I am trying to determine if Shopify can accommodate some shipping requirements I have. Here is the scenario. A company provides a service where it restores widgets for their clients. (The clients already own/possess the widgets.) There are a finite number of known widgets and the company knows the weight and dimensions of each type of widget. When a client places an order, the client’s widgets have to be shipped to the company. The company needs to provide two shipping options when the client places the order.
A: The client chooses to ship the widgets directly to the company. The client completes the order, and ships the widgets to the company. When the company completes the service, it ships the restored widgets back to the customer. In this scenario, the company/Shopify would need to calculate the shipping to send the widgets back to the customers. This cost and shipping option would need to be provided to the customer during the checkout process. I assume this is easy to do in Shopify.
B: The client chooses to have the company send them a shipping box that the client can then use to ship the widgets to the company. This client choice needs to be made somewhere during the checkout process as well as providing the shipping costs for this option to the client. In this scenario, the company/Shopify would need to calculate the shipping fees to ship the widgets for 3 trips. 1: Box shipped from company to client. 2: Box shipped from client back to company. 3: Box shipped from company back to client. Technically, trip #1 would be for an empty box, which could be calculated differently, as a less expensive shipping “leg”. So you could do the shipping calculation for trips 2 & 3 (as boxes with the widgets), and maybe you charge a flat fee for trip 1 (for the empty box). In any case, this is a more complicated scenario than scenario A. Note: Three shipping labels would have to be printed in this scenario. Also, the shipping label for trip 2 would need to be included inside the box when shipped in trip 1. That way the client can use that label, in trip 2, to ship the box back to the company.
Is there a way, even if plug-ins are required, to handle these two scenarios?
Also, in either of these scenarios, I would assume Shopify is able to choose the optimal box size to use (out of the box sizes the company has previously setup in Shopify) for shipping the widgets, as I would assume a box size would be required to calculate shipping.
Any guidance would be truly appreciated!
Hello,
Here is my solution:
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If your store is not Shopify Plus, you can generate two shipping options (#A and #B) and let the customer choose. In other words, the customer sees the two shipping rate options (shipping fees) at checkout at the same time; then, the customer chooses one option. The shipping rate options can contain detail descriptions to help the customer understand the costs.
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If your store is Shopify Plus, you can display the two shipping options (not the fees) on the checkout page using “checkout blocks”. When a customer selects an option, the shipping fee for the selected option is generated.
Typically, for both cases, your store needs to have third-party carrier calculated shipping (CCS) feature activated. CCS is available on Advanced Shopify and Shopify Plus plan, or on Shopify plan with additional monthly fees or as free add-on on yearly billing. See more info here: Shopify Help Center | Third-party carrier shipping
For the shipping rates, we can help you setup this using our app JsRates (https://apps.shopify.com/jsrates-shipping-rates). With the app, you have full flexibility to setup any shipping logic, for example, choosing custom boxes that fits the right widgets. If you would like to discuss your requirements in more detail, you can contact us on support@jsrates.com
Hi @RestoreItems 
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Unfortunately, there is no straightforward solution for generating labels that fully accommodate this setup. However, I suggest utilizing the rate adjustment in Shopify’s Shipping and Delivery settings (under “add rates”). This will allow you to collect the approximate cost for all three trips in one go.
As you mentioned, two of the shipments will have the same cost, and the third will only cover the box shipping cost.
For example, you can apply a 100% + x% rate increase, which would help collect the approximate total cost for all three shipments: 100% for the second trip and x% for the box-only shipment. For instance, if one trip costs $20, applying a 150% adjustment would bring the total to $50, with $20 for each of the first two trips and $10 for the box-only trip.
How it works: Once the client places the order on Shopify, you’ll collect the total amount for all three shipments. However, you may need to create manual orders to print the labels for the subsequent shipments.
Note: For more accurate rates, you can show the carrier rates (CCS) at checkout with the appropriate increase to cover all three trips.
For more detailed information tailored to your business, I recommend contacting Shopify support.
I hope this helps!
I think what you’re proposing would be acceptable. The reality is, as long as I can calculate the shipping costs for the final trip back to the client (a non-empty box) I can use a multiplier like 2.5 of that amount to estimate the shipping fees for the three trip scenario. So, to clarify:
1: For the moment, we only plan to use UPS for shipping.
2: I have all the dimension and weight specs for all of the widgets we restore. I assume with that information we can feed this data to a plug-in, etc. to get our UPS rates? We are doing some experiments with WooCommerce and have been able to do this. The UPS plug-in gives us the shipping cost and selects the shipping box to use (from our list of shipping boxes in our UPS account). I am assuming we can do the same within Shopify?
3: I need to provide the two shipping options to the client and the cost for each. The client needs to be able to choose one of these two options. (e.g. a radio button for each option). For the moment we could calculate the cost of the final trip only. Then however we provide the two options to the customer (1 trip vs 3 trips), we would use the calculated cost (as-is) for 1 trip option and, 2.5 X the calculated cost for the 3 trips option. I think you’re saying this will be possible.
4: If we can’t print out shipping labels for each trip in the 3 trip scenario that is fine. As long as it creates the order in our UPS account, we can use this order in our account using UPS website to print out the labels.