FREESTATE

With Shopify's recent introduction of split shipping, we've had a few questions from clients about what it is and what it isn't. 

First, split shipping isn't enabled by default, so there's no need to worry about it turning itself on. (It must be enabled in your shipping & delivery settings). 

Second, at the time of this writing, split shipping is still in its infancy. It's not compatible with a number of apps/integrations, so be sure to read the official split shipping documentation for an up-to-date list of caveats.

To understand what split shipping does, it's important to have an understanding of how Shopify's native shipping system works. We've written a quick piece that explains more about how Shopify's shipping system is based on shipping profiles and locations. 

In essence though, each item in an order can belong to a shipping profile, and within a shipping profile, can be shipped from various locations. Each item shipping from a different profile or location will have its own rate. If an order contains only items from a single profile or location, great, the customer will see all the shipping options and rates for that profile or location.

But, if the order contains items from multiple profiles or locations* then by default, Shopify adds the lowest of these rates together and creates a single blended rate that covers everything in an order. 

This has led to confusion amongst store owners and customers alike because they can't control the way this looks without the use of an app, and even then control is somewhat limited.

What split shipping does is make these parts of an order visible to a customer at checkout, letting them choose a shipping method/rate for each shipment within the order. 

Whereas without split shipping, Shopify silently splits the order into "shipments" coming from each profile or location, with split shipping Shopify shows these shipments to the customer and gives them visibility - and the ability to choose a shipping option. 

In practice, if an order contained items being fulfilled from two locations for example, then the customer would see shipping options for each part of the order and could choose expedited shipping for part of the order and ground shipping for the other part of the order.

What's it look like? Basically, without any bells and whistles it looks like this on the front-end at checkout:

One thing to keep in mind here is that by default, Shopify will display the cheapest shipping methods - so apply caution if your cheapest rate isn't something you want selected by default.

If the customer clicks the "More shipping options" then they'll see the full array of possible rates:

And yes, if the order contained enough shipments, a scroll bar would be introduced:

It's nice to see additional visibility being added to the native Shopify shipping system that gives customers not only additional insight, but additional control.

If you need assistance with Shopify's split shipping or any shipping configuration or setup, reach out!

(*Note that this would also include pre-orders, subscriptions, app-controlled items such as drop-ship items, etc.)