How to effectively handle shipping for heavy pottery and light t-shirts?

[Felbz]

Hey All,

New to Shopify and working to get my store up and running soon. We sell all sizes, shapes, weights of pottery. I think I have a work around for shipping that won't be so high that customers abandon carts or so low that I loose money. I've created a default box that is 12" x 6" x 6" weighing 4 lbs.

BUT..... we also want to sell our custom t-shirts. The shipping would be much cheaper than my default box. Any suggestions? 

Thank you. 

[sniper2804 · Accepted solution]

You could make use of the Custom Shipping Profiles option given by Shopify for this. Basically you create 2 shipping profiles - one for heavy stuff and one for t-shirts. And then assign different rates to both profiles.

[Felbz]

Thanks! I've started doing this now. It seems to work best if I just plug in my own rate instead of carrier-calculated rates listed. Could not figure out how to get a reasonable USPS rate for sending a t shirt in a poly-bag. So I just calculated it myself using the USPS website. Fortunately we only ship in the USA. Thanks for your help! 

[Mirdas]

Hello @Felbz ,

The simplest approach for you would be to set up weight configurations for all products and establish rates for each weight range.

Alternatively, you could generate distinct shipping profiles based on various product categories.

If you're aiming for more precise shipping costs involving dimensional weight, you might need to consider using an application that can compute carrier-calculated rates for your chosen shipping provider, while also accommodating dimensional weight calculations.

[Felbz]

Thank you. On our old website we could plug in the shipping price for each item. Not totally accurate because of shipping distances but close enough. I used Shippo and would just do an average rate calculation and list that price.  We have sooooo many different sizes and weight for our pottery pieces. 

When you say to establish rates for each weight range, doesn't Shopify always use the default package when calculating shipping at checkout? In my Shipping/Delivery setting I have 5 package settings based on dimensions and weight but it seems the shipping price quoted at checkout is always based on the default package. Is that correct? 

For the t-shirts I have now set up a distinct shipping profile. I had to go back and forth on the USPS website calculating shipping to see which option I needed to plug into the Shopify shipping profile. USPS ground advantage was coming in too high. First class is no longer available. So I settled on setting my own rate based on USPS website calculations. 

I would like to investigate more precise shipping cost based on dimensions and weight. Where do I research applications that can compute carrier-calculated rates?  Is this an option for someone who has just the basic Shopify package? 

[Mirdas]

Hi @Felbz , my suggestion is to ignore the dimensions and consider only the weight to determine the shipping cost. Please understand that you should aim to provide only approximate rates at checkout. To provide accurate rates, you will require carrier-calculated rates (CCR), which need to be enabled on your plan. The Shopify Basic plan doesn't come with CCR features.