Conditional Shipping Rate Set Up

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment
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Topic summary

Configuring conditional shipping rates for a store with mixed inventory and drop-shipped items in Shopify.

  • Requirement: show carrier/provider-calculated rates when the cart has only in-stock items; if any drop-ship item is present, charge a flat $10 and drop-ship the entire order.

  • Current issue: creating a separate shipping profile for in-stock products causes rates to stack with the $10 flat fee when carts include items from multiple profiles/locations. Shopify natively sums rates across profiles/locations.

  • Proposed solution: use the Calcurates app to define two methods—(1) carrier-calculated rates and (2) a $10 flat rate—and display them conditionally based on cart contents (e.g., product SKUs, tags, collections, vendor, or metafields). Mark “drop-ship” items (e.g., via vendor value) so the app shows only the $10 flat rate when any are in cart, and shows only carrier-calculated rates otherwise.

  • Notes: “Provider calculated” = carrier-calculated rates; “drop-ship” means shipped by supplier, not the store. App includes free initial setup.

  • Status: no confirmation of implementation; no native Shopify workaround identified beyond app-based conditional logic.

Summarized with AI on December 12. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Our client sells products from a skincare brand. She has inventory of some products, and any products she doesn’t carry in store she plans to drop-ship them. We set up a flat shipping rate of $10 to help cover drop shipping costs.

If I customer’s checkout cart has only products that she has in stock, she wants to offer lower provider calculated shipping rates. However, if a customer’s checkout cart has products she needs to drop-ship, and products she has in stock, she will drop-ship the entire order.

We are struggling to find a way to display provider calculated shipping rates for products she has in stock. We’ve tried to set up a new shipping profile for products she does carry, but the shipping rate will stack with the flat shipping rate of $10 when the products are in the cart together.

We are looking for a way to display the provider calculated shipping rates when only inventoried products are in a customers checkout cart.

Any thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated, thank you!

2

Hello @EmanioCreative ,
True, Shopify sums up shipping rates if there are items from multiple Shipping Profiles or Locations in Cart.

With our Calcurates app you may set 2 shipping methods (Shipping Method 1: calculated shipping rates, Shipping Method 2: flat shipping rate of $10) and display them depending on the cart conditions without having to set up multiple shipping profiles in Shopify. Your cart conditions may be set based on product SKUs, tags, collections, vendors or even metafields. In your case you may assign a certain vendor value to your “drop-ship” items and display your Shipping Method 2 only if there is a “drop-ship” item in Cart. If condition is not met, then Shipping Method 1 will be displayed. And vice versa, Shipping Method 1 can be hidden if there is a “drop-ship” item in Cart.

Note, that the free initial app setup made by our team is included into the app subscription.