How to Setup Shipping on Shopify

‍What is Shopify Shipping

Shopify Shipping is a solution within the Shopify platform that allows Shopify merchants to ship orders directly from the store's admin. It consolidates all shipping tasks into one central location without using a third-party app from order receipt to delivery.

How Shopify shipping works

Shopify Shipping allows store owners to view, manage, and fulfill orders from a single dashboard, eliminating the need to switch between different tools. At checkout, Shopify Shipping can give your customers carrier-calculated shipping rates based on their destination and package weight. From within the Shopify admin panel, you can print shipping labels for your orders. This simplifies the fulfillment process, and you can prepare your package for shipment quickly. Also, It offers discounted rates with major carriers such as USPS, UPS, DHL Express, and Canada Post.

💡 In 2022, revenue generated from parcel shipping activities amounted to 485 billion U.S. dollars globally. The number of packages sent only in the United Kingdom is increasing exponentially to the number of 3.6 billion parcels sent in 2022/23. And this is a global trend. (Source: Statista)

Managing shipping efficiently is a critical task in running an online store as the shipping logistics often get overlooked once they become problematic.

What are the limitations?

Even though the Shopify Shipping solution offers numerous features, some limitations can impact the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of your shipping process.

• Geographic Restrictions - Shopify Shipping is primarily available for merchants based in the United States, Canada, and Australia. If your store is based outside these regions, you won't have access to Shopify Shipping.
• Inability to Store Product Dimensions - Shopify Shipping allows you to store the weight of your products, but not their dimensions. This limitation can lead to inaccurate shipping rates, and you will likely end up undercharging or overcharging your customers.
• Limited Support for Multiple Origins - Shopify Shipping can complicate shipping logistics if you ship products from multiple warehouses or locations, as the platform is primarily designed for merchants with a single shipping origin.
• Limited Carrier Options - For merchants in the US, the available carriers are USPS, UPS, and DHL Express. In Canada, only Canada Post is available. This can be restrictive if you need specialized shipping services or better rates from other carriers.
• International Shipments—One limitation is manually calculating taxes and duties. However, you can display estimated taxes and duties at checkout to provide transparency for your customers.

Identifying and addressing the pain points in your shipping process is crucial for improvement. Well-organized shipping can lead to cost savings, improved efficiency, and happier customers.

Inaccurate shipping rates have multiple consequences

Default Shopify Shipping limitations can make a huge impact on your profitability and sales volume:

👉 Inaccurate rates that occur due to setting the wrong shipping parameters can lead to increased operational costs, reducing margins, and high costs can directly impact profitability.

👉 Every minute spent on manual shipping tasks is time away from something other than growing your business.

👉 Speaking of abandoned carts, overestimated or unclear shipping costs are a leading cause, and you must keep this from happening if you want to run a healthy business.

👉 It is no secret that customers expect a seamless and transparent shipping experience. Moreover, unexpected costs and inaccurate shipping rates can lead to negative reviews and lost sales.

👉 And with all shipping errors, incorrect or damaged items can be delivered which increases the probability of returns. Imagine how it will affect your revenue and add to your operational costs if this happens more often.

🤦‍♂️“Shopify limitation on charging the accurate shipping rate based on the size of a product is costing merchants $$$. Even after I looked at the shipping Shopify offered, it didn't match with what the rates Shopify offered. Lost over $100 in excess money I had to pay to ship.”

🤷 "I had an order this morning that I actually had no choice but to cancel. The customer paid $9.77, calculated by package weight for 18 lbs.  I then put in the dimensions and the weight (which was only 12 lbs so you would figure it would be in my favor….). The rate to ship via Shopify with their discount rate was $46.62, I’m not kidding.” (Source: Shopify Community)

Fun fact: 70% of shopping carts get abandoned before checkout

Did you know that 70% of shopping carts never turn into orders? According to the Baymard Institute, the most common reasons for abandoned purchases are unexpectedly high shipping costs and other fees. The rate jumps to nearly 86% on mobile devices, too.

If you are asking why is your cart abandonment rate so high, look at your shipping rates and how many times they were overestimated across years. Solution for creating more accurate shipping rates can be found in Carrier Calculated Shipping Rate Apps. One of them is Postcode Shipping.

Why lose some money on shipping, when you can calculate shipping rates?

How to improve your Shopify shipping

To get accurate and transparent shipping rates displayed at the checkout, Shopify merchants use Shopify Shipping Apps. The app calculates shipping rates based on multiple parameters including location and product. One of them is Postcode Shipping.

Postcode Shipping directly saves Shopify merchants money by avoiding losses due to surprise shipping costs. It calculates shipping rates based on location or product parameters and helps create powerful and flexible delivery charges. With Postcode Shipping, you will control how shipping rates are calculated and displayed at checkout.

💡 “Postcode Shipping has been a game-changer for my online business! Their seamless integration allows me to easily set up shipping restrictions based on postcode, ensuring smooth deliveries every time.” Massive Discounts, United Kingdom

💡 “This app saved our skin. Shopify’s big flaw is not being able to set shipping prices on a per-product basis. This was the only app that allowed us to set custom shipping rates in conjunction with weight/price rules.” The Garden Edit, United Kingdom

Postcode Shipping can manage complex shipping setups, including unique models like offshore and multi-ZIP code shipping. It is a favorite among dropshipping stores because of its feature of calculating unique rates for specific products and product groups. It simplifies the daunting processes of international shipping and makes it easy to handle local deliveries and global shipping.

With Postcode Shipping, you can:

• Calculate shipping rates based on product weight, product quantity, dimensions, and more
• Set up shipping rates for countries, regions, neighborhoods, and even postcodes & zipcodes
• Set up rate tiers to provide extensive shipping support on a local & global basis
• Offer unique shipping rates for product groups

Click here to see how exactly Postcode Shipping improves your Shopify store.

Or contact us at support@postcodeshipping.com for personal assistance.

Conclusion

Understanding your shipping limitations is crucial for optimizing your shipping strategy and implementing efficient operations in your business. Running an online store comes with many challenges, and one of the most critical aspects is managing the shipping process efficiently. Luckily, the solution is available in the Shopify App Store. With Shipping Apps, you can control how shipping rates are calculated and displayed at the checkout, set shipping restrictions based on postcode, and well organize complex shipping processes.

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