Shopify Shipping is a great perk that comes with all Shopify pricing plans, providing a suite of features to help you fulfill orders efficiently and – if you choose your shipping rates wisely – at a much cheaper price!
Shopify Shipping will let you choose either free, fixed rate, or carrier-calculated shipping options for your checkout. Each of these come with different perks, so the most beneficial option for you entirely depends on your store and products.
Below, we’ll go through these three Shopify Shipping rates to help you determine which is right for your store.
Shopify Shipping vs “Shopify shipping”: What’s the Difference?
Researching shipping options for your Shopify store can easily become confusing; the phrase “Shopify Shipping” is used often with seemingly contradicting statements.
Before we delve into Shopify’s shipping rates, allow me to clear up any complications: there are two types of shipping that you can choose for your Shopify store. One is shipping with Shopify’s integrated shipping solution “Shopify Shipping.” The other involves adding your own shipping methods and pricing – sometimes also referred to as Shopify shipping.
Top Tip: In any articles relating to Shopify, if you see the word “shipping” with a capitalized “s”, it’ll be referring to Shopify’s integrated service, Shopify Shipping! When it’s lowercase, it’ll mean arranging your own shipping options for your Shopify account.
Now that’s clear, here’s the difference between the two:
- If you decide to organize your own shipping with Shopify, you can either set custom flat rates or apply free shipping to your checkout. After your customer pays, you’ll then create a shipping label and send the order.
- Meanwhile, Shopify Shipping allows you to connect its partner carriers to your checkout. The carriers will calculate the shipping rates for you and you’ll be able to buy and manage Shopify Shipping labels within your Shopify admin at a discounted rate.
I’d recommend shipping externally for merchants looking to ship with a carrier that isn’t partnered with Shopify Plus, as well as those looking to offer fixed, controlled shipping rates.
Shopify Shipping is a convenient option for all Shopify merchants – but especially new sellers – because it provides the tools and support for every part of the sales journey in one place.
Let’s look at the different shipping options in more detail:
Flat Rate Shipping
With flat rate shipping, you set the same shipping rate for all orders, or set specific pricing based on your customers’ order.
For example, you could set a flat rate of $5, so every customer will be charged $5 for the shipping of their order, no matter its size, cost, or delivery time.
Or, for flat rates based on the order, there are three ways they can be determined: through the shipping service, the product weight, or the product price.
General Shipping
General shipping provides your customers with multiple flat rates to choose from at checkout based on the delivery type they prefer.
For example, you can offer delivery services from Shopify Shipping’s partner carriers (which I’ll cover later in this guide) and set your own flat rate for each service.
General shipping provides your customers with multiple flat rates to choose from at checkout based on the delivery type they prefer.
For example, you can offer delivery services from Shopify Shipping’s partner carriers (which I’ll cover more later in this guide) and set your own flat rate for each service, like in the picture above
- Provides customers with choice
- You have control over the delivery speed options you set, so you can manage customer expectations
- Shipping options may seem expensive, especially for customers with low value orders
- Doesn’t take weight or price into consideration, so rates won’t always be fair
Weight-Based Shipping
Weight-based shipping allows you to adapt your flat rates depending on the weight of a customer’s order.
For example, you may decide to offer $5 shipping for all orders that weigh up to 10kg, while shipping for any orders over 10kg is charged at $10.
- Transparent and fair prices for customers
- Accurate pricing reduces the risk of undercharging
- Fair prices will encourage customer loyalty
- You’ll need to have the exact weight for each product recorded in Shopify
- Doesn’t take the price of the product into consideration, and the buyer may be asked to pay more for shipping than the product cost, leading to cart abandonment
Price-Based Shipping
Price-based shipping allows you to set your flat shipping rates based on the price of a customer’s order.
For example, stores will often set price benchmarks that customers have to spend in order to access cheaper or even free delivery rates. Your flat shipping rate may be $5, but if a customer spends over $50 you may offer shipping for $3.99 instead.
- Encourages higher average order value
- Lowering the shipping prices of high value carts decreases cart abandonment
- Creates a positive shopping experience
- If your products are heavy and expensive, you could be undercharging for shipping and losing profit
Free Shipping
Free shipping is exactly what it sounds like: free shipping for your customers’ orders.
If you want to offer free shipping as standard on all orders, you can simply set your flat rate shipping cost as $0.
- Increased conversion rate
- Encourages repeat purchases
- Increases average order size
- Can make customers order without intentions of committing to the purchase, leading to returns
- You could have to raise product prices to keep your shipping fees from eating into your profits
- Could reduce your profits if not properly planned for
Carrier-Calculated Shipping
While you can set your own flat rates for your delivery options, Shopify Shipping also allows you to use its partner carriers to calculate exact shipping costs for you. The carriers that Shopify currently partners with are USPS, DHL, UPS, and Canada Post.
