Issues with Free Shipping when customers add non-physical products to cart

[LaniK]

We recently launched a charity on our shopify store, where people can make donations to our chosen charity when they purchase from our site. When setting it up, I had tested and made sure that shipping wouldn't apply because I had unchecked 'This is a physical product' in the donation product page - however, I've just realised that even though no shipping rate applies to it, it's still counting towards the free shipping minimum. 

This is an issue for us because someone could make a $40 donation (which we pass on directly to the charity), and then buy a $9 product, and they will reach our free shipping minimum. We'd then have to pay $12 to ship the product to them. We want to make sure the shipping rates only apply to those products which are actually shipped!

I can't seem to work out another way to exclude the donation product from the free shipping minimum spend, I assume there's some finicky workaround with the shipping zones but can't seem to figure it out - as if I put the donation products in another shipping zone, I'm not sure how it would work when people then add physical products to their cart. Which shipping zone applies?

Help please!

Thanks, 

Lani

[Ron-Anderson]

Hi @LaniK, 

It is my understanding that you already reached out to our support team asking if our app can solve this problem, and we have responded to your ticket, so please be on the lookout for our response. I wanted to reply here as well, as there may be others experiencing a similar issue.

Unfortunately, the issue you're having is a limitation with Shopify Shipping. Shopify doesn't ignore the non-physical items when there is a price condition. 

With Intuitive Shipping, you are able to achieve the outcome you're looking for. Our system ignores non-physical items and only looks at the physical items in the cart. You can set up a Shipping Scenario with a flat rate shipping method that activates free shipping when the cart total (physical products only) exceeds a certain threshold.

You can install Intuitive Shipping for free and try us out in Testing Mode for as long as you need. We also offer a 14-day free trial so you can try us out in a live setting to make sure we're a good fit for your store. If you would like more information about Intuitive Shipping, please book an appointment with one of our team members who would be happy to give you a demo.

Full disclosure: Shopify does require you to activate the Carrier-Calculated Rates feature when using any third-party shipping rate calculator, including Intuitive Shipping. If you're on the Basic or Shopify plan, this feature can be added to your plan for USD $20/month. If you switch your plan to annual billing, they'll include the feature at no charge and knock 10% off your plan cost (you still need to ask to have the feature activated). If you're on the Advanced plan or higher, the feature is already included.

Best regards,

Ron

[WingT]

@LaniK I solved this issue by setting the non-physical products as "requires shipping," then creating a new shipping profile that contained all these products. In this shipping profile, I made a shipping rule that said if the order value was over $1, shipping was free.

That way no shipping is added to these products, but their value does not contribute to the free shipping threshold. 

[SCS28]

@WingT We couldn't get that to work right, did you create another shipping profile for all of your physical products (leaving the "general shipping rates" blank)?  When I test it out, it doesn't seem to make a difference, since in the general shipping profile the threshold is simply total "order value", not "order value of these particular products" (to exclude the added value of the digital products).

It seems rather ridiculous that the Shopify solution is to cost us $50+/month for this simple exclusion....we are trying to save our customer's money here, and this is a simple if/then...So now we have to mark everything up to accommodate??

[WingT]

@SCS28 Yes, I left the default shipping profile with all my physical products in it (along with the rule that free shipping applies if the order value is over $150). I created a new, 2nd shipping profile and added all the non-physical products to it (I had to mark them as "physical" first). Then I added a rule to this 2nd shipping profile that said if the order value was over $1, shipping was free. So the non-physical products are not charged shipping, but they also do not count towards free shipping. 

[Sarah45654]

Hello! I tried this out and it didn't work for my particular needs. I have all products set up on price based calculated shipping. Like so: https://share.getcloudapp.com/GGu4W90B

I need to somehow get non-physical products to have free shipping and not go towards the price based shipping calculation I've set up under the General shipping profile (screenshot above). I tried setting up a second shipping profile and was able to pull in the non-physical items after I set them as "requires shipping". Then I set up Price = $0 and a condition on order weight (0b to 0lb). This worked when someone is trying to purchase multiple non-physical items together, without any physical items. However, whenever a "mixed" purchase is made with physical and non-physical products, the non-physical product price went towards the price based calculated shipping. This is the condition I set up under the new shipping profile where I added the non-physical products: https://share.getcloudapp.com/Kou745J2

Do you have any ideas here? Any help would be greatly appreciated! 

[Sarah45654]

@WingT 

Hello! I tried this out and it didn't work for my particular needs. I have all products set up on price based calculated shipping. Like so: https://share.getcloudapp.com/GGu4W90B

I need to somehow get non-physical products to have free shipping and not go towards the price based shipping calculation I've set up under the General shipping profile (screenshot above). I tried setting up a second shipping profile and was able to pull in the non-physical items after I set them as "requires shipping". Then I set up Price = $0 and a condition on order weight (0b to 0lb). This worked when someone is trying to purchase multiple non-physical items together, without any physical items. However, whenever a "mixed" purchase is made with physical and non-physical products, the non-physical product price went towards the price based calculated shipping. This is the condition I set up under the new shipping profile where I added the non-physical products: https://share.getcloudapp.com/Kou745J2

Do you have any ideas here? Any help would be greatly appreciated!