What's the combined shipping rate for multiple profiles in Shopify?

Bret9876
Visitor
1 0 0

Let's say I have two products in cart, one product A belongs to Profile A and other product B belongs to Profile B.

So, by our logic, we need to show a combined shipping rate on checkout. This is fine.

Now, say product A has two applicable rates in profile A (i.e. Standard - 10$ and Express - 30$), and product B has two applicable rates in profile B (i.e. Deluxe - 20$ and Super Express - 50$)

In such case what will be the combined amount offered to user?

Replies 17 (17)

Dirk
Shopify Staff
2209 247 502

Hey, @Bret9876 

If you decide to create multiple shipping profiles or have multiple locations within profiles, then some orders might contain products from different profiles or locations. When this happens, the separate shipping rates for each product are added together. This provides the customer with a single shipping rate at checkout. 

In your case, when shipping rates have the same shipping name (Eg. 'Standard Shipping' or 'Expedited Shipping'), they are added together and shown to your customer at checkout, even those in different shipping profiles. If your rates have different names, then the cheapest options are added together and shown to your customer at checkout with the name Shipping.

For example, suppose that you have two shipping profiles: one for cat beds and one for cat food. They each offer a standard mail service and an expedited mail service. If the standard and expedited mail services have the same name in both shipping profiles, then a customer who places an order with cat food and a cat bed sees both shipping options at checkout. We have a specific shipping profiles guide that outlines this further if you'd like to know more.

If there is anything else I can help you with, please let me know.

Dirk | Social Care @ Shopify 
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Domdom
Shopify Partner
9 0 4

Hi @Dirk,

What if I don't want to combine the shipping rates but instead limit the shipping options to methods that are possible for all items in the cart.

Here's the scenario: 

  • Items A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, are simple products that can ship postal or courier services (cheap or fast options)
  • Item L can only ship by courier (because it contains lithium batteries)

Now:

Customer 1 has A & D in their cart so they get two shipping methods offered: cheap postal & expensive courier

Customer 2 has B & L in their cart so they can only be offered the option that is compatible with shipping all items in their cart which is the courier.  

Since all items ship together in this courier package, we can't combine the shipping rates as that would duplicate the costs unnecessarily and make the whole shipment unaffordable.

How do I set this up? I've read through the shipping profiles page multiple times but can't figure how to do it. 

Thanks.

 

Dirk
Shopify Staff
2209 247 502

Hey, @Domdom 

Just to clarify what you're asking:

 

Let's say product B has two shipping options:

Postal Shipping for $4

Courier Shipping for $13

And Product L has one shipping option:

Courier Shipping for $13

 

Then let's say a customer adds products B and L to their cart. You don't want the shipping cost to be $4 + $13 = $17?

Instead, you would rather it just be $13? Is there a particular reason you wouldn't want to add on the cost that your business is going to incur to ship out product B at no cost?

Dirk | Social Care @ Shopify 
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Domdom
Shopify Partner
9 0 4

@Dirk 

The reason is quite simple if you see it in terms of international shipments on small products. International shipping always has a high "base price" and then smaller increments based on weight. Even if you ship a tiny item, the base price will always start at something like $12.- but the incremental price based on weight or volume could be as little as $1 or even negligible.

Imagine these items A & L are an electric toothbrush and replacement brushes. With your additive system, the customer has to pay $20.- for the courier on the lithium battery electric toothbrush and then another $12 if they buy extra replacement brushes. This is an exorbitant amount of extra shipping to pay when in fact there is no real extra cost to ship those extra items together.

If this shop has mostly products that can all ship by postal and it adds one electric toothbrush to the collection, then suddenly, it becomes impossible to combine the items and get reasonable shipping. Or at least, it seems impossible to me and that's what I'm trying to find out how to do.

Thanks.

Dirk
Shopify Staff
2209 247 502

At this time, there is no way to disable combined rates natively if you have multiple shipping profiles, or have multiple locations within profiles. We have some more information you can check out on combined rates here.

