How can I enable Canadian customers to purchase from my website?

[davidsgarden]

How do I set up my website so that people from Canada can buy from me.

[Mac · Accepted solution]

Hi, @davidsgarden! 

Thanks for reaching out in our Community forums and for sharing your concern, I’d be happy to help.

I'm also happy to hear that you are looking to set up your website to sell your products to Canada. Are you able to confirm whether you are located in Canada, or if you're already selling in another country and are looking to expand to Canada?

If you're just starting out, the first thing you will want to do is set up a payment gateway as this will allow you to collect payments from customers in Canada. You do have a number of payment providers available for Canada which can be viewed on our payment gateway page. My suggestion would be Shopify Payments, as it allows customers to have a seamless checkout experience for credit card purchases and allows you to track your orders and payments all in one place.

The next step will be to determine your shipping strategy. There are several common methods used by our merchants which include offering free shipping, charging exact costs, or providing flat-rate shipping. I suggest checking out this help document to learn more about finding the best shipping option. Then, you can set up your shipping rates within Shopify accordingly. Pro tip: you may be eligible to receive shipping discounts on Canada post rates through Shopify Shipping.

Feel free to reply back to this thread with any questions or updates and we can continue our conversation further!

[davidsgarden]

Thank you. We got two orders, and the shipping is pretty high, so we are not going to do it.

[Mac]

Hi again, @davidsgarden!

Thank you very much for following up.

I understand that shipping costs can play a significant role in profits and expenses. I did want to take some time to share a few methods to reduce these costs. 

My first suggestion would be to check out our guide on How to Reduce Shipping Costs for Small Businesses which goes over all of the key details to reduce shipping costs.This guide will cover various aspects like packaging, labor for sending an item, courier costs for collecting and delivering item. It will also go over ways to fully optimize your shipping workflow. 

You can also adjust your shipping plan by opting to incorporate your shipping fees in your pricing strategies. This is particularly helpful if free shipping is a competitive must-have in your niche, one of the strategies to remain profitable is to plan for the cost when you price your products.

In addition to this, setting up pickup and local delivery is another great way to speed up your fulfillment time and create a better experience for your customers. When customers are close to your business, you can offer unique, local methods for them to receive their products. More on this can be found on this help document here.

Hope you found this information helpful! I'm happy to answer any questions you may have!

All the best!