Shopify Shipping: 2024 Setup Guide

Shopify Shipping is the fastest, most efficient, and most reliable shipping method for your ecommerce business if you are in the United States and Canada. It offers discounted shipping rates for both local and international shipping without compromising the efficiency of product delivery.

You see, wherever your customers are, they want to receive their products as soon as possible. Very rare are those willing to wait weeks (for local delivery) or worse, months for international orders. In fact, 24% of customers abandon their orders when they see that shipping would take too long (source: Statista).

That’s why as a merchant, it is your responsibility to provide your customers with the most efficient options so they can receive their orders on time. Of course, that’s not to say you should splurge money on expedited deliveries.

You don’t need to sacrifice your profits. All you need to do is find the best logistics partner for your business. And in this article, you’ve found it. Let’s talk about Shopify’s shipping services.

How Does Shopify Shipping Work?

Shopify Shipping comes pre-installed in every Shopify plan. As such, all you need to do is set it up and it will be up running.

However, take note that Shopify Shipping is only available for merchants within the following countries:

• United States
• Canada
• Australia
• United Kingdom
• France
• Italy
• Spain

If your online store is outside these territories, you need to look for different shipping services. But don’t you worry, you can find a lot of shipping carriers in the Shopify app store – and we’ll give you some recommendations later.

Back to the topic.

Shopify Shipping was designed to make order fulfillment easier, faster, and cheaper for Shopify merchants. This is possible by offering discounted shipping rates from major shipping carriers.

Let’s talk about the features and benefits of Shopify Shipping as well as their shipping partners.

Shopify Shipping Features

Multiple carrier options

With Shopify Shipping, you are not stuck with a single shipping carrier. Instead, you’re given multiple options for shipping services so you can choose the one that could help you or your customers save on shipping costs while maximizing speed.

Shopify split shipping

With this feature, you can send your customers’ orders in separate schedules that will help them save cost on shipping.

Bulk printing of  shipping labels and branded packing slips

One way Shopify Shipping makes order fulfillment faster is by allowing merchants to purchase 100 shipping labels at once from their partner and accredited third-party shipping carriers. That way, merchants can simply drop off their products instead of lining up at the post office.

Moreover, merchants can also purchase branded packing slips for a more uniform branding.

Order rerouting

With Shopify’s interconnected ecosystem, you can fulfill an order from any of your locations, whichever is nearest to your customer. This will help you save time and money on shipping costs.

Shopify Shipping automatically notifies merchants whenever an order rerouting is possible.

In some instances where merchants have physical stores, they can reroute orders from their online store to any of their physical stores. This is possible by using Shopify POS. Also using Shopify POS, merchants can print shipping labels for their shipping carriers. Thereby effectively making their physical stores mini fulfillment centers.

Since we’re talking about Shopify POS, merchants with physical stores could also include in-store pickup as one of their fulfillment methods. All this information will be sent to the corresponding Shopify POS of their stores.

Read more about in-store fulfillment: Shopify Editions

In-Shopify fulfillment management

The good thing about Shopify Shipping is that it’s built into the platform. As such, you can manage all your fulfillments via the Shopify admin. You can:

• Schedule shipping carriers to pick up your packages from your warehouses
• Print shipping labels
• Track the delivery status of all your pending shipments
• Manage everything in one place.

Several shipping rate options at checkout

With Shopify Shipping, you can choose how you want your products delivered and how you want to charge your shipping cost. From its multiple shipping options, you can:

• Set a flat shipping rate so you charge a fixed amount for your products. When implementing a flat shipping rate, you have three options:
• Include the shipping cost to your products’ SRP so you can offer free shipping
• Add the shipping fee upon checkout so your customers pay for the shipping
• If you have a high markup on your products, you can assume the shipping costs
• Calculate the shipping cost upon checkout so your customers have an idea of how much they will pay for shipping

Of all these options, implementing a “free shipping” marketing scheme on your online store is the most effective approach.

Shopify International shipping

In addition to faster local delivery, Shopify Shipping also makes international order fulfillment extremely easy for all Shopify merchants who use it. Partnered with global shipping carriers, you can open your Shopify store to customers from all over the world.

Shopify Shipping partners have up to 1,000+ fulfillment locations worldwide. As such, you can create custom shipping rates for specific regions or products.

Local pickup

If you process multiple orders per day and you don’t have the vehicle to transport all of them to the nearest delivery hub, you can arrange local pickup using Shopify Shipping with your selected shipping service.

Insured delivery

Another great feature of Shopify Shipping is the security and peace of mind that it gives to Shopify merchants. That’s because products that are transported by Shopify’s partner shipping carriers are all insured up to $200 per item to protect against damage, loss, or theft.

If your products are valued higher than $200, you can add additional protection at competitive rates via Shipsurance.

Shop App integration

If your customers have their Shop App installed and they have an existing account, they can track their delivery in real-time using the app.

With the Shop App, buyers can track their packages with pinpoint accuracy in real-time. They also get real-time notifications for the delivery status.

