Shipping rules - the key to an effective execution strategy
As a Shopify B2B merchant, your shipping experience can (and should) be as seamless as your B2C counterparts. This means that you will likely face rules and conditions when it comes to delivering your products to your customer.
In this article, we'll explain why taking control of your shipping rules is so important and how you can personalize the experience to streamline your business shipping processes for a frictionless shopping experience while resolving cart abandonment issues BEFORE checkout.
The reality is this: the more steps a potential buyer has to go through to receive your item, the more likely they are to abandon the purchase and look elsewhere.
The easiest way to do this is to set up shipping rules or limitations for individual customers. Customers want to know how much they will spend when they add an item to their cart. Nobody wants surprises at the cash register.
Since every online shopping scenario is different, savvy retailers know the value of offering dynamic rates and shipping methods for each individual order. More specifically, rates and methods based on the contents of a customer's basket, the buyer's location, production times, carrier schedules, and other factors.
Automate your manually executed process
Consider all the elements of your shipping process that you do manually. Are your staff requesting various freight quotes from different suppliers? When an order arrives, do they simply choose any transport company? How do they decide which warehouse is the most profitable to send?
All the time it takes to do these things by hand adds up.
While every B2B retailer is different, these are some of the factors that make retailers reluctant to go online. These considerations are critical to developing an effective shipping strategy in the e-commerce space for B2B retail.
Without a thorough understanding of logistics, building a Shopify shipping strategy from scratch can be daunting for many first-time sellers. Let's simplify things by identifying two basic types of shipping integrations with Shopify.
Bulky items
While large items can be difficult to assess, they can be evaluated in real time as long as they fit on a pallet. Even beyond palletized freight, there are options for evaluating a number of goods directly. And yes, that includes shipping liquids, perishables, or dangerous items.
Small shipments
Many B2B orders are considered “small freight,” meaning they will end up being less than a full truck load (LTL) and combined with other local shipments.
For this reason, partnering with a 3PL or third party LTL supplier specialized in this type of order is a good idea. Not only do they have competitive rates with a variety of carriers, but they can help you negotiate rates.
Quotation and evaluation in real time
Customers expect a fast and convenient end-to-end shipping experience, including a real-time estimate that takes into account geographic location, product weight, product quantity, and more.
Here are a few applications to consider when developing your shipping strategy for your Shopify online store:
ShipStation— Available for several e-commerce platforms, this application allows you to get very discounted rates from major carriers. You can also integrate it into your website and offer real-time rates and shipping times.
Freight Club allows you to book and evaluate shipments at extremely competitive rates, shipment tracking, label generation, claims management and everything else on a single free platform.
You can check your shipping rates TForce/UPS LTL negotiated during the Shopify checkout process so you can collect your shipping costs on each order. You have the option of including handling charges in the rate so that you can recover the cost of packaging materials or other expenses associated with your shipping operation.
You can integrate FedEx Freight shipping services with your Shopify store using Shopify Ship, Rate and Track for FedEx.
ShipBob— This is a great solution for streamlining the fulfillment of your orders with same-day delivery for select cities and two-day shipping across the United States. ShipBob is an official Shopify partner, with free software and integrations to manage your orders and track inventory.
ShipStation— Available for several e-commerce platforms, this application allows you to get very discounted rates from major carriers. You can also integrate it into your website and offer real-time rates and shipping times.
Advanced Shipping Rules— An application that shows shipping rates for various products. It's a great solution if you need advanced rate types and want direct links to UPS, FedEx, etc.
How to set up your custom shipping rules
What are the shipping rules?
The shipping rules option allows merchants to create surcharges, discounts, campaigns, and carrier delivery options. This feature gives retailers extensive control over the shipping prices and alternatives displayed in their shopping cart.
How do the shipping rules work?
Shipping rules are based on conditional declarations. A conditional statement is sometimes called an “if/then” statement — think “IF an order is over $100, THEN free shipping is offered.” Generally, the “if” focuses on a specific order detail, and the “then” focuses on the shipping method and rate shown.
What conditions can be used in the rules?
There are endless ways to take advantage of shipping rules. However, here are the main filters from which you can generally create rules:
- Geographic areas — These may apply to the origin, the destination, or both. Areas can be as wide as countries and as narrow as postal codes. Example rule: Add an additional $20 on American orders delivered to Texas.
- Expedition groups — They are essentially groups of products that must all follow the same shipping rules. Example rule: Offer free shipping on orders that include a T-shirt. Easy to integrate into your campaigns.
- Filters— To further customize the options, retailers can apply filters to their terms.
- Price— Create rules based on the cart subtotal.
- Weight— Create a rule based on the dimensional weight of a product or basket.
- Quantity— Create a rule based on the number of items they buy.
Advanced conditionsTo be even more specific with your shipping rules, you can define rules based on advanced conditions, including: origin, boxes, delivery days, address type, costs added by quantity, or validity start and end dates.
- Delivery day rules— These rules are commonly used by retailers to allow surcharges on weekend deliveries.
- Address type— These rules are useful for charging the correct costs on a delivery. For example, you can choose to apply a surcharge for residential delivery or automatically charge a tailgate fee for residential LTL delivery.
- Origins— Origin terms are frequently used by businesses to influence the prices of outbound shipments from third-party warehouses, such as drop shippers. They can also establish rules that restrict shipments to these areas only in specific quantities, such as “only send from warehouse A if quantities are greater than 20.”
- Box-based rules— These rules allow retailers to increase or decrease orders shipped to a specific box. One way to use these rules is to hide specific shipping options when a certain box is selected. For example, if a perishable box is required for the order, the box-based rule will only show overnight and two-day shipping methods.
How to determine the rates for each conditional ruleIf you don't want to use a third-party LTL provider, there are several tools available to help you determine your shipping options:
The UPS shipping calculator
Click here to find out how to calculate shipping costs with UPS.
This page allows you to enter package and freight shipping information. It provides results for a multitude of services such as Next Day Air and UPS Ground.
Discounted shipping rates are included if you apply to the UPS Small Business program. It's also common to find shipping discounts with apps from Shopify and other e-commerce platforms.
The FedEx shipping calculator
Click here to view the FedEx shipping rate calculator.
Several calculators are actually provided on this page, including options for packages and freight, as well as pricing tools, package weight calculations, and ground service cards.
We encourage you to visit the FedEx E-Commerce Center. It is designed to integrate with your online store and process orders with full automation. Packing and pickup support is provided, and you receive rates and delivery times to send to your customers.
The DHL shipping calculator
Click here to view the DHL shipping calculator.
This is a quick quotation tool to estimate the cost of DHL for your future shipments. DHL has a reputation for handling international shipments at reasonable postage prices. That doesn't make them cheap, but they get the job done. However, DHL is often the most expensive and the least convenient for local shipments.
We suggest you go to DHL e-commerce logistics to get a quote for your entire operation and to understand how integrations work with your online store.
Offer a buying process that is as smooth as possible
At the end of the day, a big part of B2B selling is offering options.
No two businesses are the same, and they all have different budgets, needs, schedules, etc. A jewelry wholesaler will not have the same business requirements as a farm equipment business.
Just like your B2C customers, B2B customers just want to know that they're getting the best deal possible. They also want to be confident that they can get the item when they want it, on their schedule, with as few obstacles as possible.
