Delivery costs can be a real challenge for online merchants. In a way, they impact your store’s conversion rate. It is therefore important to know how to configure them so as not to increase cart abandonment. Learn how to set up your Shopify shipping costs here.
How does Shopify shipping work?
When you do classic e-commerce, you will ship the products ordered by your customers via e-commerce carriers. These different carriers take into account certain parameters to charge you for the delivery costs. On the other hand, when you do dropshipping, your different suppliers will take care of shipping the products sold to your customers. When you order a product from the supplier, you will usually have to pay the shipping costs. The cost of delivery depends on the shipping method and the delivery area.
Note that if you work with e-commerce plugins like Oberlo, the product delivery information is not automatically synchronized with your store. So, you need to configure shipping settings on Shopify. For this, two possibilities are available to you in terms of strategy:
- Set Shopify shipping charges and ask your customers to pay them to receive the ordered product. Shopify shipping is actually what you charge your customers besides the price of the products ordered. This cost is added to the order of the customers when they go to the checkout.
- Include Shopify shipping in the price of your product and make shipping “free” for your customers. Of course, you have to pay the provider.
What settings should I use to set up Shopify shipping?
Go to your Shopify admin. In the “Settings” section, go to “Shipping and Delivery”, simply look at the “Shipping” section. The latter includes general shipping rate profiles and custom shipping cost profiles. You can use the other settings when you sell and ship products yourself or when you use other services.
Shipping profiles allow you to customize your shipping settings according to your store’s needs. This means you can set different Shopify shipping charges for specific products and shipping areas.
The needs of your business can help you define the shipping profiles you need as well as their number. In reality, apart from the general profile, you have the option to create up to 100 custom shipping profiles.
- If you want to have the same shipping methods for all your products, simply use the “General Shipping Rates” shipping profile. This profile is created by default on each Shopify store, and all your products are automatically assigned to it.
- If you want to have different shipping methods for different products or locations, then you need to use custom shipping rates in order to create custom shipping profiles. You must create these profiles manually.
How do I set up general shipping rates?
If you decide to apply the same shipping methods to all your products, use the General Shipping Rates profile. Here are the steps to follow to create your shipping zones:
Creating Shipping Zones
- Go to your Shopify admin, go to Settings, and then go to Shipping and shipping.
- In the General Shipping Rates section, you will click on “Manage Rates”.
- Now in the section where it says “Products”, you will find all your products intended for this shipping profile. Products assigned to other custom shipping profiles are removed from this shipping profile.
- In the “Shipping from” section, the correct locations should be indicated. If you don’t select the right locations, your customers won’t see shipping options at checkout and won’t be able to purchase from your online store.
- In the “Shipping to” section, you must define the shipping zones and rates:
Shipping areas: these are the different countries where you want to deliver your products. If you want to apply different rates for certain shipping zones, you can create multiple shipping zones.
Shipping rates: These are the Shopify shipping costs you want to charge your customers for shipping.
- After that, click on “Create Shipping Zone” for the new shipping areas that you will like to add to your profile.
- In the “Zone Name” section, name the new shipping zone.
- In the “Country” field, add the countries or regions that should be part of this delivery area. To add all countries at the same time, select the rest of the world.
- Then click “Done” and then “Save” to confirm.
Creating shipping rates
After creating your shipping zones, you need to create the shipping rates.
- Click “Add Rate” next to the box you created.
- Select the “Set up your own rates” option.
- In the “Tariff Name” section, simply indicate how the tariff should be named. Your customers will see it when they checkout. You can also indicate here the expected delivery time.
- In the “Price” box, add the delivery cost you want to charge your customers. If you want to make Shopify shipping free, enter 0.00.
- To customize your terms, click “Add Terms.” You can choose to use rates based on weight or price and set price limits.
Based on product weight: Create a shipping rate where Shopify shipping costs depend on product weight.
Based on product price: Create a shipping rate where Shopify shipping costs depend on the total value of the order.
- To validate, click on “Done” and then on “Save”.
How do I create custom shipping rates?
To have different Shopify shipping charges for certain products or locations, you need to create a different shipping profile. This can be especially useful if you’re using your Shopify store for dropshipping and selling your own products.
