Shopify News: Shipping Splitting in Early Access Checkout

The Shopify platform continues to evolve to meet the needs of merchants and improve the customer experience. One of the latest innovations is split shipping in checkout, currently available in early access for some Shopify stores. This feature allows you to manage shipments more efficiently when your cart includes items that cannot be fulfilled in a single shipment.

How Does Shipment Splitting Work?

When a cart includes items such as pre-orders, subscriptions, Buy with Prime products, shipping from multiple locations, or products with different shipping profiles, the order is split into multiple shipments. For example, if a customer adds a pre-order item to their cart, the checkout will indicate that the pre-order product will ship separately from other available items. The customer can select an available shipping option for each shipment.

Advantages of Splitting Shipments

1. Greater Flexibility: Customers can choose the shipping method for each part of the order, adapting it to their needs.
2. Improved Shopping Experience: Customers are clearly informed about when and how they will receive their items, reducing uncertainty.
3. Operational Efficiency: Splitting shipments allows for more organized order management, improving logistics.

Considerations on Incompatibility

Some apps and features aren't compatible with shipping splitting at checkout. Here are some important points to consider:

- Draft Orders: Shipping splitting does not apply to draft orders or B2B draft orders.
- Shopify Shipping Scripts: Shopify Shipping scripts cannot access shipping breakdowns. More information about migrating from Shopify Shipping scripts is available in the Shopify Help Center.
- Local Delivery: If your entire cart is eligible for local delivery, checkout will no longer display separate shipments.
- Managing Shipping Profiles: Customers cannot choose how to split products in their cart. It's recommended to edit shipping profiles and review location fulfillment settings to ensure all products that can be shipped together aren't split.

Shipping Selection for Each Shipment

During checkout, the shipping methods available for each shipment are automatically grouped into options to make it easier for the customer to choose:

- Lowest Price: The least expensive shipping method is selected for each shipment. This option is the default.
- Faster: The fastest shipping option is selected for all shipments.

Each option shows the total shipping cost for all shipments, as well as details for each shipment, including the name of the shipping method, estimated delivery time, shipping rate, and how many items are included in that shipment.

Steps to Select Shipping

1. Shipping Options: In the Shipping Options section at checkout, click *More Shipping Options*.
2. Select Method: Select an available shipping method for each shipment.
3. Save Changes: Click *Save* to change your shipping methods.

Example of Splitting a Shipment from Different Locations

Let's say your store sells T-shirts and has two locations: Location A and Location B. A customer wants to buy a green and a red T-shirt. Location A has the green T-shirt, but the red one isn't available. Location B has the red T-shirt, but not the green one. At checkout, each T-shirt is split into a separate shipment with the following shipping methods available:

- Standard: Delivery in 5–8 days for 10 EUR
- Express: Same-day delivery for €20

The customer can select the standard shipping method for the green T-shirt and the express shipping method for the red T-shirt, depending on their needs.

Conclusion

Split shipping in checkout is an innovative Shopify feature that improves the customer shopping experience and streamlines order management. If you're interested in implementing this feature in your Shopify store or would like more information on how to optimize your shipping strategy, don't hesitate to contact Yastime, the Shopify expert agency, for further details and support.