Being able to provide the lowest possible shipping costs on your products can help you convert more shoppers into buyers and give your brand a competitive edge in the marketplace. Using real-time quotes to calculate your shipping charges allows you to pass your costs on to the customer.
Real-time shipping quotes can benefit both the merchant and shopper. As a merchant, you can ensure that you don't lose any money when it comes time to purchase postage. Transparency in shipping costs helps to improve consumer confidence and assures shoppers they're not paying too much for shipping. Customers feel empowered by having access to a variety of shipping options — from low-cost ground delivery to premium, expedited fulfillment.
BigCommerce provides multiple ways for you to offer real-time, calculated shipping rates for your customers.
- This article covers our Basic Shipping integrations, which allow you to connect with and show quotes from domestic carriers like USPS, UPS, and FedEx, and international carriers like Canada Post, Royal Mail, and Australia Post.
- We’ve integrated with ShipperHQ for merchants that need advanced control over the shipping options presented to customers at checkout. ShipperHQ allows for product-, customer group-, and zone-specific shipping options, as well as LTL and freight quotes.
- The Shipping & Fulfillment section of our App Marketplace also features several apps with both basic and advanced storefront quoting features.
Your Shipping page displays services appropriate for your shipping origin. For example, you won't be able to see and set up Canada Post unless your origin address is in Canada.
When shipping rates are returned at checkout, each shipping rate quote will display a description of the service.
Need flexible international shipping? If you need to ship internationally, check out shipping apps like DHL Express. They can provide flexible, express, worldwide door-to-door delivery.
Calculating Shipping Costs
Shipping carriers use a number of factors to determine the cost of shipping an order, including:
- total weight and size of the order
- value of the order
- shipping origin
- delivery (shipping to) address
For this reason, it's important that you have accurate weights and dimensions defined in your product.
Real Time Quote Providers
To connect one of our native integrations for real-time quotes, you must first create an account with the provider, obtain credentials, and then enter that information into the BigCommerce shipping method. Since the process differs from service to service, we have created separate guides for each carrier:
Duplicating a Real Time Shipping Quote
You can offer additional quotes at checkout from the same provider by duplicating the real time shipping quote. This is useful for merchants who want to have different settings for the same provider or charge different handling fees.
The same connection credentials are shared across duplicated real time shipping quotes for a provider. You may only have one account connected at a time for each integration.
To duplicate a real time shipping quote, click the arrow beside the Edit button, and select Duplicate.
Removing a Duplicate Real Time Shipping Quote
To remove a duplicate real time shipping quote, click the X beside the Edit button, then Confirm.
FAQ
How can I display the estimated delivery date with real-time shipping quotes on my store?
Our USPS by Endicia and UPS® integrations have a built-in setting to show the estimated delivery date with each quote at checkout. The ShipperHQ app can also display estimated delivery dates with quotes from other shipping providers.
I’m using Multi-Storefront. Can I offer different shipping methods per storefront?
If you have more than one storefront, real-time shipping quotes can be toggled on or off per storefront.
See our Multi-Storefront guide for more information.
