Shopify Shipping - European Customers seeing incorrect price for UPS

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment
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Topic summary

A US-based merchant reports that European customers see UPS shipping rates at checkout that are more than double the actual cost available through Shopify Shipping labels. For example, UPS Worldwide Expedited displays as £45 (~$50.85) to customers but costs only $19.95 when purchasing the label.

Key observations:

  • USPS rates display accurately, ruling out currency conversion issues
  • Shopify’s shipping calculator shows correct UPS pricing
  • Both Shopify and UPS support have deflected responsibility to each other

Potential causes identified:

  • Discrepancy may stem from different package dimensions used at checkout versus label creation
  • Shopify lacks product dimension configuration, complicating automatic box mapping
  • Additional taxes, handling fees, or checkout configurations could affect displayed rates

Status: The issue remains unresolved, with at least one other merchant reporting the same problem. A third-party solution requiring a personal UPS account with negotiated rates was suggested as an alternative for better rate control and consistency.

Summarized with AI on October 28. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

My small business based in the USA has a lot of European customers. The biggest complaint from them is the cost of shipping. I use Shopify Shipping - Carrier calculated shipping and confirmed today that the price the customer sees at Check Out for UPS is over twice what I can buy the shipping label for through Shopify Shipping.

First screen shot shows the customer check out.

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USPS First Class Package International is £16 (about $20.95) while UPS Worldwide Expedited is £45 (about $50.85)

This screen shot shows how much I can buy the shipping label for through Shopify:

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Here you can see UPS Worldwide Expedited is actually less than USPS! The USPS price is accurate compared to what is shown to the customer, so it’s not a currency exchange rate issue.

I see the correct pricing when using the Shopify Shipping Calculator:

shipping calculator view.png
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Shopify customer support via chat said it is a UPS problem, UPS support said it is a Shopify problem.

Why is the customer seeing an inaccurate price, and how do I fix it?

2

Thanks for the info, Alexajoe1! Let me talk with my business partner and see what option we want to pursue. I’ll probably take you up on your offer and contact you later on once we’ve decided.

3

Hello @PJ_AeroRarities

Real-time shipping rate calculations are primarily influenced by three factors:

  1. From & To addresses
  2. Number of packages and package weight & dimensions
  3. Any special services or additional options applied

Additionally, shipping rates at checkout may sometimes differ if there are any taxes, handling fees, or other configurations applied on the checkout page.

From the screenshot you provided of the label creation page, it appears you’ve selected a custom box with specific dimensions. If this box was manually selected and not automatically applied by Shopify, it’s possible that the boxes Shopify uses for rate calculations at checkout might differ from those you’re using for labels.

Note: Shopify doesn’t currently offer an option to configure product dimensions directly, which makes the mapping of boxes a bit more complex. I recommend verifying the packaging data and the shipping rates in both the checkout and Shopify to ensure consistency.

If you have your own UPS account with negotiated rates and would like more control over packaging and shipping rates at both checkout and label creation, as well as proper logging and information, you may want to explore PluginHive solutions. However, please note that this would require using your own UPS account, as Shopify accounts cannot be integrated for this purpose.

4

I am having the same issue. Shopify support is not much help. Are you still having this issue?