Shopify Shipping and Fulfillment Guide: What You Need to Know

Are you running a Shopify store?  It is necessary to ensure that your customer's experience is outstanding even after checkout. In between the time when a customer places an order, and the shipment arrives at their doorstep, a number of things can go wrong.

When it comes to Shopify Shipping, it's not only about the customer experience, but your profit and margin also matter.

It is effortless to say that executing a smart shipping strategy is easier said than to be done. You didn’t launch the Shopify store to get into the business of shipping orders and packing boxes. Did you?

Don’t have any idea about how the Shopify merchants ace shipping and fulfillment? Here is the guide that will describe the whole process and pricing strategy. After reading, you will understand everything about shipping products to your customers.

Key Takeaways:

  • Learn how to manage all of your customer's orders in an organized way with Shopify Shipping.
  • Understand calculated rates in Shopify shipping and fulfillment.

How Does Shopify Shipping Work?

There are a number of different ways a Shopify merchant can ship orders. You don’t need to use any specific third-party application or order fulfillment services as you can handle it through your Shopify. Check it out to take your Shopify Fulfillment to the next level.

  1. Shipping Settings In Shopify

When it's regarding Shopify Shipping, we actually mean all the built-in features in the Shopify admin where you can easily change or manage the shipping store setting through the Shipping page.

You need to complete the below-given tasks to start shipping products from your Shopify store:

  • Your address should be set as the shipping origin
  • Add the correct weight of the products
  • Choose the preferred packaging type
  • To select the regions your store will ship to, add the shipping zones.
  • Shipping rates for different zones should be described during checkout.
  1. Shopify Shipping

Shopify Shipping is available to all the Shopify stores established in the US, delivering rates for DHL Express, USPS, and UPS, as well as Canada, which only uses Canada Post.

When it comes to Shopify Shipping, it actually refers to the shipping suite that provides merchants access to calculated rates, process orders, and print shipping tags in bulk without the integration of any third party.

Let’s check how it works actually:

  • The dimensions and weights of all the products and their variations should be listed
  • Set up carriers
  • Purchase shipping tags or labels from Shopify
  • Put the label on the box after packing it properly
  • Ship your orders from the choice of your post office

How Does Shopify Fulfillment Work?

When any customer places an order with the help of Shopify, it is required that the order needs to be located quickly, picked up from the store or warehouse, packed properly, labeled, and then shipped as quickly as possible.

To optimize this supply chain properly, Shopify lets you decide how you can apply or follow your Shopify Fulfillment strategy to operate.

Shopify Shipping Features

To manage shipping costs and the overall process, the Shopify Shipping suite has several different features to help merchants.

  1. Bulk Order Management

With bulk e-commerce fulfillment and label printing, Shopify merchants can prepare bulk orders at once. This feature will help to ship the orders of the customers in no time.

  1. Centralized Database

Merchants don’t need to integrate any third-party systems, copy and paste customer information or duplicate anything as Shopify tracks each part of the customer order.

  1. Shopping Option Management

As a Shopify merchant, you can show the same price from carriers or offer flat rate shipping to the customers. In this way, merchants can easily control checkout at the time of offering various shipping speeds to customers.

  1. Label Generation

With the help of a thermal label or desktop printer, Shopify merchants can print labels from a computer or their phones. Now, you can fix the label on the box and proceed further with shipping.

Shopify Shipping Rate Options

It is necessary to configure the shipping rates and options. These rates include how much you will pay for shipping and how much you will charge your customers.

Here is a glimpse of the ways to charge customers for Shopify store shipping:

  1. Extra Shipping Cost

An actual shipping cost is when you charge a customer the exact price that transportation like USPS(United States Postal Service) or UPS(United Parcel Service) will charge to ship the order.

Advantages

  • Provides the true cost for each order, and customers are safe from overcharging. 
  • No need to worry about losing extra money

Disadvantage

  • It can seem like an unexpected or even very expensive time at checkout and might lead to shopping cart abandonment.
  1. Free Shipping

It means that your customers don’t need to pay any extra cost for shipping. This can be across the board, for orders in a certain amount of money or weight, or through a promotional code.

Advantages

  • This can be used as a very strong marketing strategy
  • Attract customers toward you
  • Reduce shopping cart abandonment
  • Encourages shoppers to complete the purchases

Disadvantages

  • If you do not calculate the margins and charges, you might have to face a loss.
  • In the near future, if you decide to change the offer, there is a risk of losing customers. It is because they will excep free shipping.
  1. Weight Base Shipping

It is a kind of shipping in which the customers or the buyers have to pay according to the weight of their product.

