I’m really excited about this latest update from Shopify! As of November 16th, all merchants can now add UPS as a shipping option, without even having to have an account with UPS.
Before this UPS addition, merchants in the United States had the ability to ship via the United States Postal Service (USPS), and then via UPS and FedEx – but only if you had an account with UPS and/or FedEx and only if you either paid extra to add those shipping options, upgraded to a higher plan, or if you paid for your Shopify plan a year in advance (then UPS and/or FedEx were free options – as they still are).
With this latest update, UPS now shows up as a shipping option for your customers, without having to have an account with UPS. This means you can get discounted, negotiated rates through Shopify for UPS packages – saving you quite a bit of money compared to shipping via UPS over-the-counter. This saves your customers money, too!
Things You Should Know:
Since I have been using this new UPS integration (versus my own UPS account), I’ve noticed a few things that are important, and that you should know about regarding this integration:
- If you already have an account with UPS, you cannot link that account to this new UPS feature within your Shopify store. This means that if you have negotiated rates with UPS, but ship through Shopify, those shipments do not count toward your UPS account (which ultimately helps you keep your discounted rates). Also, since your UPS account is not linked to UPS via Shopify, you will still have to access your UPS account to schedule a pickup – whether you have UPS Smart Pickups or UPS Daily Pickups. Shopify did mention that they are working on improving this UPS through Shopify feature so that you eventually will be able to schedule your pickups directly through your Shopify Dashboard, but you still won’t be able to link to your existing UPS account.
UPDATE: After this article was published, Shopify did add the ability to schedule a pickup from your Shopify Dashboard. The charge is $4, but if you use this pickup option and have your own UPS account, this pickup doesn’t count as your Smart Pickups or UPS Daily Pickups. Therefore, if you already have a pickup with UPS through your own account, you can still schedule a pickup on the UPS website and not pay the $4 pickup charge through your Shopify Dashboard. - Like with all built-in Shopify shipping, the size of the package cannot be specified per product. This is VERY important to note! In order for your UPS (and USPS) shipping charges to be accurate, you must specify the dimensional weights of oversize packages. For example, let’s say your product weighs 3-pounds when packaged, and it must be packaged in a 20″ x 12″ x 9″ box. If you ONLY enter 3-pounds as the weight on the item listing, page, UPS (and other carriers) will use that weight to determine shipping charges. However, because that item is shipping in an oversize box, it qualifies as dimensional weight, and will cost MORE to ship in that large box. Since you cannot enter the size of the boxes on an item listing page, you must enter the dimensional weight on that item listing page instead of the actual shipping weight. The dimensional weight for this package would be 16-pounds, NOT 3-pounds. Therefore, you would have to enter 16-pounds as the weight for this item in order for shipping to be calculated correctly. Here is a dimensional weight shipping calculator you can use to determine the dimensional weight of an item.
- Another thing to be aware of, if you don’t have the weight/dimensional weight set correctly on an item listing page, YOU might end up paying more for shipping than your customer paid. For example, let’s use the example from the previous paragraph. If you had that item’s package weight set to 3-pounds, your customer would pay for a 3-pound package. BUT… when you go to print that UPS label, you will need to enter the ACTUAL size of the package, as well as the weight. And in the example above, you’re going to be in for a real surprise – the charge you pay for that shipping label is going to be much more than what you charged your customer – and you will have to pay that difference. This is again why, setting dimensional weight on oversize packages is critical to accurate shipping charges. NOTE: Dimensional weights are VERY important to set correctly for each item you ship in order for the oversize packages to be charged accurate shipping. I wrote an article on my vintage shop blog about dimensional weights that explains this further. Please click “Just One Less Inch Can Make All the Difference” for more information, and for links to dimensional weight calculators you can use.
If I come across any additional information that you should be aware of, I will edit this article to include any updates.
Want to learn more?
If you would like more information about this new UPS integration, as well as how to set it up within your store, click Introducing UPS For Shopify Shipping.
If you have any questions about this, please leave a comment below and I will be happy to help.
Will you be adding the UPS Shipping Integration to your Shopify Store?
The addition of UPS into Shopify for all merchants has been a blessing. I have shipped hundreds of UPS packages and it has worked very well and I’ve learned how to work around some of the weaknesses that were mentioned on the article. To account for the lack of box size specifications for each product I adjusted the product weights to roughly match the dimensional weights that UPS would assess for the boxes that I would use. My products are lightweight but require long boxes so I wasn’t too worried about underestimating by using the dimensional weights. This has saved my butt on many occasions where I would ship a 37x4x4 box or tube with a product that weighs less than 1lb. Adjusting the product weight to 3-4 lbs solved the problem and had a relativelysmall impact on my USPS shipment cost.
There is also an mistake in the article with respect to how the UPS charges affect the customer. Once the customer selects their shipping method and completes their purchase that is the conclusion of there transaction. When the merchant goes to fulfill the order, he or she will incur the expense shown for the shipping method selected based upon the actual size and weight entered. There are no new additional customer charges that take place, this is all on the merchant.
Thank you very much for your comment, Bryan. And you are correct about the mistake that was in the article – thank you for pointing that out. I have updated the article to correct that mistake.
The information you provided in your comment is very helpful to readers, thank you again!
I wish you lots of success with your store!