Setting up shipping on the Shopify Collective sales channel
Suppliers can set various shipping rates for different products and retailers. You can set up shipping rates when you create price lists.
On this page
Considerations for setting up shipping rates and zones with Shopify Collective
Before you set up your shipping rates, review the following considerations for configuring your shipping rates and zones.
There are three available shipping zones that can be selected per price list:
- United States
- Canada
- International
There are four available shipping rate configurations per zone. You can select only one option per shipping zone:
- Calculated at checkout (default)
- Flat rate
- Manually invoice retailer
- Don't ship to this zone
If you select Calculated at checkout, then your rates might not always be displayed on a retailer's checkout with the same names that you set in your Shopify admin. Retailers can set their own shipping rate names and transit time descriptions with shipping policies.
If you select Flat rate, then your shipping rate is always named Standard Shipping on a retailer's checkout, regardless of the name that you intially give the flat rate.
Review the following configurations for your shipping rates and zones for Shopify Collective suppliers:
| Shipping setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Calculated at checkout | Multiple calculated rates and shipping date estimates can be displayed to customers on the retailer's checkout. These calculated rates are based on rules that you configure in your shipping profiles. For example, the weight of the shipment, the customer's location, or a 'free shipping' price rule can impact the rates that are displayed. Calculated at checkout is the default shipping rate that's applied for all new price lists. |
| Flat rate | A fixed sum flat rate that's passed to the retailer's Collective shipping profile when they import the products that you share in a price list. The retailer's Collective shipping profile then sends the flat rate from your shipping profile, and displays the flat rate to the customer on the retailer's checkout. Shipping date estimates aren't displayed with flat rates. The flat rate doesn't vary according to the product's weight, the customer's location, or any other rules that you've configured. |
| Manually invoice retailer | If calculated rates or flat rates aren't suitable for your business, then you can manually invoice outside of Collective. Be aware that because Collective can't associate a shipping rate with manual invoicing, the retailer's checkout will display $0 USD Free Shipping to customers by default when the associated products are in the customer's cart. Retailers should consider moving these products into a custom shipping profile, which would allow them to pass on custom rates to customers at checkout to cover your shipping costs. Be sure to agree with your retailer which manual payment method you'll use outside of Shopify Collective, and on what terms. |
| Don't ship to this zone | You don't ship products included in the price list to this zone. A customer located in a no–ship zone is given a message on the retailer's checkout advising that shipping isn't available to their address. |
Set up shipping rates and zones with Shopify Collective
You can set shipping rate types for orders that you ship in your active zones.
Rates and zone configurations apply to all products that are included on a price list, and to all retailers that are assigned to that price list.
Steps:
From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Apps and sales channels.
Click Collective (Supplier).
Click Open sales channel.
From the Collective (Supplier) sales channel, click Price lists, then Create price list.
In the Shipping section, select a shipping rate type for each zone:
- Calculated at checkout - Multiple calculated rates, that are based on your shipping profile rules, can be displayed on a retailer's checkout.
- Flat rate - A fixed sum flat rate is displayed on a retailer's checkout.
- Manually invoice - When calculated or flat rates aren't suitable, you can manually invoice outside of Collective.
- Doesn't ship to a zone - Select this option if you don't ship products from your price list to a particular shipping zone.
Click Save.
Retailer checkout experience
Retailers can set shipping policies to define which of your shipping rates are displayed on their checkout, and how the shipping rate names and transit time descriptions are displayed.
Rates will combine at checkout according to the retailer's shipping profile configurations.
The number of shipments and shipping costs for checkouts containing items from multiple brands depend on whether the retailer has split shipping in checkout activated. If split shipping in checkout is activated, then fulfillment is divided by supplier into multiple shipments. Otherwise, all shipping charges are combined into a single shipping rate.
Managing shipping rate conflicts
To help suppliers manage multiple price lists shared with multiple retailers, Collective will mitigate shipping rate conflicts by favoring calculated at checkout rates over flat rates.
When a product is added to multiple price lists, if Calculated at checkout is specified on any one of those lists, then Collective will always display the calculated rate to the retailer in their app, and to the customer at checkout.
Where a single product contains different flat shipping rates across different price lists, Collective will always display the highest-cost flat rate to both the retailer in their app, and to the customer at checkout.
If automatic payments are off between you and your retailer
If you turned off automatic payments in Shopify Collective, or if your retailer isn't eligible to use automatic payments, then you can still select and configure any of the available shipping rate methods.
It's your responsibility to agree with each retailer which manual payment method they should use to pay you, and on what terms, because you won’t be paid automatically. This applies both to product costs and to shipping costs. For example, you can manage payments by sending an invoice, or by requesting a direct bank transfer.