Based on your location and the Shopify plan you’re on, you’ll have access to different discounted rates from each supplier. The table below shows the maximum discount offered by each carrier for domestic shipping:
| Shipping carrier | Shopify Basic | Shopify | Shopify Advanced |
| USPS | Up to 67.6% | Up to 88.5% | Up to 88.5% |
| UPS | Up to 69.19% | Up to 69.76% | Up to 69.81% |
| DHL (international) | Up to 72% | Up to 74% | Up to 76% |
| Canada Post | Up to 35% | Up to 38% | Up to 43% |
You’ll provide the shipping carrier with details about each of your products, and it will use this information to work out the shipping fees for each customer. These details include:
- Where you’re shipping your product from
- The monetary value of your product
- The weight of your product
- The size of the box
When your customer proceeds to the checkout, your chosen carrier will give real-time shipping rates for their items based on the above factors, as well as the shipping location and delivery service that the buyer selects.
Carriers each have different strengths – like having the fastest delivery time or reliable international shipping – so you should assess these against your store’s priorities and the needs of your customers rather than simply going with the cheapest option. While price is an important factor, so is your reputation!
Below, I’ll explain how each of the four carriers supported by Shopify Shipping work and which ecommerce stores they’d work best with:
USPS
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is ideal for shipping smaller products and is often the cheapest option for small, lightweight packages.
You can purchase USPS shipping labels through Shopify, meaning there’s no need to stand in line at the post office, and it has no minimum shipping requirements.
USPS also allows you to ship internationally and offers order tracking for your customers to keep an eye on the status of their delivery.
DHL
DHL specializes in fast, global deliveries, so if you’re planning on extensively shipping internationally it may be the best courier for you.
DHL reaches over 95% of the world’s population and currently ships to over 220 countries and territories.
Through Shopify Shipping, you can access DHL customs forms and guaranteed international delivery, usually within three to five days.
UPS
UPS offers the fastest delivery of any of the Shopify partner carriers and is, therefore, the best option for time-sensitive deliveries.
Its Next Day Air service offers guaranteed next-day delivery on domestic deliveries and its UPS Worldwide Express promises one to three day delivery for international orders. UPS also has extensive tracking capabilities, allowing both you and your customers to monitor the shipment.
UPS also allows you to schedule pick-ups from different locations, which is great if you have stock stored in multiple places.
Canada Post
Canada Post is Canada’s primary mail carrier service. It is only available to Shopify retailers who are shipping their products from Canada.
It’s the perfect option for those who are selling domestically within Canada – however, if you’re based in the US you’ll need to choose an alternative carrier.
Canada Post’s rates differ depending on your location, and while it does offer international delivery, rates are different for delivery to the US and the rest of the world.
If you opt to use Canada Post, it’s important to remember that it doesn’t support envelope packages through Shopify Shipping – only boxes and soft packages.
- The customer pays the exact cost of the shipping, so you won’t lose any money covering it
- You can offer customers multiple shipping rates to choose from
- Costs are broken down and shown to customers transparently, which creates trust
- Dynamic shipping rates will provide the most accurate costs
- There won’t be an opportunity to profit on shipping
- Depending on your monthly Shopify plan, you may be able to get a better deal with carriers if you go direct
How To Set Up Shopify Shipping Rates
Shopify Shipping rates can easily be set up on your Shopify admin dashboard. Our Shopify Shipping guide has a full rundown of how to set up shipping on your Shopify account, but just remember to have the following information ready:
- Your products’ correct weight
- Your products’ correct dimensions
- You should also know which shipping methods you would like to use; you can include more than one.
Before You Create Shopify Shipping Rates
Here are a few tips to ensure you get the most out of the shipping options available to you:
- Create shipping zones: shipping zones are geographical areas in which you can set the same shipping rates. For example, if you wanted to offer free shipping in the US and $6 shipping rates within Europe, you could achieve this by setting up two shipping zones for these areas. Site visitors within Europe will then automatically have the $6 shipping rate applied when checking out.
- Set up shipping rates in local currencies: if you’ve set up fixed rates for different markets, you can make those rates appear in your customers’ local currency, rather than appearing in your store’s local currency and converting at the checkout. Ecommerce localization provides a more seamless and familiar checkout experience for all of your customers, regardless of their location.
- Use a shipping rates calculator: you can use Shopify’s shipping rate calculator to compare the prices of Shopify’s partner carriers against your individual products and determine which carrier will be best suited to your store.
- Optimize your packaging: now you know how shipping prices are determined, you can lower your shipping costs by using packaging of the smallest size and weight possible, but be careful to make sure your product is still secure.
Summary
Setting your Shopify shipping rates can be a difficult task, as there are pros and cons to each option.
Key things to remember about Shopify Shipping include:
- Shopify Shipping is included in your monthly subscription, you don’t need to pay extra.
- Shopify Shipping gives you access to discounts with its partner carriers.
- Shopify Shipping allows you to set your shipping rate in various ways: flat rate, weight-based, price-based, or general shipping.
Shopify Shipping has partnered with major carriers USPS, UPS, DHL, and Canada Post in order to offer you and your customers a high-quality shipping service that won’t eat up all of your time and profits.
Although your business will have its own shipping strategy, you should always consider ecommerce shipping best practice to make sure you’re keeping your customers happy as well.
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