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

[Nick · Accepted solution]

Hi Dean, 

Nick here from Shopify. 

Really great question. Currently, the only way to break up shipping prices across the UK would be via an app. This is not native to the Shopify admin. There are a few apps which could be worth you looking into here for this:

• Postcode Shipping Extension
• Better Shipping
• Royal Mail Shipping

I completely understand this is not ideal and the understanding for it, is that the postcode system across the UK is the same. I will, however, put in a feature request on your behalf about it to make our team aware for future development.

Thank you for bringing this up also, it's feedback for things such as this from store owners like yourself that let us know what's on your mind and how to make it better. 

All the best, Nick

[Dave_shopify]

I just wanted to bump this, it's been known for years that Shopify is missing this essential feature.

I think the severity of the issue needs to be highlighted:

1. you cannot sell to Ireland with Shopify out the box because you can't specify a higher shipping price to the customer
2. If you sell only to England, Wales, Scotland as a UK business, the cost of shipping to Ireland is huge and you have to refund any orders you get from Ireland, hurting your reputation.

As a web dev. I come across this a lot with clients who have Shopify and want to exclude orders from Ireland, you can't without paying monthly for an entire app that allows lots of advanced shipping options, the client doesn't need any of that.

This affects every single store in the UK.

[creamcornwall]

Hi

The shipping options are really poor on Shopify, driving me crazy!

[Bselectricgoods]

Found a pretty simple way round this if your issue is excluding specific countries within Europe... ie. Northern Ireland ... 

Add your own customised shipping rate for example I done Northern Ireland: £15.00 any product shipped. 

Then make sure you include in the "Shipping" Legal page... If a product is purchased via the "Free shipping" and you are based in Northern Ireland your order will be cancelled and money returned. As follows:

[Re1]

Am I missing something @Bselectricgoods ?  You say add a customised shipping rate for Northern Ireland, but that's the point of this thread isn't it, we can't?  At least, not on the Basic Plans.  If I have misunderstood and this is possible, then it still seems like allowing orders, then cancelling them is pretty unprofessional (no offense intended to you, I can see you're looking for solutions).

Shopify, please can we have an update on this?  As part of Brexit, orders shipped from the mainland UK to Northern Ireland might require customs checks come January 1st, so it's important that we are able to separate England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  Customs declarations are potentially complex and expensive, so some retailers might want to put their orders to Northern Ireland on hold until they are confident with the process, procedure and cost.

As others mention, given the additional cost of shipping across the Irish sea (and Scottish islands), we need to be able to treat Northern Ireland separately.

The United Kingdom is a political union of four unique countries.  As a comparison, the EU is a political union, but each country has it's own unique shipping rate.  The expense of upgrading to the Advanced Shopify plan is not an option for a new and small business.

[PaulBarnes]

I cannot understand why Shopify won't set UK different zones for the UK, especially N. Ireland. It's a no brainer. 

[Nodlehs]

I've a similar but opposite problem. As my business is based in Southern Ireland I can ship at the same cost to Northern Ireland but it is far more expensive to ship to Scotland, Wales and England and there is no way to separate these.

They have got to fix this for BREXIT!! 

[noahsforestfrie]

If you speak to shopify support they can enable just the carrier calculated shipping for a fee so you don't have to upgrade to the top package.

[EZB]

Shopify can you hear us 🙂 ? 

[8thDial]

It would appear not.

Shipping rates can't be an addition to the website via an app - what if it has a data breach/slows the site down/goes bust?

[lolly2020]

@Nick 

It seems Shopify is selling to European Customers without updating themselves with the laws and requirement and to be honest as a new customer, I feel cheated.

With Brexit Northern Ireland is a dual tax country ( which Shopify should know this at this stage), It can be taxed like an EU Country or UK Country, we are  in Republic of Ireland and we will need to tax Northern Ireland like an EU country for us to be tax compliant so it means different tax and shipping rate for Northern Ireland compared to GB, Wales and Scotland (i.e. rest of UK)

No app at present will sort this issue

You have so many countries in zones and as of yet despite over 5yrs request your company have refused to zone UK, at a bare minimum Northern Ireland should be separated from the rest of UK, now with Brexit.

This is very important as Shopify is useless to us now, if we can't be tax complaint. We have paid and invested in your service.

I really feel Shopify should not be allowed to sell in the EU to be honest, so many issues are not sorted to be legally compliant with sales in EU countries e.g. gift cards, anyway I digress

Please can you flag this up as urgent with your developing team !!

Thanks

[Nick]

Hi @lolly2020,

I spoke to someone on the Shopify tax team about this. They mentioned that as a part of Brexit, Northern Ireland adopted a dual status, falling within both UK and EU VAT regimes. Orders from within the United Kingdom to Northern Ireland will have UK VAT applied. Orders from within the European Union to Northern Ireland will have the appropriate EU country VAT applied. I made a table for you on this which you can see below that will hopefully help also: 

[lolly2020]

@Nick 

Thanks

I am aware it's dual tax, like I said in my previous message, the problem is to apply tax it needs to be a separate zone or be treated like a separate country. The table you sent is correct, but the problem is how do I select N.I  separate from UK.

