Shopify is actually losing money by not implementing this very simple fix everyone has been begging for:
One of the selling points to sign up to Shopify is the reduced shipping rates. The problem is that they don’t actually work properly and I’ve read hundreds and hundreds of complaints going back years that could be easily solved by literally 2 input lines in the Shopify program. Why hasn’t this been done yet? Every Ecommerce site has had this for well over 10 years because it’s incredibly necessary.
#1. Every product needs an input line where you can select if it is ‘free shipping’ or No free shipping’.
#2. Then under the shipping settings you need to be able to put a maximum package weight.
Shopify surely makes a little money on every shipping label you purchase. The problem is that it doesn’t calculate properly so many people can’t even use Shopify’s shipping service they are paying for each month.
Example: I have products that weigh 48 pounds each and can’t be shipped for free. A customer orders 4 of them. Because Shopify has no input for what the max shipping package weight should be…it assumes I can ship an eye watering 192lbs in one package. Really? That causes UPS to add surcharges and it makes shipping look terrible for the customer. It can show way over $200. In reality if Shopify asked what my max package weight would be (50lbs), the program would know that the order would ship in 4 packages and cost much less for the customer.
How Shopify is losing money: I would buy 4 shipping labels from them if it calculated shipping correctly. I have single orders on my old site that need to be shipped in 10 packages and Shopify would be making money on each package label. But instead Shopify thinks the entire order goes in one huge box…and so I can’t use the shipping service that is part of their monthly fee.
It’s so incredibly irritating to pay 12 months for a service, spend 9 months working on the website, spend $5000 to get it up and running and you can’t use one of their big selling points because one of the Shopify programmers can’t EASILY add those two questions.
Can someone please explain that to me, or can anyone explain how to contact someone at Shopify to see if they are even reading these super simple requests? I’m not trying to sound mean, but what can be done?
I was wondering how to help and searching a little I found this app https://apps.shopify.com/ordersplit-pro
that lets you split a order into mulitple ones?. would something like that be useful or would you require more features ?.
Let us know keen to learn more and maybe look at creating such an app for you.
The problem with Shopify’s order splitting is that it can only be done after the sale and the customer would have already paid a completely different shipping rate at that point. Or the customer would simply not complete the sale because shipping looked way off.
For example, if a customer orders four 48lb products from me some shipping amounts won’t even show because Shopify is assuming it will be a single 192lb package and some options aren’t available at that high weight. In reality, it’s 4 much smaller packages.
Shopify has completely dropped the ball on their shipping calculators, and I didn’t know this until becoming heavily invested in their platform. It would take one of their programmers about 1 hour to put a maximum package weight input on their platform. If you have a max weight of 35lbs and a customer orders 70lbs, the site shouldn’t assume one package that now gets hit with overweight surcharges. It should divide the total order weight by your max inputted package weight…70lbs divided by 35…then it would know that’s two packages and give a very accurate shipping cost for the customer and the shop owner.
This has been done since the beginning of Ecommerce and why Shopify doesn’t do it is beyond me and everyone I’ve talked to. Even some of the Apps can’t logically create a good work around. I’m dealing with that right now and haven’t been able to go live with my site for 4 months.
Two input sections are needed for Shopify to be 100% better:
#1- Every product should have an input classification to say: Will this product be included in Ship For Free: Yes/No
#2- In the shipping section: What is the maximum package weight you will ship:
Imagine how incredibly easy it would be to set up the shipping.
Does the order contain $100 of products marked with Free Shipping: Yes…free shipping. No…$9.99 or whatever flat rate or Carrier rates.
Does order contain an item marked as NO Free Shipping: Yes…it would tally only that products weight and charge properly for shipping.
This is so incredibly simple and done by nearly every other Ecommerce site that I can’t begin to understand Shopify’s reasoning for leaving it off and completely ruining their platform or making it incredibly difficult to find a logical way around it that is never truly correct. Money is lost on every order and who knows how many sales are lost. This is actually a huge loss for Shopify because they make money on each sale and each shipping label.
I have packages weighing 50 pounds in my Shopify store. Because Shopify just combines the entire weight of an order into one massive package, the customer gets no shipping estimates from any company when the weight goes over 150lbs.
So if a potential customer wants to order four of my products, they can’t because UPS and other shippers will not deal with a package weighing 200 pounds. No shipping rates are given and the customer moves on…lost sale.