United Kingdom - split out countries, i.e. Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland

[DeanLindley]

Hi there,

I'm trying to restrict certainly countries within the UK but this doesn't appear to be a standard shipping settling in Shopify which I can't believe.

Am I correct?

Dean

[gamesonline]

Hi Guys,

I found that if you want a really robust solution the best app is this 

https://www.shipperhq.com

Costs $50 which equates to around £35 then you need the Shopify Carrier Rates enabled at $20 per month roughly £14.

If you want my full postcode list for the UK including the Channel Islands etc. it was a pain in the but acquiring all of this but it works flawlessly message me happy to share. 

[JohnSmithJim]

This UK/NI shipping situation is not sustainable and not acceptable - and is certainly not resolved. To rely on the community to find workarounds (at high, additional, recurring costs) for something that has already been implemented for other countries (US, Canada, Mexico, UAE , all have subdivisions for shipping...) is beyond comprehension.

We are currently unable to sell to Northern Ireland from Ireland because of this.

Shopify: your product managers and developers are overpaid!

[St3v3]

Same as above, I have had to stop selling to Northern Ireland because of this. This is a shame as I had a regular customer over there.

Its clear nothing will happen with this so am being left with little choice but to look for an alternative setup to Shopify.

I did receive an email from this site https://www.shopblocks.com/ . I have only had a quick look but think I will be setting up a site to have a play on with a view to moving to if it seems ok.

[Lagruga]

@JohnSmithJim - my thoughts exactly!

This is what I have been saying over and over again on this thread and many others, needless to say their direct customer support. I have been trying to push in different avenues as I suspect what we discuss here carries very little weight if any.

They are from Canada, just apply the same thing for us. It's nothing new!

Appalling to say the least.

[Nick]

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for your feedback and pain points with this. I have added it to the feature request of this topic which our development team has. The situation remains the same and but the team is aware of this and your frustration with it. Thanks again for giving more information about how this can be improved and why. Beyond that, we cannot provide speculation on when this feature may come but rest assured your feedback is being captured.

[Bulxar]

Click to expand...

This is in our todo list

[EZB]

The year is 2095. The United Kingdom has devolved into multiple independent states. Northern Ireland has unified with Ireland.  Shopify no longer exists in its current form but its successor, Skynet, maintains that the feature is under review and due to launch shortly.

[Bulxar]

[JimmyUK]

It's quite ridiculous that there's still no solution to this.

In our case we ship from England, and to NI it costs at least £1 extra per label.

[St3v3]

Its clear Shopify are not going to do anything about this, I would advise everyone to look for an alternative to this platform.  Its not something I want to do as I really dont have the time to deal with setting up the webshop again but we are being left with little choice.

[Liamx1]

>>>The situation remains the same and but the team is aware of this and your frustration with it. Thanks again for giving more information about how this can be improved and why. Beyond that, we cannot provide speculation on when this feature may come but rest assured your feedback is being captured.

Feedback on this issue has been captured for a very long time now, but as yet, there has been no real response on whether it will or will not be resolved by Shopify.  A clear yes, we intend to resolve this but can not provide a timeline, or a clear no, we can not resolve this and explanation why is needed. We are not asking for speculation, just an appropriate considered response. 

A clear yes would provide those of us for whom Shopify otherwise works well,  confidence to continue investing in the platform. A clear no would mean, those of us who are currently losing business in Northern Ireland or elsewhere would look at alternatives. 

[St3v3]

Its clear the answer is 'NO' from Shopify.

Only thing we can do is move to a new platform.

[existdigital]

I have 2 Shopify + clients that are considering migrating away as a result of inflexibility and non-compliance, with not just proper shipping zone control, but also customs documentation (we've worked around the later by integrating metafields with bespoke iPaaS provider at considerable monthly expense). It has resulted in a 40% increase in logistics charges into mainland Europe and our NI customer base dropping off completely, or becoming phone customers resulting in increase staffing overhead (total we could potentially save on one S+ website is >£30k per year).

I have a client (currently on Standard, but looking at Advanced) that has migrated to a 3PL this week and they will have to manually intervene with every NI order that comes through and our strategy is to exclude campaigning to those markets "until Shopify pulls their finger out" (their words, not mine).

It's such a simple change that it makes no logical sense when it hasn't been applied yet and it's seriously hurting UK business. Every UK based Head of eCommerce I speak with has the same reservations about switching to Shopify+, so you guys are potentially leaving money on the table by not resolving this issue.

Other changes I'd respectfully recommend:

• Enable multi-currency bank account payouts in Shopify payments (as per stripe, braintree, paypal etc), as customers are being charged for off-shore banking fees, and we're hit by forex which equals 6% revenue in some instances.
• Add a field to enable tax number collection (VAT or otherwise) in checkout, and NOT basket/cart pages. You're completely limiting B2B market potential by not having this feature as standard.

