Shipping decides what buyers of physical products pay to get their order delivered. You group countries into zones and give each zone one or more rates. At checkout the buyer sees the rates for the country they ship to and picks one.
From there, go to Payments > Settings > Shipping. If Payments is off in your workspace, switch it on under Settings > Features first. Seeing the page takes View Payments. Adding or changing zones and rates takes Manage Catalog (Products, Prices, Coupons).
Which products use shipping?
Only products of the type Physical. Digital products, services and gift cards never show a shipping step. If a cart mixes physical and digital products, the buyer picks one rate for the whole order.
What is set up from the start?
The first time you open the page or a buyer reaches checkout, two zones are created for you: one for your home country and one for every other country. Each gets a free rate. Until you change them, physical products ship free everywhere. The home country is the Country under Business information, so set it before you open the page; without it, Germany is used. The starter zones and their rate are named in your workspace's default language, in English Domestic, Rest of world and Free shipping. Buyers see the rate names, so rename them if they do not fit.
Zones
A zone is a named list of countries. Add zone opens the editor, where you enter a Zone name and tick countries grouped by continent, with Select all for a whole continent. A zone needs at least one country to be saved.
Every zone has a switch. Switch it off and the zone is marked Inactive and no longer used at checkout. Deleting a zone also deletes all of its rates.
The zone list sums up the countries of each zone, for example Worldwide, Worldwide except followed by a few countries, EU or Europe. A zone without countries is marked "Not applied: this zone has no countries yet."
If no active zone covers the buyer's country, the checkout shows no shipping options and the purchase cannot be completed.
Rates
Click Add rate under a zone. A rate has three sections:
- Details: the Name buyers see, an optional Provider such as a carrier, and a Description, which is shown to buyers at checkout.
- Pricing: Fixed price charges a set price per order, Free is always free in this zone, and Free above an order amount is free once the order reaches the amount in Free from.
- Conditions: Min weight, Max weight and Max order amount. The rate is only offered when the order fits all limits. Leave a field empty for no limit.
A common setup is a fixed rate with a Max order amount plus a Free above an order amount rate starting at the same amount. The order amount counts after coupon discounts.
In the zone list you can click a price to change it in place, and switch a single rate off without deleting it. Rates are charged in your Default currency from Business information. A product priced in another currency finds no rates at checkout. Each rate keeps the currency it was created in, so if you change the default currency later, recreate your rates.
The setup wizard
Set up shipping builds a new zone with its rates in three steps: Provider, Zone and Rates. Pick a carrier from the list to get its parcel sizes with weight limits and list prices filled in, or choose Own and enter a Provider name. The list holds German carriers with their list prices in euros. For each zone the wizard takes the domestic, EU or worldwide price from the list. If your workspace bills in another currency, the amounts stay empty and you enter them yourself. Tick the rates you want and adjust their prices before you create the zone.
What the buyer sees
The checkout shows a Shipping section with every active rate from the zones that include the destination country, cheapest first. If only one rate fits, it is selected for the buyer. When a free rate starts at an order amount the buyer has not reached yet, the checkout shows "Free shipping from" with that amount.
The destination is the billing address. If the buyer ticks Deliver to a different address, the delivery address decides instead, and changing its country clears the chosen rate.
Shipping settings on the product
Open a physical product and go to Stock & shipping.
Shipping profile limits the product to one zone. Standard shipping, the default, uses every zone. With a zone picked, checkout only offers that zone's rates. Profiles are shared, so editing a zone changes it for every product that uses it. If the zone of a product's profile is switched off or deleted, the product falls back to Standard shipping, and deleting the zone also resets the profile on the product. So move those products to another profile first if they should keep a limit. In a cart, the limit only applies when all physical products use the same profile.
Weight conditions use the Net weight per unit, which you enter under Customs after switching on Add customs information. It is multiplied by the quantity. A product without a net weight counts as 0 g, so a rate with a Min weight never appears for it.
On a subscription, shipping is charged once, with the first payment. To charge shipping every billing period, include it in the recurring price.