Advantages

  • Keeps more accuracy and satisfaction for each order as the rates will be calculated based upon the weight of the products
  • Different prices can be charged for different weight ranges.

Disadvantages

  • The concept of dimensional weight can sometimes be confusing for the customers.
  • You must know the correct weight of each product and then record them in Shopify.
  1. Flat Rate Shipping

It is the fixed shipping charge that you take for every order.

Advantages

  • Offer a consistent price for everyone.
  • Transportation options remain simple and can be managed easily
  • You can charge one shipping rate for all orders to one country

Disadvantages

  • While this should be a calculated average of all shipments, Shopify's flat-rate shipping may not fully cover your cost for some orders.
  • For small orders, Flat rate shipping can also be costly and cause shopping cart abandonment.
  1. Price Tiered Shipping

When it comes to Price tiered shipping, the customers will be charged based on the total cost of the entire order.

Advantages

  • It offers a more customized shipping rate based on how much the buyer spends.
  • Customers don’t need to pay extra like in the flat rate shipping.

Disadvantages

  • It is not a good option for heavy items
  • All the orders must be calculated properly

What Are The Downsides Of Default Shipping Of Shopify?

Within Shopify, the default shipping setting has its limitations that prevent the eCommerce businesses from accomplishing considerably above the basics and needs some manual intervention.

  1. Calculation Of the Rates Properly

If you want to use Shopify shipping and show the calculated rates to the customers, it is a must to have the store within United States or Canada. If not, you will end up sticking yourself with flat rate shipping.

To set up your own account credentials with USPS, Canada Post, UPS, or FedEx, you should have an Advanced Shopify plan.

If you are shipping internationally, it would be more complex to calculate the right rates as you need to complete the Customs declaration form. Let us tell you that Shopify doesn’t calculate tax and import duties for international shipping automatically. You need to update the rates manually at the country level.

  1. Time Consuming Fulfillment

It is a very tough task to manage shipping and logistics for any eCommerce business. Soon, you will realize that you are spending a lot of time packing the boxes and running to the post office. You must utilize that time in other strategies to grow your business.

If you are not using any specific apps or retail fulfillment partners, it would be difficult to get everything done as you need to manage everything manually in Shopify shipping. If you fail to ship orders on time, you may lose your valuable customers.

  1. Difficult To Scale

Yes, you can manage the Shopify Shipping by yourself, but that is only applicable for a certain point in your business. If you want to keep it very simple and don’t want to take any headache, you should remain small and stop planning for any business growth.

On the other hand, when your business starts to grow, you will need to incorporate new systems, markets, shipping options, and sales channels.

To compete with the top brand, you will have to fulfill the demands of your customers by providing them with the best services.

How to Optimize Shopify Shipping Rates

For all the e-commerce businesses out there, it is a very important factor to set up the right shipping options and charge the right amount on your Shopify store.

The Shopify Shipping rates for customers will vary because of the inventory location, the product weights, shipping destinations, service selected, prices, etc.

Check out these tips to optimize your Shopify shipping rates:

  1. Real-Time Shipping App

The real-time shipping app by Shopify is an advanced and precise method of calculating shipping costs. It is based on the delivery preferences and customer’s location and done automatically for any product.

Shopify charges the exact rates of its carriers so your customers can pick up the amount you get to ship the order.

  1. Optimize packaging

Packaging mistakes are one of the main reasons why one has to spend too much on shipping. If you pack the item in a large box, you have to pay extra. On the other hand, if you put it in a very precise box, it may not be safe for fragile items. Hence, using the right box that has the space to add fillers is necessary.

In simple words, it can be said that along with the shipping cost, the packaging cost should be considered too.

Top 3 Shopify Shipping Apps

Here is the list of top-3 Shopify shipping apps:

  1. ShipStation

ShipStation lets you choose from nearly 40 different shipping services in the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK. ShipStation streamlines importing, managing, and shipping your orders. If your monthly shipments reach 50 or 500,000, every merchant can take advantage of their discounted prices.

  1. Shippo

To help you and your businesses, Shippo provides cheap and convenient shipping. It will include discounted shipping rates, and the ability to print labels and send the tracking information to the customers. With the help of Shippo, you can calmly focus on your business growth as it will take care of your shipping.

  1. Order Printer

If you want an app that can quickly print custom packing slips, labels, invoices, or receipts for all your orders, then the Order Printer app is for you. You can print the documents per your needs.

Conclusion

In this article, we have tried our best to tell you everything about Shopify shipping and fulfillment. We really hope that you have got everything clear in your mind about how it works.

Do you have any recent experience with Shopify? If yes, then feel free to leave a message.