Cashback for the purchase of labels

When buying shipping labels using Shopify Credit, merchants can earn up to 3% cashback on labels purchased through Shopify Shipping.

This cashback helps merchants offset their shipping costs. If you’re processing a large amount of orders per month, this 3% could equate to a significant amount of savings.

Benefits Of Using Shopify Shipping

Considering all the features mentioned above, Shopify Shipping allows merchants to enjoy the following benefits:

Flexible Shipping Carrier Options

Shopify Shipping provides multiple shipping options, allowing merchants to choose the best shipping services that balance cost and speed.

This flexibility helps optimize shipping costs and improve delivery times, thereby effectively enhancing customer satisfaction.

Efficient Bulk Printing and Branding

With Shopify Shipping, merchants can bulk print up to 100 shipping labels as well as use branded packing slips to maintain a consistent brand image.

This feature significantly speeds up the order fulfillment process by enabling merchants to simply drop off packages instead of queuing up at the post office.

Seamless Order Rerouting and In-Store Pickup

The order rerouting feature allows merchants to fulfill orders from the location closest to the customer. Thus increasing shipping speeds and reducing shipping costs.

With integration into Shopify POS, physical stores can also act as mini fulfillment centers. And all this can be managed from the Shopify admin.

Integrated Fulfillment Management

Shopify Shipping is a native feature that’s built directly into each Shopify plan. As such, it allows merchants to manage all aspects of fulfillment right from the admin.

This includes scheduling carrier pickups, printing shipping labels, tracking delivery, and more.

All in all, this centralized process streamlines the operations to maintain a well-organized shipping process.

Customizable Shipping Rates and Free Shipping Options

Shopify Shipping offers several shipping options to merchants. This includes flat rates, and calculated shipping fees at checkout, and they can also use conditional logic to further fine-tune the shipping rate.

As such, this enables merchants to choose the best method to suit their business model and more importantly, their customers’ preferences.

International Shipping and Insured Delivery

Shopify Shipping further elevates the ecommerce experience by laying down a robust fulfillment platform for all merchants. Partnered with more than 1,000 fulfillment locations worldwide, merchants are ensured that wherever their customers are, their products will be delivered.

In addition to that, products are also insured while in transit for the peace of mind of both the sellers and customers.

Shopify Shipping Partners

Shopify shipping, shipping rates, free shipping, international shipping, shipping services, shipping carriers

Here is a list of shipping carriers that you can manage using Shopify Shipping based on location:

Setting Up Shipping On Shopify

If it’s your first time setting up shipping on Shopify, here are the steps that you need to follow to set everything including:

• Shipping carrier
• Shipping rates (including free shipping and local delivery)

Step 1: Set Up Your Location

The first step to set up your shipping settings is to indicate your location from where you ship your products. Here, you can create multiple locations if you ship from multiple places.

To do that, go to your Shopify admin:

• Click Settings
• From the settings menu, click Locations
• In the All locations section, click Add location

• In the Location details section:

• Add the name of your location
• Type the exact address of your location

For this example, we created a fictitious warehouse based in California.

Step 2: Create A Shipping Profile

Now that you have your shipping location, you can now set up a shipping profile.

• Click Shipping and delivery from the settings menu
• In the Shipping section, click the New profile button

You will be redirected to a page where you can fill out all the details of your delivery method.

In the Create shipping profile page:

• Enter the Profile Name
• Select the products that you will ship from this location (select all the products that apply)
• Confirm that under the Shipping origins, the location that you created is indicated

You are now halfway towards fully setting up your Shopify Shipping profile.

• Click the Create zone button so you can set up your shipping rates.

Step 3: Create A Shipping Zone

After clicking the Create zone button, a pop-up window will appear. Fill out the information as follows:

• Write the Zone name. We recommend having a system of naming your zones to avoid confusion in the future. In this example, we named it “North America” as we plan to include the United States in this zone.
• In the Shipping zones search bar, type the name of the country that you want to add. Since it’s our first time adding a shipping zone, we need to first set up local delivery to the US.
• When setting up the United States or any country that has several states in it, you can set Shopify Shipping to have different shipping rates per state. But for uniformity, some merchants apply a fixed rate throughout the US.
• After adding a shipping zone, click Done.

After creating a zone, you can click the Create zone button again if you wish to add a new shipping location. Otherwise, click Add rate to start customizing the shipping rate for your products for the specific zone.

Step 4: Add Shipping Rates

After clicking the Add rate button, do these steps as follows:

• Under Rate type, choose whether you to Use flat rate or Use carrier or app to calculate rates.
• Let’s first choose Use flat rate
• Then, choose an option under Shipping rate whether you want to use Express, Standard, Economy or if you want to set a Custom shipping. Take note that Express delivery will have a higher shipping cost compared to Economy.
• Under the Price section, input a shipping rate based on the option that you chose above.
• You can also click the Add conditional pricing if you have products with various shapes, sizes, and weight so you don’t overcharge or undercharge shipping costs to your customers.
• After setting it, click Done.

