Selling digital product but has shipping issue

Store Design

Topic summary

A merchant is experiencing an issue where digital products still trigger the shipping page at checkout, despite unchecking the physical product option. The products continue to appear in the shipping profile.

Shopify Support Response:

  • Digital products appear in the general shipping profile by default, but shouldn’t prompt shipping at checkout
  • Customers should skip directly from information to payment page
  • Recommended troubleshooting steps:
    • Clear browser cookies and cache
    • Verify the “This is a physical product” checkbox is unchecked in product settings
    • Conduct a test order to confirm the issue persists
    • If unresolved, contact Shopify support directly for account-specific investigation

Related Issue:
Another user reported that shipping calculators on the cart page still calculate shipping costs even when the cart contains only digital products. They implemented a custom Liquid code workaround to hide shipping calculations when all cart items are digital, though noted an official Shopify solution would be preferable.

Status: The original issue requires further investigation through Shopify support channels.

Summarized with AI on November 9. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hi,

I am selling digital product and have unchecked the physical product. But it is still appearing on shipping profile and shipping on checkout page?

I don’t need customer to choose shipping method on checkout page. Please help.

Regards,
Yang

1.png
1.png1884×840 56.9 KB

2.png
2.png1718×844 60.2 KB

3.png
3.png1830×866 54.7 KB

2

Hey, @C_Yang !

This is Summer from the Social Care team at Shopify. Thanks for your question!

Digital products will still appear in the general shipping profile, as all products are listed there by default, but they shouldn’t prompt the shipping page to appear at checkout. When checking out with a digital product, the customer skips the shipping page and sees the payment page after the information page. With that said, it’s strange that you’re seeing the shipping page.

Let’s try to troubleshoot the issue by following the steps below.

  1. Clear your browser’s cookies and cache by following the steps on this page.
  2. In your Shopify admin, go to Products > All products.
  3. Click the digital product.
  4. Scroll down to the Shipping section. If the product has variants, click any variant under the Variants section to see the Shipping section.
  5. Uncheck This is a physical product.
  6. Click Save.
  7. Check This is a physical product.
  8. Click Save.

You can also toggle the ‘This is a physical product’ checkbox for several products by selecting the ‘Requires shipping’ field through the bulk editor. We have a guide on using the bulk editor on this page.

After following the steps above, you can then do a test order to see if the shipping page still comes up. If it still does, we’ll need to access your account and investigate. While we’re not able to provide account-specific support via the Shopify Community at this time, we’d be happy to continue assisting you through live chat, email, or callback. You can visit https://bit.ly/3cJkx8V and log in to your account to create a support request.

3

I have also problem with digital products ans shipping calculator on cart page. If there is only digital products in cart, the free shipping calculator calculates too on Cart. On checkout page it is OK, shipping cost not shown.

How could I solve that if only digital products in cart, shipping cost pre-calculator do not calculate or just simply do not show?

4

I solved it with this liquid code, but maybe am official Shopify solution would be better:

{%- assign isAllCartItemsDigital = true -%}
{%- for item in cart.items -%}
    {% if item.requires_shipping == true %}
        {%- assign isAllCartItemsDigital = false -%}
    {% endif %}
{%- endfor -%}

Plus:

{%- if settings.free_shipping_limit != blank and block.settings.message != blank and isAllCartItemsDigital != true -%}
1 Like