Who are the slow people at shopify that think it’s acceptable to not be able to enter product dimensions??? When I ship with usps or ups I don’t just give them the weight, they charge based on SIZE as well?? I am just in awe at the stupidity. Why??? a college student could code it into the system its so f****** simple.
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I see no one from shopify has bothered to reply. You can pay an app service like another $9.00 a month or so for a standard feature that should be built into the native shopify platform. This has become more critical now that every shipper has moved to dimensional shipping calculations to some degree or another. I have complained about this before - crickets. You can create pre-defined package/box details, but you cannot assign them to a product for calculating accurate shipping. This can cost you a fortune or artwork or large bulky products. It would be - coding wise - relatively easy to add dimensions inside the product profile as you are creating it simply by connecting your package profile to your product. I suspect Shopify coders are incapable of doing this without breaking something just because it seems like such an easy fix. Worst case, you can simply add, as has been said before, 3 boxes for dimension in the actual product profile…but nope…shopify could give a rats a// about addressing an issue that really is needed by EVERY customer that subscribes to the platform services…
I suspect, after checking out shop, they want businesses to offer free shipping like most big box stores do, on seller platforms like ebay and etsy who really pushed this for years… (Now that shipping rates have gone up so dramatically, not so much pushing on those platforms anymore…) because screw the fact that most small businesses don’t have the revenue and margins to eat those costs. So anyway, it’s not a priority for Shopify to address the big hole in the Dimensional Shipping because, they don’t have competition addressing the issues on a better platform and most importantly, they have 3rd party developers fixing their bugs for them - naturally at the expense of their customers…for whom they clearly don’t really give a crap about…only because, the revenue keeps a coming so they’ll fix stuff when it becomes, and only when it becomes, a security risk, their idea, or the cost/benefit number say they better fix it.
Until then, don’t expect them to do anything to address the fundamental foundational holes in their ecommerce platform.
Just on a side note, shopify provides “Discounted” shipping rate that are automatically given to customers at checkout. Not sure why they think they are running my business passing on discounts. The balls it takes to make that decision. How about providing a way to turn that off so you can charge the actual retail rate and use the difference to offset packaging & materials. I mean, my small business spends over 5K a year just in boxes and shipping materials when I am running a 12 month active business. Even part time, it is $2500 bucks. Yeah, I know, you add a flat or percent amount to shipping costs…but that’s my business and none your what I charge for shipping - I need to see the retail rate so I know what to set those added fees to for offsetting my actual CODB as it relates to shipping.
Ah well…our shopify site is a money suck to the point I paired it way down and I am sure a lot of people see it as that as well given all the you need to “buy this app x 20” if you want to actually work within the platform. The next thing you know, you’re spending 600 or more a month just to get what you need to run your small business. Heck, I just started doing small 25 second compressed videos of each jewelry item and DOH… I can only upload 250 videos on my plan, videos smaller in size than some of my images. So much for doing the TikTok thing, way to help small business shopify…gotta upgrade to that more expensive plan so you can be a bigger money suck…no thanks.
At the end of the day, the value for us is in managing inventory across multiple platforms as it is cheaper to pay eBay/Etsy etc shop fees than it is pay for apps at a significantly higher ROI than paying shopify and its venders for website that doesn’t pay for itself and never will without spending a fortune every month on apps not to mention the labor time to actually do the required onsite SEO and off site SEM for over 4K listings and growing…man… Shopify serves the needs of the big spenders, not the working class schmucks down in the mud just trying to make a few extra dollars every month.
One of these days, I’ll be all caught up with my inventory and will make time to kick them to the curb. There has to be a more effective solution for the money spent every month on just the - hear me shopify - incomplete basics. These failures by corps to meet the most basic requirement of customers daily business needs inevitably always catch up to them. The irony is, many small shops become big business and failing to meet these minimums like we’re talking about inevitably cost them money they have no idea they are losing because it will NEVER show up in a cost benefit analysis. What it is, is pure lazy, and lazy inevitably costs you a ■■■■ ton money no matter what you are approaching; ignore the roof, ignore the water leak under the sink, ignore the funny noise under the hood, ignore the jobs that need done, etc etc…you are going to pay eventually…
In the meantime Shopify, KMA for ignoring my, and every businesses fundamental needs, for a basic dimensional shipping solution that should by default be part of the platform.
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Hi, There. Thank you for reaching out to the Shopify Community.
You can add your packages custom dimensions in the Shipping Settings of your Shopify Admin. Follow the steps here. If you have any questions, please let me know.
Katina,
Do you actually use the product you’re supporting? I already noted above that you can add your package dimensions into shopify. Unfortunately for sellers of bulky items, that’s where it ends as it relates to shipping. You cannot associate your package dimensions with any product therefore on bulky items, the customer never sees or pays the actual shipping cost based upon weight and dimensions, they only pay based upon weight. That results in businesses losing money on bulky items.
For instance, this product weighs about 30lbs. It is already boxed and ready to ship. The box is 40" x 30" x 6".
According to shopify - using only the elements you are allowed to enter for the product - this package costs rounded USPS $108.00 and UPS $63.00 (remember, these are shopify discounted rates) to ship from zip code 28627 to 90001. When in reality, the ACTUAL USPS retail rate to ship this package is $273.00, and the ACTUAL UPS rate is $150.80. This issue applies to every bulky shipment with dimensional shipping. It’s no longer about weight, it’s about weight AND dimensions.
