Anyone interested in having Store Pickup enabled on their shop will need to contact Shopify support per their help article.
Topic summary
Merchants want control over the checkout order of shipping methods because Shopify auto-selects the cheapest rate, causing customers to mistakenly choose free Local Pickup. Requests include: set a default method, disable any default, or manually sort rates.
Official status: Shopify staff acknowledge the need, have logged a feature request, and provide no timeline. The thread remains unresolved; updates would appear on the Changelog.
Impact: repeated customer errors, manual follow-up to collect shipping fees, poor customer experience, and operational burden (worsened by express checkouts like Apple Pay/Google Pay/PayPal skipping the shipping step). Safety concerns also raised about exposing pickup addresses.
Workarounds shared:
- Make Local Pickup less attractive (rename to “FREE PICKUP,” move to state-only zones, or set a high pickup fee with an instruction/discount code).
- Remove/limit express checkout buttons; emphasize “LOCAL PICKUP” in titles/descriptions.
- Use Shopify’s Local Pickup/Local Delivery (separate tabs) where compatible.
- Third‑party apps (e.g., Intuitive Shipping, Zapiet) to conditionally show pickup; many require the Carrier Service API (CCS) and added cost.
- Niche hacks: product variants for “Courier vs Collection.”
Most recent development: a newly released free app claims to reorder shipping rates without CCS. The core native capability is still missing; discussion is ongoing.
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Hallelujah!! It’s our lucky day!! FINALLY!!! Thank you Shopify!
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There has always been a local pickup option.
This is not the complaint here.
PLEASE allow us to change the order of delivery options so that local pickup (free) is NOT the default. Customers are selecting this by mistake (default) and not paying for shipping. It really makes us (your customers) look bad when we have to contact our customers and ask for more money.
PRETTY PLEASE WITH SUGAR ON IT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
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@carolinathreadz this is true, but previously the local pickup option was just a standard shipping method with no cost and the name changed to “Local Pickup”. The new system is drastically different and gives a tabbed option at checkout for the customer to switch between Store Pickup and Delivery.
This means you’re no longer having to surface a free shipping option with the name Local Pickup at checkout and hoping the customer reads the shipping method title before clicking next.
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Firstly, THANK YOU for addressing this issue. This now goes a long way to solving how to process local pickups. I understand that, as a part of this, Shopify have needed to implement a solution where pickups from multiple locations needs to ensure that stock is available at those locations.
Initial thoughts on the update, while great for the above reason looks likely to be missed by customers that are searching for a ‘what do I do next?’ route through checkout. Time will tell on this, but the functionality as far as it goes looks great.
I am small fry in the world of Shopify, so probably don’t really count. But, I have a retail outlet (currently closed) and an online presence that has suddenly become busier. To develop my remaining source of business (online), I need to make the offering as sweet as I can for my customers. Offering local free delivery is one of these and is proving popular with a percentage of my customers, however, this (free) option is bumped to the top of the list in delivery route and selected by too many of my distance customers (perhaps in IQ as well as mileage!). If customers were required to actively select the delivery option, this should resolve the situation.
Is this something that can be looked at?
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Thank you for the explanation. This sounds promising. I’ll be setting it up later today.
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@carolinathreadz I wish the process was normally as quick as it appears to have been for you!!
I received a response from Shopify!!! YAY!!! It read “Congratulations on getting 10 likes” ?
I watched the video tutorial. It seemed easy enough. It said all I had to do was contact support.
I waited 32 minutes on “chat hold” to finally be told this…I can’t get this option “yet”. And then the rep went on to try to sell me on apps. I will paste the chat responses verbatim. Hopefully, everyone else will have some success getting this feature added.
SHOPIFY: From what I see here, your store is not yet ready for the Shopify feature to be added. With that in mind, we do still have alternate solutions available. For example, one of our app partners Zapiet is currently offering an extended 45-day free trial with their Covid Response, to their Store Pickup + Delivery app. This allows you to implement a feature where you can specify products to only include pickup options, or offer pickup and delivery in tandem, depending on customer preference. To sign up and benefit from the 45-day free trial, visit this link. To learn more about the app itself, and see screenshots of it in-action, see Store Pickup + Delivery in the Shopify App Store.
ME: Is there a time frame?
