Multi Origin Shipping - How do you fetch only one shipping price?

einardo
Shopify Partner
10 0 15

Hi!

We have a Shipping/fulfillment app, that's been working until now;

However with multi origin shipping, the price is multiplied with the number of locations of the products in the order.

Ex; We set a shipping price of $9, Customer buys product from location 1 and location 2, and is charged $18.

Does anyone know how to change the app to accommodate for this - to have one shipping price, no matter which location(s) the products are pulled from?

We are giving the choice of calculated pricing and pick up points, btw, so no, we cannot use Shopify standard shipping and just fulfill via app.

Replies 30 (30)

hassain
Shopify Staff (Retired)
624 104 187

Hi @einardo ,

 

Unfortunately what you are looking for is not possible. Once a Shopify merchant activates Multi-Origin Shipping, whenever they have products in an order that need to be shipped from different locations, a shipping or delivery fee is calculated for each item and then all the shipping fees are added together. The customer is shown only the final shipping cost at checkout (e.g. combined rates). There is no way to change this unless products are shipped from the same origin. Once a merchant enables Multi-Origin Shipping, it cannot be disabled

 

Some more resources here: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/shipping/setting-up-and-managing-your-shipping/convert-to-shippin...

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/shipping/setting-up-and-managing-your-shipping/shipping-profiles#...

 

To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Community Blog.

einardo
Shopify Partner
10 0 15

Hi @hassain, and thanks a lot for your reply.

 

The thing is though, that they do have the same shipping origin, but the products are spread onto different locations.
Examples; (when using a third party inventory system), 
1 location can be in your store, 2nd location can be linked with your incoming stock, 3rd location can be linked with your next door warehouse. 
The shipping origin would still be the same, and one price should be calculated.

I noticed on new stores I've set up that there is no choice to activate Multi-Origin Shipping, and Shopify support told me that it is now activated by default on all new stores. If that is the case, then there's no possibility for third party shipping- and fulfillment apps to dictate pricing on an order total - only on a per-location subtotal.

Setting a price based shipping rate in Shopify however still works, regardless of where the products are picked from - seems kinda strange - and somewhat 'unfair'? 

Merje_Shaw1
Excursionist
12 0 18

@einardo wrote:

Hi @hassain, and thanks a lot for your reply.

 

The thing is though, that they do have the same shipping origin, but the products are spread onto different locations.
Examples; (when using a third party inventory system), 
1 location can be in your store, 2nd location can be linked with your incoming stock, 3rd location can be linked with your next door warehouse. 
The shipping origin would still be the same, and one price should be calculated.

I noticed on new stores I've set up that there is no choice to activate Multi-Origin Shipping, and Shopify support told me that it is now activated by default on all new stores. If that is the case, then there's no possibility for third party shipping- and fulfillment apps to dictate pricing on an order total - only on a per-location subtotal.

Setting a price based shipping rate in Shopify however still works, regardless of where the products are picked from - seems kinda strange - and somewhat 'unfair'? 


It's activated by default?

just1intl
Visitor
1 0 4

Having the same issue as all the other comments listed here. It's not practical at all. The whole point of flat rate shipping is to be able to charge a rate just based off the cost of the total order.

Right now, if a customer orders two items that we fulfill through two different locations, it charges the shipping rate twice for the TOTAL amount of the order - not just the total amount of each individual item. It'd be slightly easier to work around if it'd just charge the shipping based off of each individual item. Instead it is literally double charging our customers for shipping which is terrible and make us look like we are trying to rip them off with shipping. For example, it charged a customer who order just two tshirts $14!! No one in the world charges $14 for shipping for two tshirts.

 

SHOPIFY - PLEASE FIX THIS ISSUE ASAP. It is a real problem. 

 

Thank you.

arayard
Excursionist
23 0 26

None of this makes sense. Shopify support even suggested apps that could solve this issue, but apps and developers all acknowledge that Shopify has made it virtually impossible to work around this issue. There are a lot of stores out there that have multiple locations but ship from a single warehouse. Customers should not be penalized with double and triple shipping costs because of this glitch. 

Sick and tired of going through our abandoned carts and orders placed where customers were charged over $75 for 3 items to be shipped. We just blame Shopify. 

