Unfortunately the issue isn’t the shipping charge of the particular item. It’s the fact that it has a product value which contributes to the dollar total of what’s in the cart. I don’t have a problem of getting the item itself to have no shipping charge, but that doesn’t matter because that’s now how the cart is determining what the flat rate shipping charge will be. It goes purely on the total amount of the items in the cart. Since donations have a value, they always count toward the total. That’s my conundrum.
Topic summary
Issue: A nonprofit store using Shopify flat-rate shipping based on order total wants donations (non-physical line items with a dollar value) excluded from shipping tier calculations.
Impact examples: $5 product + $25 donation bumps shipping from $7 to $10; $75 product + $25 donation reaches the $100 free-shipping threshold even though donations don’t ship.
Suggestions offered:
- Put donations in a separate shipping profile and/or mark them as “Digital or service.” OP notes this doesn’t help because shipping tiers are calculated from the overall order total.
- Switch to Weight-based conditions instead of Order Price. Rationale: donations would have zero weight. OP states their store doesn’t use weights at all (physical items also lack weights), and shipping is driven solely by order price.
Key clarification: Shopify’s “Order Price” condition uses the final order total regardless of profile or product type, so donations still count.
Status: No built-in way identified to exclude donations from order-price-based tiers; OP believes there’s no viable workaround in their setup. Discussion remains unresolved.