Why is product weight required to be more than 0 for free shipping?

[FatRich]

Hello..

I was wondering if anybody could help me out with this error that just started happening. I put zero weight on products that we ship for free. today i noticed it's telling me the weight should be more than 0. never really did any changes to it except adjust the price which is on promo.

Help? 

Thanks in advance!

[TellyTubby]

I'm having the same problem, started today 01/09/22. I set the weight to 0.1, ran a test sale and it had no negative affect.

[FatRich]

thanks for the reply. im glad its not just me. but i did the same 0.1 weight just to be able to save the promo price. doing a test sale just now charges me shipping.

anybody from Shopify that could enlighten us here? 

[Timed_Ecom]

Yeh Shopify must have changed something in their backend. 

I would say that they have made it so if the "This is a physical product" option is selected then the product must now have a weight.

If you have a rule set up for products to ship free if they don't weigh anything then i would look at changing that rule to ship products for free if the weight is 0.1 or less if thats possible. 

[swiss_shop]

Same for us, suddenly! Looking for an explanation or better a solution for that please...

[PINKPARTY]

The same issue popped up for us today, too. So annoying! Must be a new update. Shopify, please change it back to the way it was!!

[THIS_Skateshop]

Bummer. Thought this was an error but is now going to be normal?

From the Shopify Manual website:
"If you don't add a weight value to your products, then the weight will be set to 0.1 lb by default. This can make your shipping costs inaccurate."

But what about when you create label, enter your box dimensions, then use a scale to weigh your package? I would say that is pretty accurate.

[SelH]

Yep- same new issue. It has to be an error because nobody has asked for this and we sure don't want it. We don't even use weight in our product range but now if I want to update Quantity for example, my staff can't do so without actioning a weight.

A bit sloppy for you guys Shopify- surely somebody checks impacts such as this before actioning an update. PLEASE fix it

[LBB67]

Same here just happened today I thought I had done something wrong. Extremely annoying now I have to insert a weight because Shopify won't let me save my products without it. Shopify PUT IT BACK to the way it was there was nothing wrong with it give us the option to add weight if we want to or not. My store doesn't use weight with our products.

[Adam_Sewell]

Ok yep just got this problem today while updating some products, what a mess. We have flat rate shipping on 90% of our items so weight being at 0.0 has previously worked no dramas. Now it looks like I have to go through all 8000+ products and fix this problem that Shopify has caused 🤦

[Adam_Sewell]

Had the same issue, we have thousands of items. Our major issue was some of ours DO have weights (we use this to filter bulk freight items)

My solution was:

Export all as CSV file

Highlight the "Variant Grams" column & use 'Find & Replace'

Use the values - "Find what: 0" and "Replace with: 0.1"

Make sure the "Match Case" & "Match Entire Cell Contents" options are ticked

Import the products back in 👌

Worked for me and quick too.

[SelH]

Thanks Adam, The real issue is that there is a fix particularly for the technically minded but Shopify caused this. On a Chat line i was just told that it was intentional to help customers. Certainly not this customer. Appears they just 'improved' the product for no reason and caused trouble. disappointing.

I wonder if the developers read the Community forums?

[LBB67]

I wonder if the developers read the Community forums? 

NEVER they make unnecessary changes that cause absolute mayhem & stress to us poor vendors. I asked once why can't we delete void orders, (no answer).

[livius2602]

have you selected the overwrite option when importing back ? or just basically importing them

[milloret]

I'm also affected by this! Please put it back as it was before, nobody asked for this change!

[jakup]

Same issue here. Shopify, please fix this! 

[JustHatched]

This is awful, please change it back.  We operate a retail and online store and use 0.0 lbs for products that are retail only  and never shipped.  Hopefully this get's changed back but if not...we're wondering what would happen if we change all our shipping rates to be cost vs. weight based...would they still require a weight for items?

[TorwoodGC]

Yup,

Another one here.

We don't use carriers so are happy to have zero weight on our physical items.

to quote the manual wuoted by THIS_Skateshop

"If you don't add a weight value to your products, then the weight will be set to 0.1 lb by default."

This obviously isn't happening. Do I now have to put 0.1lbs on every item manually?

Please fix this Shopify.

[Appleman32]

I am having the same issues. Please help!!

[BigLaCroix]

Hi all,

I'm NOT a shopify dev, but I think I have the answers to SOME of y'all's questions.

If you're working out of shopify and have been using 0.0 as a weight this entire time, AND YOU HAVE A LOT OF PRODUCTS, the method that Adam put above works great. If you need to be more specific, I'm sure we can brainstorm a slightly different formula, one that would check to see what the category or type of item is and fills in a specific value based on that. Definitely would be more complicated, but possible. 

Ultimately, after looking through a lot of the settings and poring over the shopify update notes, I found that basically it won't affect shipping. We have over 8000+ products and are able to continue shipping and updating these products without necessarily needing to add in much extra. 

Adam_Sewell's fix:

Export all as CSV file

Highlight the "Variant Grams" column & use 'Find & Replace'

Use the values - "Find what: 0" and "Replace with: 0.1"

Make sure the "Match Case" & "Match Entire Cell Contents" options are ticked

Import the products back in

Worked for me and quick too.

[LBB67]

Looks like they have been taking note to all our complaints I just noticed this on one of my products I sell in my store.

Notice the new prompt at the bottom under weight. Would have been easier just to remove it all.

[Old_Dog]

Apparently Shopify might have backed out this change.

Found it this morning while editing some product text / html on an active product

Tried it a couple minutes ago and no longer receiving "weight must be greater than zero" error message.  If someone else could verify my results it would be greatly appreciated.

[FatRich]

Tried it just now.. No go for me unfortunately.

[livius2602]

Works for me as usual, tried phone only for now

[TorwoodGC]

Yay,

no error just now.

😄 

[LBB67]

Just entered some new stock in just now. Looks like its back to normal.

[SelH]

Yep fixed. thanks Shopify- but let's remember it shouldn't have happened

[Old_Dog]

Glad to see Shopify has backed out the change.

Question is now is the reversal permanent or temporary?  I would hope the reversion would be permanent. Does anyone at Shopify have any input?

Does Shopify support monitor or review threads of issues such as these?  One would from think from a customer relationship standpoint they would review "hot button" issues and supply input, guidance, or even acknowledgement of the customer base concern.

A simple acknowledgment of user concern could eliminate dozen of unnecessary support calls or chats sessions and save everybody a time.