Shopify shipping profiles: a guide to product rates before the holidays

Shopify shipping profiles let you charge different shipping rates for different products. Every store starts with one general profile that covers every product. When some items cost more to ship, such as a heavy gift set, a fragile glass piece or an oversized rug, you put them in a custom profile with their own zones and rates.

This guide shows when a custom profile is worth it, how to set one up, how Shopify adds rates together when a cart mixes profiles, and how to add a holiday express option. It also covers the change most guides skip: Shopify is gradually moving stores from shipping profiles to shipping options by market, so check which setup your store has before you plan holiday rates.

What a shipping profile is, and when the general profile is enough

Shopify describes a shipping profile as a set of shipping rules for specific products and locations. Each profile has its own fulfillment locations, shipping zones and rates. Products that aren't in a custom profile use the rates of the general profile, and new products are added to the general profile automatically.

If every product ships at a similar cost, the general profile is enough, and every extra profile is more rates to maintain. Create a custom profile only when a group of products truly needs different rates, for example:

• Heavy or oversized items that would lose money on your standard flat rate.
• Fragile items that need a pricier, insured or tracked service.
• Products you don't ship to every country, so their profile only has the zones you can serve.

A store can have up to 99 custom profiles, according to Shopify's shipping profiles overview.

First, check whether your store still uses shipping profiles

Shopify is moving shipping to Markets. In the new setup, called shipping options by market, you set shipping options for each market instead of using shipping profiles, location groups and shipping zones. The rollout is gradual, existing rates keep working until a store is upgraded, and Shopify migrates them for you.

To check, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery. If your shipping is organized in shipping profiles, you're on the setup this guide describes. If you see a Shipping options section organized by market, your store has been upgraded. According to Shopify's page on what's changing, upgraded stores get:

• Product conditions on each rate in place of product based profiles. Your product groupings become unpublished collections whose names start with "[Shipping]".
• A different way of combining rates: for flat and order amount rates, matching rates within one shipping option are no longer added together, and only the highest is charged. Weight based, carrier and app rates are still added together per shipment.
• A need for the Markets permission for staff who manage shipping, which isn't granted automatically.

If your store is upgraded in the weeks before Black Friday, review your rates again rather than assuming the old totals still apply.

How to create a custom shipping profile

These are the steps from Shopify's setup guide for stores that use shipping profiles:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery.
2. In the Shipping profiles section, click Add custom profile and enter a profile name your team will recognize, such as "Oversized" or "Fragile".
3. In the Products section, select the products or variants that belong in this profile.
4. In Fulfillment locations, check the locations that ship these products.
5. Click Add zone, name the zone and select its countries or regions. Repeat for each zone you ship these products to.
6. In each zone, click Add shipping option, set the rate and click Done.
7. Click Save.

A product or variant can belong to only one shipping profile. Adding it to a second profile removes it from the first, so a gift set you move into "Oversized" no longer uses your general rates. You can't delete the general profile, and staff need the Products and Manage settings permissions to manage profiles.

Choosing the rate type

Each shipping option is either a flat rate or a carrier or app calculated rate, and any rate can be made free. A flat rate can also have conditions: choose the order amount rate type to set price tiers, or the weight rate type to set weight tiers, each with a minimum and an optional maximum. Leave the maximum of your highest tier empty. If the top tier has a maximum, orders above it get no rate and see an error at checkout.

Carrier calculated rates can carry a handling fee to cover packaging. Built in carrier rates such as USPS are available on all plans, while connecting your own carrier account needs specific plans or an extra monthly fee, as Shopify's rates guide explains.

How rates add up when a cart mixes profiles

This is where most surprise shipping totals come from. When a cart holds products from different profiles, Shopify works out a rate for each profile and shows the shopper combined rates. The rules in Shopify's combined rates article are worth knowing:

• Rates with the same name across profiles are added together and shown under that name.
• If the names don't match, the cheapest option from each profile is added together and shown as one rate named "Shipping".
• Rates are only added together when no single profile or location can fulfill the order.