The Admin dashboard suggested we lower our shipping costs to avoid a 62% abandoned cart rate. Great, we'd love to. It's too bad the platform itself won't let us. This is turning into a real customer service nightmare. All of the cool things we are able to do with Shopify Plus and the app ecosystem that supports it is overshadowed by this customer service nightmare.

Merje_Shaw1
Excursionist
12 0 18

My excitement was short-lived. The fix only worked when I was testing it and then reverted back to the same issue. This is so frustrating - I keep having abandoned carts because people don't want to pay double shipping which is totally understandable...

arayard
Excursionist
23 0 26

Exactly! For those that do end up going through with their order, we have to go in one by one and adjust their shipping rates and issue refunds. This is an effort to show we are not trying to rip people off on shipping rates and to retain our customer base. It's such a tedious process with many angry phone calls. The worst part is, we don't blame them!

In our phone calls and emails with customers we just blame Shopify not understanding how shipping works. 

einardo
Shopify Partner
10 0 15

I honestly can not believe that way over a year after, this is still an issue. Shopify needs to fix this, or make it optional.

An ecommerce solution that can not cater for a merchant with two or more locations that wants to offer free shipping over X dollars..?! Or at least not double or triple shipping costs - ? It is absolutely incredible. 

We lose merchants on a weekly over this issue.

For more than a year Shopify has answered with the old «we are aware of the issue - and may or may not provide a solution, but we do not have a time line» — still, when our merchants complain to Shopify support, more often than not the support staff are not aware of the issue and keeps pointing merchants to apps and other shopify experts - which makes us look stupid - until they realize that none of these apps or experts can help them either.

please Shopify, this is an sos call from a Shopify Partner. Fix this.

arayard
Excursionist
23 0 26

I have a feeling they are trying to cater to drop shippers than actual merchants and turning a blind eye on this functionality. Similarly to your position, this makes me look bad as the ecommerce head for our company having no answers and trying to explain time and time again how this is an issue we are still working on. 

einardo
Shopify Partner
10 0 15

You can of course cry like a baby and hope Shopify will covert your store to a single origin store, and use e.g. Zapiet for pickup at store - in many cases that is a much better solution than refunding shipping costs, @arayard . 
It’s kind of a solution, as long as you’re aware of the shipping profile/shipping functions you give up changing to single origin.

arayard
Excursionist
23 0 26

Appreciate your help @einardo. We looked into that solution as well and it doesn't work for us with the reasons you mentioned amongst others. On top of that, we are not looking to pay for a band aid solution for such simple functionality when already paying for Shopify Plus. 

otlit
Tourist
6 0 5

This is a pain to many merchants for a long time.

Many merchants and users have already raised the problem in serval occasions, including this forum which is monitored by Shopify's staff.

And instead of solving a real problem, Shopify is couragous enough to force it to all new stores.

Perhaps a big listed company like Shopify don't care about merchants' comments.

I would not recommend Shopify to any sane merchant.

Hope that this comment will help some considering merchant to choose others' platform and waste no time and money on Shopify.

 

markdc
Shopify Partner
23 0 22

We just ran into this issue. We are looking to hire a Ruby developer in the hopes that the script editor available in Shopify Plus will be able to circumvent this. Has anyone tried that?

MeredithJ
Excursionist
23 0 19
We have not tried that yet, definitely interested in a solution still as we
have even added a third store and had shipping rates triple depending on
what inventory it pulls out of.
arayard
Excursionist
23 0 26

@markdc Please let us know how that goes. This is a problem we have been trying to solve for a long time now and Shopify refuses to consider this as an actual issue. 

Melanie_Strong
Visitor
1 0 1


It's crazy that this is still an issue. I have two stores and we ship from only one of them. I am quitting Shopify after Christmas because of this issue. I have been waiting and waiting for a fix. Even the apps you have to pay extra for don't fix the problem. I use weight based rates, why the hell can't I just have the system add all of the weights together and display that as the shipping cost? Just give us an option to ship all products from one location with combined shipping - I don't know why this is such a problem but it's bullshit.

arayard
Excursionist
23 0 26

Yea, the back and forth with Shopify hasn't been fruitful. I try to follow up on this issue every 2-3 months. Even app developers who want to help say Shopify has made it impossible to fix. One app developer said: "Since this separation/addition happens outside of the actual shipping call, apps are not able to correct for this pricing variance at present."

