculated rates. Then in the ‘Services’ section, select the shipping methods from that shipping service that you want to provide as options for your customers at checkout.
8. Then in the ‘Future Services’ section, you can choose whether to automatically offer any new services that the shipping service makes available.
9. The Handling Fee section is optional. Under this section, you can add any handling fee that you would like to be added to the calculated rate.
10. Once you fill in all the details, click ‘Done’ and then click ‘Save’.
How To Set Up Free Shipping Rates On Shopify?
You can even set free shipping rates on all orders that customers place on your Shopify store. This makes it easy for you to manage your shipping rates and allows you to add additional paid shipping rates for specific products or orders over certain values or weights.
The following are the steps on how to set up free shipping on Shopify.
1. Go to your Shopify admin. Then, go to ‘Settings’ and then click ‘Shipping and Delivery’.
2. On the ‘Shipping and Delivery’ page, you will see various sections including ‘Shipping’, ‘Expected Delivery Dates’, ‘Local Delivery’, ‘Local Pickup’, ‘Delivery Customizations’, ‘Saved Packages’, ‘Shopify Shipping’, ‘Carrier Accounts’, ‘Packing Slip Template’, and ‘Custom Order Fulfillment’.
3. On the ‘Shipping’ section, click ‘Manage’ where you can add a shipping rate.
4. Once you click on ‘Manage’, it will take you to the Shipping page where you can see various sections. These include Products, Shipping Origins, Shipping Zones, Not Covered By Your Shipping Zones, and Start Shipping To More Places.
5. Then go to the Shipping Zone section and click ‘Add Rate’. Note that you must add the Shipping Zone as well where you want to deliver your products. To know how to set Shipping Zone read the next section.
6. Once you click the “Add Rate” button, you will see a pop-up that will show you three options. One is the ‘Add Rate’ option, the second is the ‘Transit Time’, and the third option is the ‘Price’. Under the ‘Add Rate’ option, you can either select “Set up your rates” or “Use carrier or app to calculate rates” option. Select the “Set up your own rates” option.
7. Then under ‘Transit Time’ you must select the time it takes for the package to get delivered. From the drop-down menu that includes options like Standard, Economy, Express, and Custom Flat Rate, choose the option that is most appropriate for you.
8. Finally, under ‘Price’, make the value of the Price field 0. Click Done, and then click Save.
How To Set Up Shipping Profiles On Shopify?
For setting up shipping profiles on Shopify, there are some things you need to consider.
- Ensure that you are aware of the shipping rates and shipping zones. That’s because every location in a specific shipping profile can have its shipping zones and rates.
- Some applications that manage order fulfillment get added as a location to your shipping profile automatically and can impact your shipping settings setup.
- Say, for instance, an order includes products from different shipping profiles or locations. In such a case, your customer gets a single shipping rate at checkout as separate shipping rates for each product are combined. Note that a combined shipping rate at checkout can result in higher shipping costs for your customers.
- Also, in a specific shipping profile, you can add only a single product or a product variant at a time. If you add the same product or product variant to a second shipping profile, then it gets automatically removed from the first shipping profile.
- You need to give your staff members or collaborators products and manage settings related to staff permissions to give them access to your shipping profiles.
How To Set Up A General Shipping Profile?
1. Go to your Shopify admin. Then, go to ‘Settings’ and then click ‘Shipping and Delivery’.
2. On the ‘Shipping and Delivery’ page, you will see various sections including ‘Shipping’, ‘Expected Delivery Dates’, ‘Local Delivery’, ‘Local Pickup’, ‘Delivery Customizations’, ‘Saved Packages’, ‘Shopify Shipping’, ‘Carrier Accounts’, ‘Packing Slip Template’, and ‘Custom Order Fulfillment’.
3. On the ‘General Shipping Rates’ section, click ‘Manage’ where you can add a shipping rate.
4. Once you click on ‘Manage’, it will take you to the Shipping page where you can see various sections. These include Products, Shipping Origins, Shipping Zones, Not Covered By Your Shipping Zones, and Start Shipping To More Places.
5. Then, in the ‘Shipping Origins’ section, make any changes to your locations.
6. Next, complete the steps below for each Shipping Zone that you want in your shipping profile:
- In the ‘Shipping Zones’ section, click ‘Create Zone’.
