Creating a custom shipping profile for the Shopify Checkout Integration
Shopify shipping profiles allow you to create shipping rates for specific products. You can create a custom Recharge shipping profile in Shopify to apply to subscription orders.
This guide provides instructions on using Shopify shipping profiles with the Shopify Checkout Integration.
- Shopify Checkout Integration
Before you start
- You must have a shipping profile in Shopify configured before you can get started in Recharge. See Enable this feature to learn more.
- You must access and manage the custom Recharge Shipping Profile through your Recharge shipping settings.
How it works
Getting started
You can create a custom Recharge shipping profile in Shopify and utilize Shopify's shipping settings to offer international, custom, price-based, weight-based, and/or free shipping rates for subscription products only.
You can create shipping profiles with both price and weight thresholds to use for your subscription-based shipping profiles. If you already have shipping profiles set up in Shopify, this feature creates a distinct custom Recharge shipping profile that only applies to subscriptions. The subscription shipping profile will not impact your existing shipping profiles.
Rates are applied to both checkout and recurring charges, and are used for both new and existing subscriptions from the Shopify Checkout. If you migrated to the Shopify Checkout Integration from the Recharge Checkout, this feature will not impact Recharge Checkout subscriptions.
It can take up to ten minutes for these rates to apply, depending on the number of existing subscriptions you have in your store.
Shipping rate calculations
Recharge pulls your shipping rates from Shopify and applies them to customers' next upcoming orders. To prevent discrepancies or charge errors, shipping rates are only calculated for the immediate upcoming order. Three shipping statuses can show on queued orders:
- Pending estimation: The shipping rate is currently being fetched from Shopify.
- The actual rate: The shipping rate provided by Shopify.
- To be estimated: The rate displayed for all other queued orders until the order is ready for processing.
In the event of a shipping rate error, Recharge uses a method called fallback rates. Fallback rates first attempt to use the shipping rate applied to the customer's previous charge. If there isn’t a shipping rate available, or the items ordered are different, fallback rates use any stored rates if available. This flow can be disabled if needed.
Create a custom shipping profile
Step 1 - Create the Shopify shipping profile
You must create your shipping rates in Shopify before assigning them to subscription products:
- From your Recharge merchant portal, click Settings and select Shipping.
- If you have created a custom shipping profile in the past, click Manage my subscription shipping rates.
- If this is your first time creating a custom shipping profile, click Create Shopify shipping profile. Click Configure shipping rates in Shopify to launch Shopify and set up your shipping profile.
Step 2 - Add your shipping zones and rates
Add the shipping zones (where you ship to), and the shipping rates (the cost to ship to those zones):
- Click Add shipping zone to add a zone if you haven't already. Enter a name for the zone and select the desired countries and regions.
- In the Shipping zones section, click Add rate and enter your desired rate for your shipping zone. If you are configuring price or weight conditions, you can add those here.
- Save your changes in Shopify
Configure additional zones and rates
Repeat steps 1-5 to configure additional zones and rates. If you have multiple shipping locations you can repeat the above steps to configure rates by location or inherit the rates from a previously configured location.
Step 3 - Assign subscription products to your Shopify shipping profile
After creating the profile in Shopify, you need to assign the subscription products to the profile. You only need to do this once, as new products added to Recharge later on are automatically added to the subscription shipping profile in Shopify:
- After setting up your Shopify shipping profile, navigate to Recharge, click Settings, and then Shipping.
- Select My rates look good.
- Click Assign subscription products. This will associate your subscriptions to your configured shipping profile.
- After completing the previous steps, the feature is marked as enabled on the Shipping settings page.
Managing shipping profiles
After configuring shipping profiles, you may need to update them. You can access and manage your shipping profiles from the Recharge merchant portal. Refer to the following steps to access and manage your shipping profiles:
- From the Recharge merchant portal, click Settings and select Shipping.
- Click Manage my subscription shipping rates to launch the shipping profile in the Shopify admin.
- Review and update your shipping profiles as needed and click Save when finished.
Per Shopify's settings, adding a product or product variant to a second shipping profile removes it automatically from the first shipping profile. It's important that you verify your product exists in the Recharge custom shipping profile, and that it does not appear in a general profile for subscription rates to work as expected. If you update the product or variant, you must audit your Recharge custom shipping profile to ensure it still exists in the profile.
Warning: If you update your shipping profile rates or settings in Shopify after the initial setup, you must contact the Recharge support team to ensure your new rates are reflected on your existing subscriptions’ queued charges.
If you update your shipping profile rates or settings in Shopify, please note that customers with multiple queued orders will still see the original shipping rate on their next queued charge. If you need the new shipping profile rates to apply to the next queued charge, please contact Recharge Support to have the rates updates and reflected on the next queued charge for your customers.
Disable the subscription shipping rate management
Refer to the following steps to disable the feature:
-
- From the Recharge merchant portal, click Settings and select Shipping.
- Click Disable subscription shipping rate management and select Disable in the pop-up modal.
Shipping rates with multiple subscription frequencies
The following video outlines how shipping rates behave when multiple subscription frequencies are in checkout. This behavior is a Shopify limitation and cannot be changed by Recharge.
Considerations
Consider the following before enabling this feature:
Consideration |
Note |
| Bundles |
Preset, fixed-price, and dynamically-priced bundles are not compatible with Shopify shipping profiles. |
| Expedited shipping |
Expedited shipping options are not supported at this time. |
| Migrated stores |
With this feature enabled, shipping profile settings apply to all subscriptions for both new and existing customers. If you have migrated to the Shopify Checkout Integration, this feature will typically not impact existing subscribers from before your migration. See Shopify Checkout Integration technical details for more information on how to configure shipping settings for migrated stores. |
| Queued charges |
When reviewing customer orders with multiple queued charges, you’ll notice that only the shipping rate for the next upcoming queued charge will accurately reflect the shipping rates you have set up in your Subscription Shopify Shipping Profile. Example: A customer holds multiple subscriptions with different frequencies, one billed every 30 days and another every 60 days. There are currently two queued charges: one scheduled for September 1st and another for October 30th. The charge on September 1st accurately reflects the shipping rate specified in the Subscription shipping profile. The charge scheduled for October 30th states To be estimated. Upon the successful processing of the September 1st charge, the October 30th charge will be automatically updated with the accurate shipping rate from the Subscription shipping profile. |
| Product-based shipping profiles |
You cannot configure product-based shipping profiles using this feature. Shipping profiles you create here will apply to all subscription products on your store. To configure product-based shipping profiles you can use a custom shipping profile. |
| Orders that contain one-time purchases |
Shopify presents customers with shipping rates generated from your general shipping profile for one-time products and shipping rates separately from your subscription shipping profile for subscriptions. Separate shipping rates apply to checkout and recurring orders. |
FAQs
Can I prevent my current subscribers from receiving free shipping if I configure a free shipping profile?
No. Shipping profile rates apply to all subscriptions, both new and existing.
Can I test the feature?
Yes. After enabling the feature, you can verify your configuration by going through a test checkout.
Can I configure my profile to have different rates for domestic and international subscriptions?
Yes, you can configure different rates for domestic and international orders. For example, you can offer free shipping within the US and charge shipping for orders shipping to Canada.
