Setting product-specific shipping rates

Some products in your catalog may not fit into the general shipping calculation you set up on your Shipping & Pickup page. For instance, products that require special packaging may cost more to ship. In that case, you can set up individual shipping rates or specify shipping methods for any item in your store to charge your customers with the specific rate instead of your regular shipping fees.

For every product in your store, you can use standard shipping options with a fixed fee, specify shipping methods, use fixed rates per item, or offer free shipping.

Using your store’s shipping methods with a fixed fee

Your store’s shipping methods, or Global rates, are automatically assigned to every new product in your store. You can add a fixed fee to the global rate of any product if this particular item requires specific fees or delivery. That way you can cover extra shipping costs.

For instance, if you sell fragile items, you may want to use a special package to ship items safely. In that case, you can add, for example, $3.99 as a fixed fee per item. This $2.99 will be added to the basic shipping cost calculated according to the general shipping settings.

Your customers will not see additional fees at the checkout, just the final amount for the shipping that includes your fixed fee per item.

To add a fixed fee to your basic shipping costs:

1. From your Online Store dashboard, go to Catalog > Products.

2. Click Edit product on a product that requires a fixed fee.

3. On the product editing page, switch to the Tax and Shipping tab. Select Use your store’s shipping methods.

4. Click Add fixed fee per item:

5. Enter the amount you want to add:

6. Click Save to confirm the changes.

Tip: If you set up two or more shipping methods in your store, you can enable or disable any method for a particular product. Currently, you can specify shipping methods only in your Online Store dashboard on your desktop.

Specifying shipping methods for a product

Let’s say you own a farm and sell vegetables and cheese online all over the country. In addition to that, you decide to open your own small restaurant and bake pizza. From the business point of view, it makes no sense to deliver fresh-baked pizza to another town, so you need to limit pizza delivery to your local area.

To specify shipping method for a product:

1. From your Online Store admin, go to Catalog > Products.
2. Choose a product you want to edit and click the Edit product button.
3. When on the product editing page, switch to the Tax and Shipping tab.
4. Select Specify shipping method for this product.
5. To enable particular shipping methods to a product, click Enable specific methods and select methods from the list. In our example, for local delivery of pizza, you can choose a free delivery in the list of available shipping methods:
   
   
   You will see the enabled shipping methods like this:
   
   
6. To remove a shipping method for a particular product, click the "trash can" icon next to it:
   
   
   
7. In a similar way, if you want to disable any shipping method for a product, click Disable specific method and select methods from the list. Your customers will not see the disabled shipping methods at the checkout.
8. If a customer’s shopping bag has items with conflicting shipping methods, your Online Store will show a warning for the customer to split their order at checkout.
9. Once you are done making changes, click Save.

Using fixed rate per item

Fixed-rate per item, or fixed shipping rate, is a flat amount that you can add for any item in your store.

Unlike fixed fee per item, a fixed shipping rate is not added on top of your basic shipping costs (global rates). It’s a fixed amount that will be displayed to your customers as a shipping cost at the checkout instead of your store’s shipping rates.

This option is useful for products that require an individual shipping price. For example, you can set a fixed rate of $30 for large items in your store to cover the extra cost of shipping.

To add a fixed rate per item:

1. From your Online Store dashboard, go to Catalog > Admin.
2. Click on a product that you want to ship at a fixed rate.
3. On the product editing page, switch to the Tax and Shipping tab.
4. Select Fixed rate per item: 
   
5. Enter the flat shipping fee you want to charge your customers.
6. Click Save.

Offering free shipping for a specific product

You can set free shipping for every item in your store. In that case, any quantity of a product will be shipped free of charge. Essentially it means that you will pay for shipping instead of a buyer. For example, you can offer free shipping for expensive products in your store to encourage customers to buy high-priced items. 

In case you want to offer free shipping on all items in your catalog, you can create a global Free Shipping method instead of using a product-specific free shipping method.

To offer free shipping per item:

1. From your Online Store dashboard, go to Catalog > Products.
2. Click on a product that you want to ship for free.
3. When on the product editing page, switch to the Tax and Shipping tab.
4. Select Free shipping.
   
5. Click Save.

Tip:  You can highlight free-shipping products with product ribbons — colored horizontal labels that are displayed on product listings thumbnails and product details pages in your store. Or you can add product subtitles, it’s a short text that is displayed on the product list and also on the product details page in your store.

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