SHOPIFY: There is not an exact timeframe available at the moment, no, however I do know we have multiple teams working on this to roll it out as soon as possible. You can keep an eye on our Shopify Changelog for when the feature is rolled out to everybody, or, feel free to chat back in occasionally and we can let you know if there are any updates available.
I watched the clip and then added the option in checkout to my account no bother. Clearly the settings on mine were, by fluke, the right ones.
Is your account fulfilment address set up, ie, do your normal orders say that they are posted from your shop?
An earlier post of mine suggests that customers may not notice the (new) tab for pick up. I have kept my ‘Click and Collect’ option as well just in case. Of course, this still gets bumped to the top, but it nestled next to my ‘Free local delivery’ option, so Joe Public is going to pick it anyway ?
Far be it for me to labour a point, but of 5 orders received yesterday evening, 2 selected ‘Free delivery to the local area’, despite each being over 50 miles away. This delivery option, first in the list on the checkout delivery page because (presumably) it is the cheapest, was ignored by the customer who didn’t even look at it.
Having previously been a computer programmer for many years, I know that apps NEED to be coded such that the end product works best for the customer (MY customer); this does not mean it is coded in the easiest way or perhaps the way that we might think is right in the first instance.
PLEASE amend the code to either 1. not select the zero price option as default, 2. Not have a default setting so it has to be selected by the end customer, or 3. allow the delivery options to be sorted so that the default option is defined by the shop keeper (who does actual now what they are talking about).
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I’m not sure you have the local pickup option set up correctly if free shipping is still showing up in the choices of shipping costs? The free pickup is one of two tabs. The first one with shipping options doesn’t show a free option. Make sure you don’t have another previously set up free or local pickup rule set up in your shipping options. We currently have free shipping over $100 and that will show up for those checkouts. But all others will not.
I have been using the “free pickup” option for quite a while now. However, at checkout, it defaults to this and I have a lot of customers not even notice. I am having to go back in and refund or create a separate listing to cover shipping costs. It would be incredibly helpful if the order can be changed by us user admins, instead of being forced to have it default to free pickup. It would save a lot of time and hassle.
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@FBM0616 Welcome along to the increasing number of people who complain about this very situation … but are ignored by Shopify because it forces us to use paid apps from which I’m sure Shopify also derive income.
Message to Shopify: Would you refute this claim?
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@wyo27 Thanks for this.
Firstly, if the free shipping tab was highlighted in the way that you have done, then my customers wouldn’t be able to miss it. As they DO miss it, I use both this tab AND a Free Shipping option in the list.
Secondly, my more fundamental issue is that a shipping option is set by default and does not have to be selected by the customer. The shipping options are listed by Shopify in price order, therefore the free options appear first. As I offer free local delivery and I also offer free shipping for orders over a certain value, both options appear at the top of the list; one option is always set as a default; and my customers invariably go along with whatever is there. If my customer had to select an option to be able to proceed, this issue would be immediately resolved.
Hi @Shauna_M . Sorry to drag you into this. Do you know if Shopify have any work around or solution to this issue? Please note that this is not an enhancement request, but an issue fix.
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@simonpackham I think I understand. I offer a free shipping over $100 as well but it doesn’t show up in the list until their cart reaches that amount. If they are local and want to pick up then they would just select that tab? Your free local delivery option should only show up in the tabbed section I believe unless you have a separate shipping rule set up for that. I did have that originally and had to go into my shipping rules and delete it. Now if they order anything under $100 the standard rates appear, over $100 the free shipping shows. Could you show a screenshot?
I really wish Shopify would seriously look at this ‘default’ issue - it is really frustrating and time wasting for both parties and you can totally see how it is missed so often by customers. It causes a delay getting the order shipped because half the time it takes a day or two for the customer to either acknowledge your email (hopefully doesn’t sit in their junk folder for a week) or it takes them a few days to pay for the postage. As eCommerce stores we are always very conscious of giving our customers a seamless experience online and being able to provide quick turnarounds from purchase to delivery - come on Shopify flip it from most expensive to least expensive at least or give us the option to choose the default shipping rate.
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Interested in your solution here, but I don’t understand what you mean by ignore the $100 - this would be charged at the checkout and they would be debited the extra $100 on their credit card - not sure my customers would appreciate that so I am not sure how you get round this and surprised no one else has asked.
Hi,
is this feature available now?
Highly requested feature since 2013..
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