Setting up local delivery for online orders

You can set up the option for local customers to have their orders delivered. If an eligible customer's address is in your delivery area, then the customer has the local delivery as an option at checkout.

To set up local delivery, you need to activate the local delivery option for each location that you offer delivery from. You can offer delivery within a set distance from your location, or for certain postal codes.

After you set up local delivery in your Shipping settings, learn how to fulfill local delivery orders. You can choose to have you or your staff deliver orders, or use a third-party delivery service.

Eligibility

If you're on the Shopify Plus plan and you want to use the local delivery option, then your store needs to meet the following requirements:

  • have 20 or fewer locations
  • have custom checkout deactivated

If you have questions about the eligibility requirements, then contact Shopify Support.

Checkout experience

After you activate the local delivery option, eligible customers have local delivery as a shipping option at checkout.

Customers have local delivery as an option only if they meet the following requirements:

  • All physical products in the cart are eligible for delivery from one location.
  • The delivery location has the inventory available to fulfill the entire order.
  • The customer isn't a B2B customer, as B2B checkouts don't support local delivery. However, B2B draft orders do support local delivery provided that local delivery is preselected by you as the shipping method when creating the draft order.
  • The customer's delivery address can be verified by Google. At checkout, customers can use the dropdown menu of suggested addresses to select a verified address.
  • The customer's address must be one of the following:
    • within the designated delivery radius and the same province or state
    • within the designated postal codes and in the same country
  • The customer doesn't choose an accelerated checkout method other than Shop Pay in the first step of the checkout. If the customer pays using Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay, or PayPal, then the local delivery option isn't available.

A customer can't choose to have some items shipped and some items delivered on the same order. Instead, the customer should place two separate orders.

Your customers can include delivery instructions at checkout and are required to leave a phone number so you can contact them.

Before setting up local delivery

You need to complete the following before you can offer local delivery:

Set up the local delivery option

You set up local delivery for each location that you want to offer delivery from. You can offer delivery within a distance radius, or you can offer delivery to select postal codes.

To use a delivery radius, your business location must be verified. Review and modify your location's address to make sure that it's accurate.

If you choose a delivery radius, then you can choose to include neighboring states, provinces, or regions by enabling Include neighboring states or regions. For example, suppose that your business is located in the southeast corner of California, 10 miles west from Arizona. If you set your delivery radius to be 20 miles and activate Include neighboring states or regions, then your delivery radius will extend 10 miles into Arizona. If this setting isn't activated, then local delivery won't be available for customers in Arizona.

The delivery radius won't extend into other countries, even with Include neighboring states or regions activated.

After you set up local delivery, you can start fulfilling local delivery orders.

Steps

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery.

  2. In the Local delivery section, click the location that you want to activate local delivery for.

  3. Select This location offers local delivery.

  4. In the Delivery area section, use one of the following methods to set a delivery area:

    • Set a delivery radius:
      1. Select a unit of measurement and enter the maximum distance between your delivery location and where you want to deliver to. The distance must be less than 160 kilometers or 100 miles.
      2. Choose whether to activate Include neighboring states or regions.
    • Use postal codes: Enter a list of postal codes (up to a maximum of 3,000 characters) that you want to deliver to, separated by a comma and a space. To include a group of postal codes, add either an asterisk or a space after the initial characters to indicate a range of postal codes.
  5. Examples:

    • M5V1E3, M5V1K4, M5V3N5, M5V2N3
    • 97392, 97306, 97325, 97352
    • M5V* and M5V(note the space character) include all postal codes from M5V1A1 to M5V9Z9.
    • 9732* and 9732(note the space character) include all postal codes from 97320to97329.
    • In the United Kingdom, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, and Jersey, because postcodes vary in length, postcode prefix matching will be either by full postcode area or by full outward code (postcode area and postcode district):
      • E will match E1 1AA and E2 0AG but will not match EH1 1TA
      • EH will match EH1 1TA and EH44 6HA
      • EH1 will match EH1 1TA, but will not match EH11 1AA
      • EH11 will match EH11 1AA, but will not match EH1 1TA
  6. Optional: If you want to only offer delivery on orders over a certain price, then enter the amount in the Minimum order price section.

  7. Enter a delivery price. If you want to offer free delivery, then enter 0.

  8. Optional: In the Delivery information section, enter a message to customers with details of your local delivery services.

  9. Click Save.

After you set up local delivery, learn how to fulfill local delivery orders.

Add conditional pricing

You can add price-based rules to determine how much to charge for local delivery. You can set up to 3 additional rules to give your local delivery option more flexibility.

For example, suppose that you had a minimum order value of $5 USD. You could set the following rules:

  • orders starting at $5 USD = $5 USD delivery charge
  • orders starting at $10 USD = $3 USD delivery charge
  • orders starting at $20 USD = free delivery

The final rule in your set of conditions has no maximum order value limit.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery.

  2. In the Local delivery section, click Manage next to the location where you want to add conditional delivery rates. If you have several locations, then click Show more to display all your locations.

  3. In the Delivery area section, click Add conditional pricing.

  4. For each rule that you want to make, complete the following steps:

    1. Enter the order value limit.
    2. Enter the delivery price.
  5. Click Save.

Add delivery zones

By default, when you set up the local delivery option, you create a delivery area or zone. You can add up to 9 additional delivery zones based on distance radius or sets of postal codes. Each delivery zone can have a separate set of conditional prices.

If you're using a distance radius, then set the Delivery radius as the maximum distance for each zone.

For example, you might set the following zones:

Joining rows
ZoneDelivery radiusMinimum order priceDelivery price
Zone 15 km$20.00$5.00
Zone 210 km$20.00$10.00
Zone 320 km$20.00$20.00

If you have a customer located within 8 km, then they will be charged $10.00. Although both zones 2 and 3 apply to a customer located within 8 km, the delivery price for Zone 2 is less than Zone 3, so the customer is charged the delivery price for Zone 2.

If you have a customer whose order is less than $20, then they aren't eligible for local delivery because zones 1, 2, and 3 all have a minimum order price of $20.00.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery.

  2. In the Local delivery section, click Manage next to the location where you want to add conditional delivery rates. If you have several locations, then click Show more to display all of your locations.

  3. In the Delivery area section, click Create delivery zone.

  4. Enter a Zone name.

  5. Enter a Delivery radius or set of Postal codes.

  6. Optional: If you want to offer delivery only on orders over a certain price, then enter the amount in the Minimum order price field.

  7. Enter a delivery price. If you want to offer free delivery, then enter 0.

  8. Optional: In the Delivery information section, enter a message to customers with details of your local delivery services.

  9. Click Save.

Customize email notifications for local delivery

For local delivery, there are a number of different types of email notifications including:

  • Local order out for delivery
  • Local order delivered
  • Local order missed delivery

You can also customize the templates for email notifications and SMS notifications that customers receive after they place an order with local delivery.

Order confirmation

For the Order confirmation email template, you can add local delivery-related content by wrapping the content in the following Liquid variable: {% if delivery_instructions != blank %}; Delivery instructions: {{delivery_instructions}} {% endif %} This variable displays the content of the Delivery information field in your local delivery settings.

You can also include delivery information in the Order confirmation notification by filling out the appropriate section in your shipping and delivery settings.

If you need to reset a template to its default, then click Revert to default.

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Notifications.
  2. Click the name of the notification that you want to change.
  3. Edit the Email subject field and the body of the email message.
  4. Click Save.

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