Hi guys, I’m dropshipping a product from China on Shopify. It has $4.14 shipping from China. My customer base is in Canada. When I look at shipping rates inside Shopify, it says $14.99 by Canada Post, not $4.14. Can you please explain the logistics of this? If I want to offer free shipping to the customer, do I have to pay $14.99? Or $4.14?
I’m confused.
Thanks
Hi @northwester
That sounds great! How is everything going so far with your store?
I understand you are confused around how shipping rates work when you are dropshipping. I’d be happy to give you some information on this.
May I ask what dropshipping app/integration you are using on your store? Generally when dropshipping, you wouldn’t need to handle any stock yourself. This means when a customer places an order, it gets shipped directly from the suppliers (which are in China in your case) straight to the customer. This cuts out the need for you to manually ship anything, or even pay for shipping labels yourself.
You do first need to make sure your shipping rates are fair and accurate, depending on the approach you are going for. We actually have a help document which explains various shipping strategies when dropshipping here. If you wanted to offer free shipping to the customer, and cover the shipping costs yourself then you can absolutely do that. It just means that in this example you would need to cover the $4.14 shipping charge from the supplier, and have free shipping available to the customer.
The $14.99 charge you are seeing by Canada Post is most likely Shopify Shipping showing calculated rates. This wouldn’t really apply to you, as you are dropshipping directly to the customers. If you don’t ship any products yourself and have no need for these rates, you can feel free to delete them.
I would recommend going in to the Settings > Shipping & Delivery section of your admin, and clicking Manage beside the relevant shipping profile (the default will be General if you haven’t added any extra ones). Here you can double check what rates you have set up for Canada and change them to free if you wish. We have a handy help doc on setting up free shipping here that you can use as a guide.
I would also recommend checking out our ultimate guide to dropshipping here. It’s full of helpful information that you can use to learn more about dropshipping on Shopify!