 

At this point, specialists are suggesting moving all of our inventory to one location and adjusting inventory manually, enabling overselling, or sending separate invoices just for shipping charges. Not super helpful.

MeredithJ
Excursionist
23 0 19

HI, 

 

We are currently having this same issue and can't find a solution even after researching hundreds of apps. Just wondering if you were able to find a solution or app capable of fixing this issue. Thanks 🙂

Jackson_Cunnin2
Shopify Partner
113 0 15

Yeah this is annoying, we just switched to multi origin because we have warehouses on both coasts, but now we can't charge flat rate shipping? It shouldn't be the only option to have to pay more based on where products are shipping from.

einardo
Shopify Partner
10 0 15

Exactly. This is an absolute killer for merchants with multiple locations in one region. So much good has been done by Shopify lately, but this feature overshadows everything for a multi location merchant who wants to be in charge of their own shipping costs.

Please escalate this again and again, @hassain 

Fenix_Commerce
Shopify Partner
3 0 0

Hi Jackson,

We at Fenix Commerce can help you overcome this problem. We already do it for many clients.

Regards

Diffuse_Digital
Shopify Partner
2 0 2

How can you fix this? Please reach out to me, I have two stores I need to fix this for asap. Thanks

MeredithJ
Excursionist
23 0 19
Sadly, there is no fix yet and shopify does not recognize this as a major
issue. It causes the worst inventory nightmares and upset customers.
PromarkDC10
Tourist
9 0 0
Are you on the same domain as the rest of the community idk how it's all
set up,now,but ,I can tell you that you must choose one shipper and you
have to designate a shipping price for local and inter
Darel M McDonald Sr
arayard
Excursionist
23 0 26

If you are referring to our Shipeasy setup, I just named the rates corresponding to each shipper as we are not calculating live rates through the app. We also don't ship internationally so our rates aren't too complicated. 

Fenix_Commerce
Shopify Partner
3 0 0

Hi Meredith,

We at Fenix Commerce can help you overcome this problem. We already do it for many cleints.

Regards

MPD1
Visitor
1 0 3

Shopify, When are you going to fix it?

arayard
Excursionist
23 0 26

@einardo @MeredithJ 

 

https://apps.shopify.com/shipping-rates

They figured it out. I've been running with them since 12/2021 and for the most part they have this issue nailed down.

 

I'm now running a 'Weight Based' scenario with the following conditions. 

Cart quantity is greater than or equals 1 items.

Then I added a shipping method for that scenario with shipping calculated based on cart weight with range values corresponding to their shipping costs. The rates are not combining for multilocation orders. Based on my use case, I recommend doing some math to get to a safe spot so you don't lose out on shipping and building out pricing for weight ranges. 

 

Their support is top notch, we did run into some minor issues when I first launched and their support was quick to act to make sure things were running smooth. 

 

Their fees are reasonable if you have high volume of orders. To my surprise, I was also able to use the app for free shipping to specific regions instead of relying on Shopify's native free shipping rules. 

 

Though I understand the app ecosystem is there for the ability to do a little extra, I'm still in awe that @Shopify doesn't consider combined shipping rates as an issue on the native platform. Proper shipping calculation shouldn't be an app solution. Luckily we found Shipeasy to help us out for now. I'm still expecting Shopify to address this issue in their roadmap as it is just common sense. 

 

Feel free to reach out if anyone has any questions. 

Feronia
Visitor
1 0 0

3 years later and still no fix from Shopify. I am looking at other ecommerce platforms. I have looked at soo many apps that might try to make this work and the only one I could find was Calcurates but you need to have CCS on your Shopify, which means upgrading, Calcurates charges a monthly fee and to enable multi-origin options it's another upgrade. So it's too expensive for me.

MiraPatil
Excursionist
79 0 5

@Feronia 

yes, CCS is required and even Shopify now do not provide CCS for basic plan 😞

you have to upgrade Shopify plan with annually subscription or monthly fee $20