[JimmyUK]

It's a complete joke - we really feel the sting when someone orders from a Scottish Isle, which we also can't segment out.

[creamcornwall]

Hi everyone,

we use the Advanced Shipping Rules App. Yes, it's pricey but not as pricey as all those parcels to Orkney! The support is amazing. You can set up different product groupls and section those off by areas with specific postcodes. It is the only solution until Shopify gets more sophisticated

Rebecca @creamcornwall 

[JimmyUK]

It’s just not a viable solution - you either need to be on the Advanced plan, or pay extra for the real-time shipping rate option, and even then the postcode zoning is only on the $59/month option.

It’s poor from Shopify and they likely won’t do anything because they’re happy with commission on app revenue.

[Perfect_Body_an]

We will contact our company`s lawyer regarding discrimination of England based companies because Shopify is able to split out different territories of the same countries as well as different countries without extra cost and apps.

NI, Scotland, Highland of Scotland and its islands shipping cost is much higher. For a parcel of 6 Kg to Northern Ireland the Royal Mail 2nd class request £20 shipping cost while the customer did not pay for shipping because ordered over £47.  This would not be exist for NI customers. 

Another order the NI customer paid £4.59 while the shipping cost of Royal Mail 2nd class was £8.79.

Brexit is another issue with Northern Ireland.

Moreover, Shopify not refunding the transaction fee and rates after cancellation of orders.

[Liamx1]

Advanced Shipping Rules, like the vast majority of Shopify apps,  is most likely not GDPR compliant for those of us in the EU as their privacy policy page is blank. 

[JimmyUK]

It's coming! I'm not sure why but Shopify rolled out the changes then rolled them back without notice. They also deleted the changelog, but it can be seen on archive.org

https://shopify.dev/changelog/new-provinces-for-united-kingdom

[George_Greenhil]

@JimmyUK Looks promising but I'll only believe it when I see it as a live feature for myself. Reported this issue to Shopify for the past 5 years and there has been 0 progress after well over 10 times of me notifying them to make changes to the UK shipping regions. 

[EZB]

Looks like this could be happening - noticed some issues with postcodes with orders this morning. Went into  shipping and lo and behold the UK is now 5 regions!!! Let's not tell them about the Highlands and Islands and get through this first! Woo!

[PaulBarnes]

Yes, at long last there are regions in the UK

[George_Greenhil]

Where are you guys seeing this? In my admin, it still only has the United Kingdom as one zone?

[JimmyUK]

@George_Greenhil If you look at the screenshot it says effective April 26th.

Shopify actually rolled it out and then rolled it back - let's check back on April 26th.

[Bulxar]

Yep, we have this zones a month ago too. They are testing what thwy want on our live shops

[JamesMcC]

Excellent news!!!  Now means those based in Ireland can freely sell into Northern Ireland again without breaking brexit and custom rule.  Now need to chat more with HRMC to see if we could find a workable solution (for smaller Irish entities) to service the remaining UK countries! 😀

[lolly2020]

JamesMc,

It's good news for us Irish company for sure, as we can separate Northern Ireland from rest of UK. If you have any update from your contact with HMRC please do let me know.

My accountant mentioned he can do registration for UK VAT and process VAT ---> but I did not follow through to confirm cost for same, cos we need to decide if it's worth it.

Let's hope it's rolled out by the 26th of April.

[EZB]

under shipping settings>general>edit zone

[Bulxar]

Don't do it people. I made this changes before you did.

And now THE UK is unchecked and I can\t even check it again. It says you should select one or few zones for UK. But shopify removed the zones LOL they disappear

[JamesMcC]

Yep,  I went it to see if I could re-edit and it’s back to UK only!  Maybe someone from Shopify can direct message all on this thread with the latest... but sounds promising!

[Bulxar]

Now if you check uk again you will never can save the settings page/rate LOL

[Bulxar]

Even you can't select UK in any other stores right now(it doesn't save settings). They messed the UK zone

[JamesMcC]

If based in Ireland you are legally allowed to sell into Northern Ireland as normal (as I understand it)... however if selling into the other territories you need a UK VAT number, report monthly etc (which is fine if you have sufficient business to support the extra time/cost).  We spoke to 4 advisors in HMRC/Gov.Uk and they felt we should be treated like local SME’s if revenue was under £85k... and suggested we write to the HMRC office in Glasgow.  we did this in early January however cannot get an answer.  So we believe NI should be OK.

[JamesMcC]

Looks like it live now (20 April)... just added back in Northern Ireland (where we can legally sell)! Great News!  Just click on UK and now the 5 regions come up!

[Bulxar]

They will disappear, don't do that. Otherwise you can catch some issues. Dont do anything until shopify announce