Shopify - best route for shipping options and costing

[stressedbob]

Hi folks, hope everyone is well!

I’m working on another shopify online shop this one has much more complex shipping and just trying to get a feel for the best route.

the products range massively in size from items which are small and would go Royal Mail, to medium sized deliveries which we would use Tnt, to pallet size deliveries and finally our on transport.

Can anyone recommend any good Shopify Apps particularly any which integrate with TNT to give customers actual shipping costs, of course we would also need to have a manual entry for pallet, Royal Mail and our own transport.

At the moment I am working this volumetrically with bands for example 1-5 Royal Mail 6-25 TNT 25+ Pallet and then an override if the item is local and we can deliver locally ourselves! On top of this I need to consider how postcodes affect cost.

Any advice greatly appreciated on the routes people have used in the past!

 

[Mr D]

I used to just include postage in every item price then for particular items and certain areas ask customers to contact us for details of delivery price.
It worked.

 

[stressedbob]

Thanks I’ve played around with free post in the past and feel that as this shop would be multi item purchase it would penalise people buying multiple items also found it not great in search price comparisons.

 

[ORDERED WEB]

I don't think there is an off the peg solution for this. In shopify it's harder to work round than in the case where you are totally in control of the code.

The ideal scenario is if you have a data table with SKU + other fields that have enough parameters to let you describe how it's shipped, then write a custom script that signposts the order to the correct shipping method, and then does the calculation in the case it falls outside of normal.

That said, your better option might be to have a 'we will contact you' flag and or trigger. At the same time you could include a guide pricing page for shipping bulky items.

I guess if someone orders a 3 palettes of something, the delivery logistics at both ends are different to one widget, they might be thankful for the call

Specific to the TNT question look at https://apps.shopify.com/multi-carrier-shipping-label

Although im not sure it will help too much in the scenario of multiple shipping methods

 

[Mr D]

Thanks I’ve played around with free post in the past and feel that as this shop would be multi item purchase it would penalise people buying multiple items also found it not great in search price comparisons.

Perhaps create listings for popular combinations.

I have a type of item I sell a lot of singly. I put together a bunch of packages of 2, 3, or 4 items with lower total price for buying more than single. And sell some of those.
Probably less than 20 percent of our UK sales are multiple items in a pack like that. It is almost half international sales to Germany.

 

[stressedbob]

Thanks folks, sorry I don’t think I’m explaining it very well, what I mean is that a customer is likely to but multiple items varying largely in size.

My worry is that buy having contact us for a lot of items (particularly larger ones) I feel a proportion of people would bother to contact and sales would be lost.

Also based on prior experience and growth models the volume of sales really requires an (at least semi) automated system for calculating carriage.

I was hoping to avoid anything bespoke whilst the shop is in its infancy.

 

[fisicx]

What you want is usually built into e-commerce platforms. But not shopify. It’s business model isn’t geared towards what you want to do.

 

[ORDERED WEB]

What you want is usually built into e-commerce platforms. But not shopify. It’s business model isn’t geared towards what you want to do.

This. Magento for example has logic based rules that you can apply to things like shipping, and we can directly code for the really specific things.

Shopify is SAAS product, which means you are boxed in a little

 

[antropy]

Shopify is SAAS product, which means you are boxed in a little

That's why we avoid it like the plague.

It's great if you are happy to stick within it's capabilities but after quite a bit of investigation by myself and my developers we usually find that bespoke client requirements just aren't possible.

So we stick with open source - specifically OpenCart.

Paul.

 

[MarkSS]

Hi folks, hope everyone is well!

I’m working on another shopify online shop this one has much more complex shipping and just trying to get a feel for the best route.

the products range massively in size from items which are small and would go Royal Mail, to medium sized deliveries which we would use Tnt, to pallet size deliveries and finally our on transport.

Can anyone recommend any good Shopify Apps particularly any which integrate with TNT to give customers actual shipping costs, of course we would also need to have a manual entry for pallet, Royal Mail and our own transport.

At the moment I am working this volumetrically with bands for example 1-5 Royal Mail 6-25 TNT 25+ Pallet and then an override if the item is local and we can deliver locally ourselves! On top of this I need to consider how postcodes affect cost.

Any advice greatly appreciated on the routes people have used in the past!

Hi folks, hope everyone is well!

I’m working on another shopify online shop this one has much more complex shipping and just trying to get a feel for the best route.

the products range massively in size from items which are small and would go Royal Mail, to medium sized deliveries which we would use Tnt, to pallet size deliveries and finally our on transport.

Can anyone recommend any good Shopify Apps particularly any which integrate with TNT to give customers actual shipping costs, of course we would also need to have a manual entry for pallet, Royal Mail and our own transport.

At the moment I am working this volumetrically with bands for example 1-5 Royal Mail 6-25 TNT 25+ Pallet and then an override if the item is local and we can deliver locally ourselves! On top of this I need to consider how postcodes affect cost.

Any advice greatly appreciated on the routes people have used in the past!

I too am working on my first Shopify shop and so much involved especially around shipping and taxes! I’m looking too and will let you know if I find a app. Incidentally can I be cheeky to look at your existing site?

 

[antropy]

I too am working on my first Shopify shop and so much involved especially around shipping and taxes! I’m looking too and will let you know if I find a app. Incidentally can I be cheeky to look at your existing site?

This is the problem with Shopify vs. an open source solution - there are some things that you simply cannot do.

Paul.