Note: Make sure that you are familiar with the prevailing shipping rates according to your products’ specification when setting a fixed rate.  

In a different scenario, let’s say you chose to Use carrier or app to calculate rates instead of flat rate:

• Choose a shipping carrier. Your options here would depend on your shipping zone. If you set the United States in your shipping zone, you would have three shipping carriers available:

• DHL Express
• UPS
• USPS

• For this example, we chose DHL Express.
• As you noticed, there is no option to add a shipping rate here. For that, go to the Shopify App Store and install the official app of the shipping service of your choice.
• Adding a Handling fee to your shipping rates is entirely optional. However, this would appear in the price cost breakdown when your customers checkout their purchases. Appearing as an added cost, this might increase cart abandonment. So think about it thoroughly before implementing it.
• After setting it up, click Done.

There you have it! Shopify Shipping is not set. Now, the shipping rates that you set will now automatically apply when your customers purchase your products.

And the best part about here is that it’s fully automatic. So set it and forget it.

Reminders When Setting Up Shopify Shipping

When setting up Shipping on Shopify, make sure that you have filled in the specifications of each of your products. Otherwise, automatic shipping calculation won’t work properly because it won’t have a basis for computation.

Additionally, conditional formatting wouldn’t work as well for the same reason.

That’s why you need to complete the details of your products.

Read: Product details

MoreShopify Shipping Apps

Looking to have more control over your shipping? Check out these Shopify shipping apps.

Shipeasy

Rating: 5 out of 5 (800+ reviews)

Pricing: Starts at $9.99 per month. Free plan available.

If you chose conditional shipping rates when setting up Shopify Shipping, you might want to consider Shipeasy. Shipeasy’s conditional shipping rates provide more customization compared to the native Shopify Shipping calculator.

Key features:

• Calculate shipping costs with accuracy based on your chosen carriers and the destination of your products.
• 30 parameters – including zip codes, distance, quantity, price, etc for conditional shipping settings.
• Add more complex shipping calculations for retail and wholesale customers.
• It can be integrated with the APIs of major carriers such as UPS, USPS, Sendle, and more.

Intuitive Shipping

Rating: 4.9 out of 5 (400+ reviews)

Pricing: Starts at $70 per month. Free trial available.

Intuitive Shipping can help you reduce cart abandonment by charging just the right shipping rate to your customers using its efficient dimensional shipping rate. With this, shipping rates are measured based on their dimension.

Key features:

• Dimension-based shipping rates
• Customize your rates using 40+ parameters in conditional logic.
• Create branded shipping options instead of using the carriers’ proprietary names for their shipping
• Implement a well-rounded brand experience from product selection all the way to checkout.

Advanced Shipping Rules

Rating: 4.8 out of 5 (400+ reviews)

Pricing: Starts at $9 per month. Free trial available.

Advanced Shipping Rules is another Shopify app that you can use for conditional logic when calculating your shipping rates.

Key features:

• Fine-tune your rates based on a wide variety of variables and conditions including postal codes, and other product-specific details.
• Restrict the delivery of products to some areas.
• Combine shipping rates so you can offer competitive landed costs to your customers.
• Calculate the shipping cost based on real-time carrier rates so you don’t have to worry about price fluctuations.

Shippo

Rating: 4.1 out of 5 (547+ reviews)

Pricing: Starts at $19 per month. Free plan available.

Shippo is an intuitive shipping app that puts the control to your hands when it comes to shipping costs. With Shippo, all you need to do is to import your order to their app and you can select the best shipping service that could give you the most savings.

Key features:

• Access to 40+ major carriers worldwide and daily updates of discounted rates.
• Save on shipping costs in every order that you ship.
• With each order, you can select the carrier that offers discounted shipping rates. After that, just print shipping labels, and your package is on its way.

Easyship

Rating: 4.1 out of 5 (400+ reviews)

Pricing: Starts at $29.99 per month. Free plan available.

 The last item shipping app in our list is Easyship. And this is the most inclusive app of them all as it grants merchants from all over the world access to more than 250 international shipping services.

Key features:

• Provides options to your customers to choose which shipping method best suits their needs.
• Options to insure products against damages.
• Can be used to automate the return process.
• Create a branded tracking page to help your customers track their purchases.

Conclusion

Shopify Shipping is an essential feature built into every Shopify plan. It was designed to make running an online store easier by building a system with pre-selected carriers so merchants can just set it up and start using it.

However, it has one obvious flaw that limits other merchants. It is not available worldwide. And that’s why if you’re reading this article from a location not covered by Shopify Shipping, you need to find the right apps to use.

Before we end this article, we would like to reiterate the importance of choosing the right shipping carriers for your business. Choose one that has a track record of efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Additionally, transparency on shipping costs also plays a crucial role in establishing credibility. That’s why you should aim to charge just the right amount of shipping from your customers.