If I go to taxes I can't select Northern Ireland separate from UK. If I go to shipping I can't select N.I.

May be you can walk me through, how to fix this.

[lolly2020]

@Nick 

I have decided to get help from support !!

Thanks

[EZB]

please separate out NI in Shopify it would make this a little less painful! 

[lolly2020]

@EZB 

Really, it's the best solution as for us with all this going on, we just want to ship to N.I. only, and not the rest of the UK, until all this Brexit issues settles!

It's a Shame they are waiting this long to sort this out

[EZB]

Can we just spam this post until they notice or do we need to start a new thread as this one appears to be solved -far from it! 

[PaulBarnes]

I'm not sure what Shopify are doing or if they are all that interested. A lot of the time companies use these platforms so that their customers can let off steam with each other.
They will only start to take notice if hundreds of people have the same problem.
It would be good if someone from Shopify let us know their plan.

[lolly2020]

I have started a new question/ request as this coming up as solved

https://community.shopify.com/c/Payments-Shipping-Fulfillment/United-Kingdom-split-out-Zones-Norther...

[lolly2020]

@Nick 

I can confirm that taxes are coming up correctly for Northern Ireland - so thanks for your help.

However we still have same problem of not been able to restrict shipping to just N.Ireland

At present the full price with VAT is showing to other UK customers (but VAT is not been applied by Shopify), just like US customers, it appears we are very expensive if they have to VAT and customs after ordered has been delivered.

[Lagruga]

@Nick - we are sick of it and your team isn't listening to you for the past 5 years or so, customers have been going on about this for quite sometime.

Send us the email of the person in charge, its about time they hear from us.

Thanks.

[creamcornwall]

Look at the Advanced Shipping Rules app, they a=have been really helpful and we've been using it for about 2 years now. When Shopify have sorted the shipping then I'll stop using it

[creamcornwall]

Yes, we had to do this in order to use the Advanced Shipping App. I can see that Shopify has different shipping Profiles, but I don't have time to investigate how good it is. The ap pwe have works really well and at the moment, it's the only easy to control selling to Highlands and Islands

[JamesMcC]

Now more reliant than ever.  We sell from Ireland to rest of world.  Due to UK Vat issues and Brexit/Customs issues it it currently too  expensive to sell to UK (plus DPD and Fedex/TNT have stopped service due to customs issues)... but we still can supply Northern Ireland.  If we had the ability to apply separate rules to Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales this would be hugely beneficial, not just legally but also as different courtiers apply to each area... we could then be more competitive.  Shopify do split out other areas...eg US so it would be super if this was standard.

[EZB]

Shopify can you hear us?

[St3v3]

Simple answer @EZB, yes they can hear us but just choosing to ignore us.

[EZB]

Shopify are you listening and prepared to act? 

[lolly2020]

Let's see if they do anything, but for now, we are looking at other platform. As we will be leaving by end of February!!. They are fully aware brexit is COMING, this should have been dealt it before brexit.

[JamesMcC]

I’d be surprised if Shopify do not come up with a proper solution given that there are over 66 million people in the UK Market and circa 450million people in EU Market whom this issue could be relevant to.  Strange one of the leading platforms have not got the issue addressed yet... especially as they are customer focused... I hope!

[St3v3]

For those who are getting fed up of waiting for Shopify to resolve this, I received an email this morning from another company called https://www.shopblocks.com/

They appear to be a UK based company too so we should not get the same issues that we have had with Shopify for far to long.

I havent looked into it yet myself but thought it may of use to someone.

[Re1]

This week I was notified that Shopify will not be refunding their transaction fee when I refund a customer.  So I am still paying Shopify even when I cancel all of my Northern Ireland orders, which I'm doing because there's no way of preventing the orders being placed in the first place, without buying extra Apps/upgrading my account.  Thank you Shopify.

[EZB]

@St3v3 you mean https://www.shopblocks.com/ are actually listening their customers ? @shopify are you getting this?

[Liamx1]

Again. adding my voice to this. This is the major pain point with retailers in Ireland using Shopify.  Shipping from Dublin to Belfast is no different than shipping from Ottawa to Montreal.  

[PaulBarnes]

I agree it's a real problem for me too, I would like to grow my business in N Ireland. A guy from Davenport coffee in Sligo told me what he does. I thought it was very clever and now I'm doing it too.
In my UK settings I'm giving options specifically for N. Ireland so if someone anywhere in the UK (incl NI) orders 1kg worth of goods they will get options
N Ireland only €6.95
Rest of UK €14.95

Someone last week ordered from Shefield and chose the N I option.
It worked out perfect as the VAT on the goods, which I would normally refund, covered the difference in the postage rates. So far no problems.
Libertiespapers.ie

[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

[JamesMcC]

Hi George,  I’d try again or refresh your screen.

 I literally selected “Setting” (bottom left corner)  => “Shipping and delivery” => “Manage Rates”... scroll to bottom... “Load More Zones”... scroll down to UK (I had previously Uk there without shipping rate)... select “Edit zone”... scroll down to UK and select and you should now have the 5 regions/countries. 

Failing that maybe reboot your computer/web browser... and try again.

Hope it work,

Best Regards,

James