SHOPIFY SHIPPING

Shopify shipping rates not showing at checkout: what to check

Short answer: checkout shows no rates when the cart does not match any rate you set up. Shopify's own help page says the checkout details must match the conditions of your shipping rates. Those details include product settings, market settings, locations, shipping profiles, packaging and carrier accounts. You can check them from the admin without touching code.

The messages customers see look like this:

• "Your order cannot be shipped to the selected address. Enter a different address"
• "Shipping not available. Your order cannot be shipped to the selected address. Review your address to ensure it's correct and try again, or select a different address"

Start by finding a pattern

Before you change anything, work out when it happens. Place test orders and note:

• Does it fail for every product, or only one?
• Every country, or only one?
• Does it fail when the cart has two specific products together?
• Did it work last week? If so, what changed (new product, new app, new market, new location)?

Each answer points to a different step below. One product points to step 1. One country points to step 3. Test with a fresh checkout every time: Shopify says an abandoned checkout keeps the rates from when it was created, so it does not reflect your current settings.

Step 1: Check the products in the cart

Shopify says checkout will not return shipping rates for products marked as digital or services, because they do not need shipping. In the admin, open Products and check the failing product:

• Physical products are set as Physical product.
• They have a shipping weight, and the unit (lb, oz, kg) is correct.
• They have stock at a location that fulfils them, unless Continue selling when out of stock is ticked.
• If you use shipping labels to show rates at checkout, the stock must be at a physical location, not an app or custom location.

Step 2: Check your locations

Go to Settings, then Locations. For each location, Shopify says to confirm:

• It is active and has a valid address. App locations have no physical address, so carrier calculated rates cannot use them.
• In the Fulfillment section, "Inventory at this location is available to fulfill online orders" is on.

Dropshipping apps are a known trap. Shopify says some create an app location without shipping rates, which can make products show as out of stock. To fix it, go to Settings, then Shipping and delivery, open the profile, find the app location under "Not shipping from this location", choose Add rates, and save. Menus can differ if your store has moved to shipping options by market.

Step 3: Check your markets

Open Markets. Shopify says you can only add shipping settings when a country belongs to a market. Confirm the customer's country is in a market. Then choose Manage, then Shipping, for that market and check that the country has rates in the profiles it uses.

Step 4: Check shipping profiles

Go to Settings, then Shipping and delivery. In each profile, check that the right products are assigned, the shipping origins are assigned, the zones are on the right origins, and the rates are on the right zones. Shopify's own example: with two custom profiles called Heavy and Fragile, heavy products belong in Heavy and fragile ones in Fragile.

Also confirm any recent change actually saved. Shopify says if it did not, make the change again and click Save.

Step 5: Check the rate conditions

Most rate problems, per Shopify, come from a short list of setup mistakes:

• Missing weights or mismatched units. A product with no weight is treated as weightless, so a cart can land in a lower weight tier than you expect. Use the same unit on products and rates.
• The default package weight. Weight rates use the products plus your default package. To base rates on product weight alone, set the default package weight to zero.
• Rounding. Weights are stored in whole grams and converted values round up, so a cart near a tier boundary can cross it.
• Gaps between tiers. If no weight rate matches and no other rate applies, Shopify uses the next highest weight rate so the customer can still check out. So a gap usually gives an unexpectedly high rate, not an empty checkout.
• Discounts. Price based rates compare against the cart total after discounts and before taxes, so a discount code can change the rate.
• Currency. Rates keep the currency they were created in. If you changed your store currency, delete the affected rates and recreate them.
• Rate names across profiles. When an order draws on more than one profile, rates with exactly the same name (including capitals) are added together and offered as one option. If no names match, the cheapest from each profile is added into a single rate called "Shipping". This can look like a doubled rate.
• Carrier packaging. If the default package is a carrier's own, only that carrier's matching services return rates. Shopify's example is a USPS Priority Mail flat rate box, which only works if Priority Mail rates are active.

For carrier calculated rates, check weights and package dimensions, that addresses are valid both for your origin and the customer, and that the package is within the carrier's minimum and maximum limits.

Apps that provide rates

Shopify says third party shipping apps depend on the app or carrier to return a rate. Backup rates apply by default so customers can still check out when all app rates fail and nothing else qualifies. If you add a shipping app but no rates show, check that third party carrier calculated shipping is available and activated for your store and that your test address is in a zone where the app is active, then contact the app developer. Also, if you edit rates in a profile created by an app, the app may overwrite your changes.

When to hire help

Call someone when you have gone through all five steps and rates still do not show, or when your setup is large (many profiles, markets, carriers or a dropshipping app) and you cannot tell which layer is wrong. Shipping tables are easy to break while fixing them, and a wrong rate can cost you money on every order.

Tidewell checks and fixes Shopify shipping and checkout setups. We look at your settings first, tell you what we found, and agree a price before changing anything. Send us the store address, the product that fails, the country and the message customers see: tell us what is happening. We never ask for your password.

Questions

Why does checkout work for some countries only?

Usually the country is not in a market, or has no rate in the profile that holds the product.

Can one product block rates?

A digital or service product returns no rates, and stock that sits only at an app location can cause problems with some setups. Test with a one product cart to find out.