- Then, name the shipping zone.
- Next, select the countries or regions that are part of the zone, and then click ‘Done’.
- Once you create a Shipping Zone, click ‘Add Rate’ for every shipping rate that you want in the zone. Once you click ‘Add Rate’ choose the rate’s details, and then click ‘Done’.
- Once you complete all the above steps, click ‘Save’ to save all the changes that you have made.
How To Set Up A Custom Shipping Profile?
Now, you need to adopt the above procedure when your Shipping Rates are ‘General Shipping Rates’, that is, the Shipping Rates are the same for all the products that you sell on your Shopify store.
However, you need to adopt the following procedure when the shipping rates are not the same for the different products that you sell on your Shopify store.
1. Go to your Shopify admin. Then, go to ‘Settings’ and then click ‘Shipping and Delivery’.
2. On the ‘Shipping and Delivery’ page, you will see various sections including ‘Shipping’, ‘Expected Delivery Dates’, ‘Local Delivery’, ‘Local Pickup’, ‘Delivery Customizations’, ‘Saved Packages’, ‘Shopify Shipping’, ‘Carrier Accounts’, ‘Packing Slip Template’, and ‘Custom Order Fulfillment’.
3. On the Custom Shipping Rates section, click ‘Create New Profile’. Then, enter a name for the profile.
4. Then, in the ‘Products’ section, click ‘Add Products’ and then start adding products to the shipping profile. Once you add all the products in a Shipping Profile, go to the ‘Shipping Origins’ section.
5. In the ‘Shipping Origins’ section, make any changes to your locations.
6. Next, complete the steps below for each Shipping Zone that you want in your shipping profile:
- In the ‘Shipping Zones’ section, click ‘Create Zone’.
- Then, name the shipping zone.
- Next, select the countries or regions that are part of the zone, and then click ‘Done’.
- Once you create a Shipping Zone, click ‘Add Rate’ for every shipping rate that you want in the zone. Once you click ‘Add Rate’ choose the rate’s details, and then click ‘Done’.
- Once you complete all the above steps, click ‘Save’ to save all the changes that you have made.
How To Set Up Shipping Zones On Shopify?
Countries or regions sharing the same shipping rates are grouped under one Shipping Zone. You must ensure that the countries grouped in a Shipping Zone other than the country where your business is located should be those that are listed as active markets.
Your customers can make purchases from your Shopify store only when the country or region where they want their orders to be shipped is included in one of your Shipping Zones and is also an active market.
To create a shipping Zone, you must follow the steps below.
1. Go to your Shopify admin. Then, go to ‘Settings’ and then click ‘Shipping and Delivery’.
2. On the ‘Shipping and Delivery’ page, you will see various sections including ‘Shipping’, ‘Expected Delivery Dates’, ‘Local Delivery’, ‘Local Pickup’, ‘Delivery Customizations’, ‘Saved Packages’, ‘Shopify Shipping’, ‘Carrier Accounts’, ‘Packing Slip Template’, and ‘Custom Order Fulfillment’.
3. On the ‘Shipping’ section, click ‘Manage’ next to the shipping profile where you want to add a shipping zone.
4. Once you click on ‘Manage’, it will take you to the Shipping page where you can see various sections. These include Products, Shipping Origins, Shipping Zones, Not Covered By Your Shipping Zones, and Start Shipping To More Places. Then, click ‘Create Zone’ next to the group of locations where you want to add a shipping zone.
6. Once you click ‘Create Zone’, a dialog box will open. First of all, enter a name for the Shipping Zone under the ‘Zone Name’ field.
7. Then, select the countries and regions that you want to be in the zone. Once you do that, click ‘Done’.
8. Next, add any rates that you want for the zone by clicking the ‘Add Rates’ button, and then clicking ‘Save’. To know how to add the shipping rates, see the section above titled How to set up shipping rates.
Conclusion
There are various other settings in Shopify shipping that a Shopify store owner must undertake. These include local delivery and pickup, Shopify Shipping, and Shopify Packages. Read our articles on each of these to understand how these settings can be sone in your Shopify store.
Want Help With Shopify Taxes And Accounting?