The way this feature is currently implemented is to ensure merchants don't end up overpaying for shipping when customers order products from multiple profiles or locations. With that said, I understand how this may not be desirable for every business out there. At this time, a workaround would be to use a third-party app to set up more specific shipping rules. Some options you could consider are:

 

Better Shipping
Advanced Shipping Rules 

Parcelify - Shipping 

I've also submitted your feedback to our developers for potential future implementation. I hope this information has been helpful, and please feel free to reach out any time if you need further assistance.

Dirk | Social Care @ Shopify 
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Domdom
Shopify Partner
9 0 4

@Dirk Thanks for taking the time to review and respond. I'll take a look at those 3rd party apps.

Having thought about it a little more, it seems like Shopify could solve this quite elegantly by implementing a checkbox option on a per-product basis where you can restrict the shipping method for an individual item. That would be a very powerful option.

By default, all shipping methods would be selected for all products, but you can uncheck the methods that are not suitable for certain products. 

It would say something like on each product page:

This item ships by: (displays your shipping methods)

  • USPS
  • DHL
  • UPS
  • Singapore Post
  • Aramex

With this method, the majority of your catalog ships by all methods available, but those fragile items, perishables, fancy chocolates, or lithium batteries can be restricted to a particular carrier that you trust for that one item. 

Now, even if your cart has multiple items in it, the shipping rates offered would be restricted to the ones compatible with all items in the cart. Everything can still ship together, in one box, using a single shipping method and charging only one rate rather than adding up separate charges and making it too expensive for the customer.

I can imagine a lot of different merchant types could really benefit from this simple option.

Dominic

Dirk
Shopify Staff
2209 247 502

Hey, @Domdom 

I really appreciate your insightful and thorough feedback. I think those are some great suggestions that I'll pass down to our development team.

Dirk | Social Care @ Shopify 
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LauraM2
Visitor
2 0 1

Hi @Dirk,

I am also looking for the same feature in not combining shipping costs to customers. In my scenario, we have $5 flat rate shipping. Some items (Alcohol) can only be sold within one Province/State, but other items (Retail) can be sold throughout the Country. I used the general shipping rate for the Province and a custom shipping profile to specify products for the Country. However, this means that if a customer in the Province purchases 1 x Alcohol item and 1 x Retail Item, then shipping is combined as $5 + $5 from each profile and now we are overcharging them with $10. We want to charge the customer just $5 flat rate no matter what items they add to their cart. I will look into the apps you have suggested in this thread, but just wanted to provide the feedback since I can see this is a request for development team.

 

Many thanks,

Laura

Dirk
Shopify Staff
2209 247 502

Hey, @LauraM2 

I also appreciate your thorough feedback! I can see why that type of functionality would be beneficial to your business. I'll go ahead and pass this feedback up to our development team.

Dirk | Social Care @ Shopify 
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Max11
Shopify Partner
76 4 36

I would like to add into this discussion the issue I am currently facing with shipping which is relevant due to the stacking of shipping profiles.

I essentially have 3 shipping options.
$15    0-3kg express bag (these can fit items up to 450mm)
$24    0-5kg express bag (these can fit items up to 600mm - these items are put in their own profile) 
$??    0-25kg standard Sendle (standard carrier calculated rates) 

We sell gas struts of varying sizes from 195mm up to 750mm.
If a customer buys one 195mm it will be $15 for express.
If a customer buys one 550mm it will be $24 for express.
If a customer buys one 550mm and one 195mm it will be $39 for express.
This is because one item is in a custom shipping profile and one is in general.
But it should really be $24 total as they both can go in the 0-5kg express bag (both under 600mm).

I think this is a pretty basic setup for shipping; 2 express bag sizes and a carrier-calculated standard, yet, I can't charge accurate prices.

Essentially different profiles shouldn't exclude other products, as some profiles are sets within larger profiles. EG my 0-3kg Express satchel profile products are all a subset of my 0-5kg Express satchel profile, but they are treated as separate entities that can't be shipped together.