If your general profile offers "Standard" and "Express" and your custom profile offers only "Ground", a shopper with both kinds of product sees a single option called "Shipping" at the cheapest combined price, and your express choice disappears. Use the same rate names in every profile so shoppers keep the choice.

A worked example

Say you sell candles and ceramic diffusers. These numbers are an example only. Your general profile charges $6 for Standard and $15 for Express in the United States. Diffusers are heavy and fragile, so you create a "Fragile" profile with one rate, called "Ground", at $12.

Before: the rate names don't match. A shopper who buys two candles and a diffuser sees one option, "Shipping", at $18 (the cheapest rate from each profile, $6 plus $12). There's no way to pay for faster delivery.

After: you rename the Fragile rate "Standard" and add a $20 rate named "Express". The same shopper now sees Standard at $18 and Express at $35. Check that combined totals like these are ones you're happy to show.

Adding a holiday express option with delivery estimates

An express option helps late shoppers, but only if the estimate is accurate. For flat rates, Shopify can show a calculated delivery estimate under the rate name at checkout, such as "Express (1 to 2 business days)". You choose the transit time when you add or edit a flat rate.

Check the limits in Shopify's transit time guide first. Fulfillment locations must be in the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia or the UK. Transit time counts from carrier pickup to delivery and doesn't include your processing time, so a busy packing week still adds days. When a cart combines profiles, checkout shows the slowest transit time, but only if the rates in every profile have one.

A pre-sale shipping checklist

• Confirm whether your store uses shipping profiles or shipping options by market.
• List every custom profile and the products in it. Look for products added since your last review that landed in the general profile by default.
• Check that every physical product has a weight. A product without a weight is treated as weightless, so the cart can land in a lower weight tier than you expect.
• Use the same rate names, such as Standard and Express, in every profile.
• Leave the maximum empty on the highest price or weight tier in each zone.
• Test with a new checkout for a mixed cart, a single heavy item and a cart near each price tier.

Common mistakes, and what profiles won't fix

The most common mistake is testing with an old checkout. Shopify's troubleshooting guide notes that an abandoned checkout keeps the rates from when it was created, so start a new one after every change. The same guide lists other reasons a rate goes missing: the product sits in a profile without a zone for that country, the location is inactive or isn't set to fulfill online orders. And if a cart's weight, including the default package, falls into a gap between your weight tiers, Shopify uses the next highest weight based rate, so the shopper pays more than you expect.

Price based rates use the cart total after discounts and before taxes, so a big Black Friday discount can drop an order into a lower tier.

Shipping profiles control what shipping costs. They won't make your carrier faster, cover your packing time or tell shoppers about holiday cutoffs before they reach checkout. For a free shipping offer built on these rates, see our guide to setting a Shopify free shipping threshold, and if you're building gift sets that ship as one item, read the Shopify bundles guide for holiday gift sets.

Telling shoppers about shipping before checkout

Shoppers only see your rates at checkout, so a heavy item's shipping or an express cutoff can come as a surprise. With Atomato, a NotiFeed message in the feed shoppers open from the bell in your header can carry that note, and a Cart products rule can show it only to shoppers who have one of your oversized products in their cart. Targeting works on every plan, including the free Starter plan. Scheduling a campaign to start and end on set dates, for example to retire an express note after your last shipping day, is part of the Scale plan at $49.99 a month. See these holiday shipping cutoff message examples.

Common questions

Do I need a shipping profile for every product?

No. Every product is in the general profile unless you move it into a custom one. Create custom profiles only for products that need different rates, zones or locations.

Can a product be in two shipping profiles?

No. A product or variant belongs to one profile at a time. Adding it to another profile removes it from the first. You can put different variants of the same product in different profiles.

Why does checkout show one rate called "Shipping"?

The cart has products from profiles whose rate names don't match, so Shopify adds the cheapest option from each and labels it "Shipping". Give your rates the same names in every profile.

Next step

Open Settings > Shipping and delivery today, confirm which setup your store uses, and run one mixed cart test before your Black Friday sale starts. For the rest of your sale week plan, see the Atomato BFCM page.

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