What is Shopify Shipping: Everything You Need to Know

Shopify is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms because it comes with many out-of-the-box features that help sellers start-up an e-store quickly.

One example of these useful features is Shopify Shipping. Shopify Shipping allows you to offer calculated rates (as opposed to flat shipping rates) at your store checkout. You can also take advantage of discounted rates with carriers such as USPS, UPS, DHL Express, and Canada Post.

How Shopify Shipping Works

Shopify Shipping has its own section in your main admin panel. Here, you can manage all your customer orders that need to be shipped in a centralized and organized way.

You'll also be able to see different carrier calculated options based on the destination, and can print labels directly from the shipping admin.

You do have the option to offer free shipping through Shopify to attract your customer’s attention and decrease cart abandonment. You can also choose to show Shopify's discounted shipping rates at checkout. The shipping rates of the available carriers are available by default and can be removed at any time.

While these options help gets your shipping and fulfillment up and running quickly, it's worth noting that there are limitations (especially if you're shipping internationally).

What Are the Limitations of Shopify Shipping?

While Shopify's fulfillment process has some decent qualities, unfortunately, there are some shortcomings that should be highlighted.

• If your store is based outside of the US and Canada, then you will not be able to access Shopify Shipping.
• Courier options are limited. For the US, the only options available are USPS, UPS, and DHL, and for Canada, the only option is Canada Post.
• While you can store your product weight on the dashboard, you cannot store your product dimensions. This is a major problem because it can cause inaccurate shipping rates to be shown at checkout, possibly underpaying for shipping.
• Shopify's international shipping options don't automatically calculate tax and duties. While you can show tax & duty at checkout, you will have to manually calculate the rates on your own. If you plan on shipping internationally, there are over 220 countries that you would potentially have to update this information for... which is definitely not ideal.

How to overcome these limitations

This is where the Shopify App Store becomes useful. By heading over to the Orders and shipping category, you can find a third-party extension or Shopify Shipping Apps that can address the limitations of Shopify Shipping.

Consider yours truly, Easyship. We make international shipping easier as we partner with multiple warehouses and couriers around the world.

Expand your eCommerce business by integrating our app & services with your Shopify store.

Our benefits:

• Easyship can be used by sellers based in over 25 countries including the US, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, the UK, and most countries in Europe.
• We offer discounts up to 91% off retail shipping prices for more than 100 shipping solutions, allowing you to always save on shipping.
• You can also store dimensions as well as the weight of your products so that accurate and exact shipping prices can be calculated. (Check out our products feature for more information.)
• We also offer a Rates at Checkout app plugin that's built for Shopify. The calculator lets you show shipping rates at check out, based on the location of your customers.
• Easyship also shows you the estimated duty and tax for all international shipments, allowing sellers to be transparent about their total shipping costs.

Click here to see exactly how Easyship boosts your Shopify store.

Last but not the least, Easyship offers complete automation of your shipping. When you automate your shipping, you'll take the stress out of the fulfillment process, all while saving time and money.

You can learn the importance of automation in shipping and how it helps you to grow your business and increase revenue here.

Ready to improve your shipping on Shopify? Sign up for your free Easyship account today!