In this case, for some orders containing products from different profiles or locations, the different Shopify shipping costs for each product will be combined. Thus, the customer will benefit from a single delivery rate on the payment page. For this to be possible, you must have the Shipping Profile General Shipping Rates. Next, create one or more custom shipping profiles with custom shipping rates.
Here’s how to create a new custom shipping profile:
- In your admin interface, go to Settings, then to “Shipping and Delivery”.
- Click “Create a new profile” in the Custom Shipping costs section.
- Start by entering a name for your new shipping profile.
- Select the products you want to add to this shipping profile in the Products section.
- The “Shipping from” section allows you to select the locations for which you want to apply this profile.
- Use the “Ship to” section to create zones and rates as explained earlier for general shipping rates.
- Click “Save” to save your changes.
How do I set up flat Shopify shipping charges?
You have the option to set a flat shipping fee based on the customer’s location, the weight of the item, or the total value of the order. To set a flat rate for a specific location, you can simply set the rates in that specific shipping area. For billing rates based on weight or price, you can set the condition as well as the weight or price range for its application.
Set up Shopify shipping based on weight
Weight-based shipping is a fairly effective strategy, as carriers determine shipping costs based on the weight of an order. Thus, when you correctly determine and add the weight of the products, you will be able to avoid any surprises during the shipment. To determine the weight of a package, consider the actual weight of the products as well as the weight of the package. Here are the steps to follow:
- In your admin interface, click Settings, and then click Shipping.
- Now you will be able to view your shipping profile. Make sure you have correctly entered the weight of your package.
- Then click on “Manage Rates”.
- Select the shipping area for which you want to set a flat rate based on weight. Click on “Add a rate”.
- A new GUI will open to help you set up pricing. Click Add Conditions (the “Depending on order weight” box will be selected by default). Define the weight range and the rate applicable to it.
- Finally, “Click” Done.
Now, your customers will be able to see this flat rate when they want to buy a product that falls within this weight range.
Set up Shopify shipping based on price
Here too, you will need to access the shipping settings as done previously.
- On your shipping profile, go to the shipping area you want to update. Scroll down to the shipping area you want to update, then click “Add Rate”.
- When the GUI appears, choose the condition “Based on the price of the order”. Then add the value of the flat rate as well as the price range. After that, click “Done”.
- Finally, click on “Save” and the new flat rate will be applied for customers in the chosen delivery area.
Shopify Shipping: Other Shipping Strategies
If you have an online store with Shopify, you can use several strategies to ensure customer-friendly shipping options. Here are some options you can try.
Shopify Free Shipping
Free shipping is a popular option for customers when purchasing from an online store. It has a positive impact on the conversion rate. In fact, one of the main reasons for cart abandonment is often the high amount of shipping on Shopify. However, offering Shopify shipping for free is a real headache for many e-merchants, as it can impact their profits. For this, there are different strategies to offer free shipping costs without breaking the bank.
The first strategy is to include Shopify shipping costs in the price of the product. Thus, you avoid the customer having an unpleasant surprise when he goes to the checkout. In this case, the delivery cost will be set to €0.
On the other hand, you can also offer free shipping costs under certain conditions. Just like with fixed shipping costs, you can manually set free shipping based on criteria such as weight or price of the order. For example, if you plan to add a free shipping rate to one of your existing shipping zones, you can easily do so in the “Free shipping” section.
Shopify Shipping: In-Store Pickup
It is possible that your customers can pick up their order in your store. This would save them from paying a delivery fee to pick up their package. For this, you will give your customers information about the withdrawal in store as well as the time to prepare the order.
Shopify Shipping: Pay-on-Delivery
There is an app called Advanced Cash on Delivery that allows you to accept payments on delivery. It is only available for online shops that have the motto “Indian rupee”. This app offers a pay-as-you-go option to your customers when they make purchases from your online store. With this option, your customers can benefit from fast delivery.
How do I remove shipping on Shopify?
Maybe you want to change your shipping policy on Shopify by removing a rate? Here’s how to do it:
- In your admin interface, go to Settings, then to Shipping and Delivery.
- Click “Manage Rates” right next to the shipping profile you want to delete.
- Near the rate you want to remove, click on the horizontal points (….)
- Then, click Delete in the popup.
- Finally, click Save to save.
In short
To make sure you’ve set up your shipping settings, you can go to your Shopify store as a customer. You add a product to the cart and checkout to see if shipping options appear according to your configurations.
