Setting the right Shipping costs is crucial for Ecommerce so that customers are charged the correct amount at checkout. In a Marketplace setup, every Vendor has their own Shipping rates. Some of the factors which determine each Vendor’s rates are –
- The Vendors Warehouse location
- The Nature of his products – Bulky items are much more expensive than small items.
- Speed of Shipping offered – Sending by Air is expensive compared to Surface transport
- Shipping policy of the Vendor – Whether they want to charge as per Order value or Order Weight
- Pricing policy of the Vendor – Some Vendors prefer to build in the Shipping cost in the Product Price and give Free or Discounted shipping to customers
In the app, you can set different “Shipping Profiles” and “Shipping Rates” for each Vendor. At the time of checkout, we will calculate the shipping rate separately for each Vendor’s basket of products and total it to show a single Shipping cost to the Customer.
This feature works only for Shopify merchants currently and is available on the Enterprise plan.
Example case
Let us take the case of a Gardening website indigoplants.myshopify.com. Suppose a Customer places an order as below
| Product | Vendor | Price | Weight | Shipping Rule | |
| White Pebble | Stone&Pebbles | 399 | 1 kg | “Profile Stone” | |
| Blue Pebble | Stone&Pebbles | 499 | 1 kg | “Profile Stone” | |
| Round Coco Pot – Small | Growww | 284 | 0.5 kg | “Profile Growww” | |
| Large Grow Bags for Vegetables | Growww | 379 | 0.4 kg | “Profile Growww” | |
| Tibet Healing Tree Dream Catcher | Hoor | 449 | 0.4 kg | “Profile Hoor” |
Suppose Vendor “Stone&Pebbles” charges Shipping as per Weight, Vendor “Growww” charges Shipping as per Order value and Vendor “Hoor” has a flat shipping rate. The rules are as below. By default Shopify has no way to calculate basis different rules. On setting Vendor wise Shipping Rates on Shipturtle, the customer will see a combined Shipping rate 220.
| Profile Stone | Profile Growww | Profile Hoor | ||
| Rule 1 | Total Weight <1 kg: 50 | Total Value < 500: 100 | Flat Rate: 25 | |
| Rule 2 | Total Weight 1-5 kg: 150 | Total Value < 1000: 50 | ||
| Rule 3 | Total Weight > 5 kg: 300 | Total Value > 1000: 0 | ||
| Calculated Value & Weight | Value: 399+499= 898 Weight: 1+1=2 kg | Value: 284+379= 366 Weight: 0.5+0.4 = 0.9 kg | Value: 449 Weight: 0.4 kg | |
| Rule applied & Final Shipping | Rule 2 (Weight) 150 | Rule 2 (Value) 50 | Rule 1 25 | |
| Final Shipping for Order | 150+50+25 = 225 |
Let us see how we go about these rules on Shipturtle
Step 1: Navigate to “Shipping Profiles” settings
Go to the app -> Settings -> Shipping Partners -> Shipping Profiles. In case you do not see the option, write to team@shipturtle.com for enabling the module.
Please follow the instructions below –
1. If you enable Shipping Profile in Shipturtle, remove any Shipping profiles in your Shopify Shipping settings, else the same will be displayed on checkout along with those created on the app.
2. It can sometimes take 10-15 minutes before the changes to Shipping profiles reflect on the checkout page.
3. You can set Shipping rules within a Profile using either Weight, Order or a combination of the two.
4. In case an order satisfies two different rules, the app will pick up the rule with the lower Shipping cost.
5. In case an order satisfies no rule set by a Vendor, it will apply the Master rules set by the Merchant on their Profile.
6. In case an order does not satisfy any rule of both Vendor and Merchant, then the Shipping cost will be calculated as 0.
Step 2: Add a new Shipping Profile
Click on “Add Shipping Profile”. In the pop up, enter the new Shipping Profile name and the Vendor applicable.
Step 3: Add rules to the Shipping Profile
Click on “Edit” on the newly created Shipping Profile and Add rules to it. Create Shipping Profiles for all Vendors.
Step 4 – Configure your Shopify Shipping settings
4.1 Go to your Shopify Settings -> Shipping and Delivery. Under that click “Manage rates”
4.2 Next click “Create Shipping Zones”, enter your Zone name and select the geography you are delivering to.
4.3 Once the Zone is created, click on Add Rate and Select “Use carrier or app to calculate rates”. Shopify will automatically detect the rates feature of Shipturtle.
4.4 Configure the settings as per the image below. Select Shipturtle as the app to calculate rates. Select “Services” as “Custom” and Save.
Step 5 – Cross check the Shipping rates on your Store to be sure
Run a test order on your store to ensure all rates are being correctly calculated and displaying on checkout. When the Order is split to respective Vendor on Shipturtle, each Vendor sub-order will be assigned the correct rate as per their Shipping Profile.
Troubleshooting / Frequently Asked Questions
Currently we are able to only show a total Shipping amount on the checkout page. We understand that customers might want to see which products or Vendors are contributing to the total amount. However this requires changes to the Shopify checkout liquid template which cannot be done automatically by the app.
Please reach out to us at team@shipturtle.com so we can give a custom quote after understanding your requirement.
Shopify has inbuilt features to show carrier calculated rates for the entire cart. This means that if you integrate a shipper like Fedex or DHL, it will show “Live Shipping Rates” on checkout and the customer can select his preferred carrier. However, to achieve this at a Vendor level by breaking down the Cart into sub-orders is currently not possible directly.
Please reach out to us at team@shipturtle.com so we can give a custom quote after understanding your requirement.
We are working on this utility and will upgrade the app soon
This generally means you have not deleted the Shipping profiles created on our Shopify store.
Please reach out to us at team@shipturtle.com so we can have a look.
No this is currently not possible. So if you are setting rules in KG for example, you cannot set Product weights in grams. Please keep them same.
