Charging for shipping on Shopify Collective
Suppliers can charge different shipping rates for different products, and for different retailers. You set these shipping rates when you create price lists.
You can choose where you ship to, and choose between charging calculated rates or flat rates per order that you ship to your active zones.
On this page
Configure shipping rates and zones with Shopify Collective
Rates and zone configurations apply to all products included on a price list, and to all retailers assigned to that price list.
There are three available shipping zones per price list:
- United States
- Canada
- International
There are four available shipping rate configurations per zone:
- Calculated at checkout (default)
- Flat rate
- Manually invoice retailer
- Don’t ship to this zone
Review the following table to learn more about the different shipping rates and settings available in your price lists:
| Shipping setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Calculated at checkout | A calculated rate fetched from your shipping profiles live on the retailer’s checkout, and displayed to the customer. Based on rules you’ve configured in your shipping profiles, for example weight of shipment, customer location, or a “free shipping for orders over” price rule. The default shipping rate for all new price lists. |
| Flat rate | A fixed sum flat rate, which is passed to the retailer’s Collective shipping profile when they import the products you’ve shared in a price list. The retailer’s Collective shipping profile then fetches your flat rate from your shipping profile, and displays it to the customer live on the retailer’s checkout. Doesn’t vary according to the product’s weight, the customer’s location, or other rules you’ve configured. |
| Manually invoice | If calculated rates or flat rates aren’t suitable for your business, you can manually invoice outside of Collective. Suppliers and retailers should be aware that because Collective can’t associate a shipping rate with manual invoicing, the retailer's checkout will display '$0 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. |
| Doesn’t ship to a zone | You don’t ship products included in the price list to this zone. A customer located in a no–ship zone would see a message on the retailer’s checkout advising that shipping isn’t available to their address. |
Steps:
- From your Shopify admin, click Settings > Apps and sales channels.
- From the Apps and sales channels page, click Collective (Supplier).
Click Open sales channel.
From the Collective (Supplier) sales channel, click Price lists, then Create price list.
In the Shipping section, review each zone, and if you don’t want shipping rates to be automatically calculated at checkout, select one of the other shipping options: Flat rate, Manually invoice retailer, Don’t ship to this zone
Click Save, and continue to complete all details required to create your price list.
To view the shipping rates you’ve applied to each of your price lists, click Price lists in your Collective (Supplier) side menu.
Retailer checkout experience
Rates will combine at checkout according to the retailer’s shipping profile configurations.
When there are items from multiple brands, a single, combined shipping rate will be displayed to the customer. But some retailers might have split shipping activated, which will display a total shipping cost per shipment from each supplier.
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’ve chosen to turn automatic payments off in Shopify Collective, or if your retailer isn’t eligible to use automatic payments, you can still select and configure any of the available shipping rate methods.
It’s your responsibility to agree with each retailer what 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.