Even if I drop down to one large 0-5kg express bag size, I still can't make it work properly. Only products smaller than 600mm can be shipped with this method. So I will need to make a shipping profile that contains all items that can be shipped with it. But now they are no longer in the general shipping profile, so I need to add calculated shipping to this profile and I'm back where I started but with different sizes.
If a customer buys a 550mm strut it will be $9.50 for standard (from carrier-calculated) 
If a customer buys a 700mm strut it will be $9.50 for standard (from carrier-calculated)
If a customer buys a 550mm strut and a 700mm strut it will be $19 for standard (from carrier-calculated)
Because they're in separate shipping profiles.

 

Really, the whole thing is kind of absurd and fundamentally broken.

In my case, the problem could be solved if products are able to be in multiple profiles and shopify first looks for a profile containing all products in the cart then goes about stacking profiles.

saivismitha
Shopify Partner
138 7 32

Hello @Max11,

 In Shopify, you cannot disable the rates at the checkout because as both of them were different shipping profiles, the rates are calculated as combined shipping rates at the checkout. The only possible way is to apply specific shipping rules.

Ultimately this feature is in place to ensure merchants don’t end up overpaying for shipping when customers order products from multiple profiles or locations. Some options you can consider are,

- Better Shipping.
- Advanced Shipping Rules.
- Parcelify

Alternatively, to get the rates as per your calculation of $24 according to weight range between 0-5kg,


You can create a general shipping profile for all products and each product into the same shipping profile, and use the Multi-carrier shipping label app to create different custom shipping boxes based on the product size and dimensions with the box packing method in the app. The app chooses the right box based on the products placed in orders.


For example,


You can create a box for the product having 195mm and another box for the product having 550mm. As both the products are falling within the 0-5kg express bag, the app chooses the right box and the shipping cost will be $24 for both the products combined. You can try the app with a 14-day free trial and contact the support for any help required.

Customer Success @ PluginHive
Shipping Automation | FedEx shipping | Multi-carrier shipping | Shipment Tracking | Australia Post shipping
Max11
Shopify Partner
76 4 36

Thanks for taking the time to reply but I actually would rather a response from Shopify, not someone spruiking their app.

I understand that locations comes into play in relation to shipping profiles. There is a fundamental issue with how Shopify formulates its shipping calculations, as I clearly stated.

As an example, if only part of my store products can be shipped express, I need to create a separate profile. I then need to put standard shipping in that separate profile too. Now I have two profiles both with standard shipping that stack on top of each other for no reason. Customers will get charged double the actual shipping costs even though they can be shipped together.

Yes I can pay for an app. But apps should be for additional functionality not to fix broken functionality.

LauraM2
Visitor
2 0 1

Completely agree @Max11, I don't fancy paying for an app that should just be a basic Shopify functionality. Packing items in the same box is a clear preference for many and we do not want to deter our customers (or falsely advertise) by have doubled up shipping costs.

Max11
Shopify Partner
76 4 36

@Dirk

Are you able to please pass on my use case and issue to the dev team as well.

Thanks

Dirk
Shopify Staff
2209 247 502

Will do, @Max11 

Thanks for your feedback!

Dirk | Social Care @ Shopify 
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Julie39
Tourist
4 0 0

Hello @Dirk , like @Bret9876  I am also trying to workout how not to overcharge shipping (completely putting off customers from buying multiple items) when a customer selects items from more than one shipping profile. 

And what happens if they select two items from the same profile? Is that calculated as one shipping charge or two? 

Currently I have shipping based on cart value, which is also less than ideal.

 

saivismitha
Shopify Partner
138 7 32

Hi @Bret9876,
 
 The combined rates at the check out are based on two criteria,

1. Price-based shipping rates and
2. weight-based shipping rates are combined differently.

When combining price-based shipping rates, Shopify combines rates that apply to the total price of the cart.


When combining weight-based shipping rates, Shopify combines rates that apply to the weights of the individual products.


Rates are added together only if there is no option to have a single rate from one shipping profile or location.
If all items can come from one location but there is more than one location that carries these items, then fulfillment priority picks the rates from the location that fulfills the order.

Customer Success @ PluginHive
Shipping Automation | FedEx shipping | Multi-carrier shipping | Shipment Tracking | Australia Post shipping