For whatever reason, and I have noted some above, this is NOT a priority for Shopify to address and update how they manage shipping within their eCommerce product to meet todays reality. I have a long career in business that includes 3 company turnarounds - successful I might add, and owning multiple businesses over the years. I am pretty confident the reason this has NOT been addressed is listed in my initial response. I’ve sat around the boardroom tables and been involved in those strategy meetings. It’s BS that your company has not addressed this platform flaw and left it to 3rd parties to fix something that should NOT require a 3rd party app to address.
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Hey, @gchaney .
Thank you for following up.
You can add dimensions by adjusting the default package so that it can be calculated in the checkout. However, if you have multiple package dimensions, then we do recommend using a third-party app like Boxify. That being said, I understand that you feel this should be a standard feature, and I’d be happy to share your feedback with our development team. If Shopify moves forward with any new features or platform changes, then we’ll be sure to announce them on the Shopify Changelog.
If you have any other questions on this topic, then don’t hesitate to let us know.
Elias, thanks for chiming in. I’ve been using shopify for over 3 years now and do understand that you can set a default package size. That is not and has not been the issue. I was helping to address the OP’s original issue which has been mine for at least 2 years. I am not selling a one size fits all product and anyone with more than a single product type is likely not using the same size box to ship product in.
I deal in everything from small jewelry pieces to large advertising and art pieces and bits in-between. In today shipping models, it should be a standard feature to any quality eCommerce solution. I would appreciate you sharing this issue and thread with the development team, but I would also like for you to PM me with the CEO’s name and mailing address so I can communicate directly with them. I’d like to ensure that someone with a final say over the issue see’s how “Behind” todays shipping requirements Shopify has found themselves as platform. Not sure why I didn’t think about doing that on this matter in the past.
Thanks,
George
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you all have been FoRwArDiNg FeEdBaCk about this issue for years now. We are tired of the nonsense from scamify… I mean Shopify… Not only do we have to pay a third party between $30-100 a month for dimensional shipping (something ONE SINGULAR HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL CODER CAN MAKE) but Shopify also forces us to upgrade to the $80 a month tier to even be able to use the third party. It is a scam…
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Exactly. they don’t give a flying flip about the customers because every person on the product team clearly doesn’t even use the product nor does support because only customers seem to care about this EXTREME oversight. It’s such an oversight support reps can’t even wrap their head around it not being a feature…
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I think he is saying on the product itself, for the product. I am wondering this also as it seems to be a requirement inside the tiktok app templelates.
To be fair, there are many people, especially in the lower-tier who don’t really have the need for dimensional shipping by product. They just throw an order in a box and send if off–and that’s all they basically need.
Now, in our store, Dimensional Shipping is a must due to the fact that by the nature of our business we almost always sell multiple, larger pieces in a single order (we sell speaker/subwoofer systems and we need real-time live international and domestic rates.) For $19 (depending on volume) a month, you can use Boxify. We’ve been using it for our site for about 3 months and it is awesome. Let me be clear – I am in charge of our store’s site, and am just a really satisfied Boxify customer with no affiliation to them whatsoever. I write this because I appreciate well-written and supported software.
#1 reason we chose Boxify is that we have our own negotiated rates with UPS and FedEx – so we didn’t want to use Shopify Shipping because of the extra charge Shopify applies for our own rates. Boxify lets us use our rates with no penalty.
We looked at several options for this; PH Multiship and a host of others. One of the nicer things about Boxify is that it is totally integrated and blends into the Shopify interface. We are trying to keep our back-end simple for our staff, so we pretty much reject any app that requires us to jump out of the Shopify interface.
So, not only does Boxify do Dimensional Shipping, it does it intelligently. We did a Man vs Machine test using Boxify – our Shipping Guy who’s been running Shipstation for years went for the challenge. We asked him to pack an order in the most economical (cheapest within 2 days) for UPS. We ran the same order through Boxify. Boxify made different choices than our Shipping guy, mainly utilizing a larger box where our Shipping Guy used multiple smaller ones (the larger box, as it turns out, was over a cost-threshold for UPS). Even though the larger box itself cost more, Boxify beat our Shipping Guy by $.60.
All that is cool but in addition to that, Boxify puts a note on each order indicating how it’s to be packed. You can even go into the order section and see a visual, 3D, step-by-step guide on how it should be packed.
Also, Boxify support is second to none. I’ve contacted support for several things (that turned out to be something I was doing wrong each time) and was courteously and promptly answered.
Boxify would be great, but you have to use your own carriers, which means, you cannot take advantage of the Shopify discounts from USPS, UPS and other carriers. You basically have to choose the lesser of two evils. Charge stupid rates with the real dimensions, and lose customers because your shipping costs are too much. OR, lose on shipping if customers buy and you have to ship outside of your “standard” package.
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I don’t think you’re required to use the Boxify rates. We currently use it just for packaging. At one time, we did use it for rates because our negotiated rates were better than what Shopify offered. You have the option to use your own rates, but certainly can use Shopify rates.