Documentation Introduction FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Here you will find answers to the most common questions merchants have about Parcelify.
Checkout and Shopify questions
Why can’t I see my rates at checkout?
Why does it say some items can’t be shipped?
I changed my Locations/Profiles and now my rates are broken!
We have designed our app so that you should rarely need to adjust your Shopify shipping rates once Parcelify is installed. Less pages to visit, less settings to worry about, and more time to spend growing your business!
However, occasionally these settings get changed on accident or due to edits to your store after our app is installed. If you believe any of the situations above apply to your checkout, please follow this guide: Shopify Configuration Troubleshooting
Why are my rates not updating at checkout?
Why am I getting an error message after changing my rates?
One common cause is Shopify will cache rates between checkouts to save time looking up new shipping options when the customer has not made any changes to their cart or address. While this feature saves time for Shopify, it doesn’t help when you are rapidly adjusting and checking your Parcelify shipping options.
Solution:
Changing part of the address, your name, or the products in the cart will force Shopify to request new shipping rates from us. This way you are always seeing your most up-to-date rates at checkout.
I ship from multiple locations - can Parcelify treat them as one?
Parcelify calculates shipping based on the information Shopify sends us. Shopify splits rate requests by location making it impossible to calculate shipping as a single order with their system.
Please see our Multi- Profile and Location Troubleshooting guide for further information.
In order to work around this, we have developed Parcelify Storefront, a feature that lets your customers to choose their shipping rates before entering Shopify checkout. You can learn more about this in our primer: Shipping rates without CCS
Why are my rates amounts being duplicated?
All I see is a generic ‘shipping’ rate, why?
These questions are all related to how Shopify handles rate merging. By default, Shopify will automatically merge rates for separate locations and profiles according to their name. If those names are different, the cheapest rate from each request will be added to a generic rate named ‘shipping’ and displayed to your customers.
We find this approach confusing and unintuitive. Instead, we believe shipping rates represent a level of service you are providing your customers (next-day shipping, freight shipping, air mail, etc) and shipping amounts for your products should be calculated within the rate. Rates contain prices which can merge together in Parcelify, rather than awkwardly merging the rates themselves.
For more information on why these issues happen and how to resolve them, please see our Multi- Profile and Location Troubleshooting guide.
Can I rearrange shipping rates at checkout?
Not directly. The checkout screen is heavily controlled by Shopify so customers can have a secure, consistent experience across a variety of different Shops. This means Shopify is the final arbiter of what order shipping rates are displayed at checkout.
At the time of this writing, Shopify organizes shipping rates in ascending order by price. Lowest shipping rates at the top, greatest shipping rates at the bottom. If two rates are the same amount, they will be further organized by name in ascending alphabetical order (A-Z).
Can I set a custom message when there’s no rate available?
Absolutely. You can change your theme to give a more meaningful error to your customers when no shipping options are presented through the Shopify admin panel. You can find the text string to change by following the instructions here:
- Go to your Shopify Admin page
- Click on ⚙️ Settings
- Click on 🛒Checkout
- Scroll to the very bottom of the page and click [Manage Checkout Language]
- If you know the text that currently displays when no rates are available, search for this text
- If you do not know the text that currently displays, select the Checkout & System tab, then scroll down until you see a section titled “Checkout shipping”
- You will see a field named “No rates for cart or destination notice”
The text you put there will display when no rates are available.
Parcelify integration questions
Can I use Parcelify in conjunction with another service provider?
Yes! However, please bear in mind that one cannot restrict the other from showing up rates. All rates defined within Parcelify will work independently from rates defined elsewhere.
When a customer goes through checkout Shopify will request rates from all shipping rate providers you have configured and display them from least to most expensive.
Can I use this app if I don’t have Carrier-Calculated Shipping?
Yes! Though CCS is the preferred way to use Parcelify, you can take advantage of Parcelify Storefront to provide shipping rates designed in our app to your customers.
For details and limitations, see here: Parcelify Storefront
How can I acquire Carrier-Calculated Shipping?
If Parcelify Storefront isn’t for you - or if you are simply exploring your options - check out our Carrier-Calculated Shipping guide.
Can Parcelify block rates from Shopify’s carrier rate providers such as USPS, FedEx, and Canada Post?
No. All rates in Parcelify will work independently from rates defined elsewhere. The opposite is also true: shipping rates provided by a carrier or Shopify cannot limit Parcelify rates.
Parcelify specific questions
Can I use distances to limit rates, such as a radius of 10km around my office?
No, Parcelify does not directly support shipping areas by distance. You can approximate this functionality by building a postcode list that represents a circular shipping area.
Related: Our Destination specific shipping prices tutorial
Does Parcelify work with discounts?
Unfortunately, no. Shopify calculates discounts after they have sent us the address and cart information. We have no way of calculating or filtering rates based on these discounts as we never receive them. This limitation applies to all third-party apps, not just Parcelify.
Note: this limitation only applies to third-party rate providers. Any rates you build directly in Shopify will be calculated after discounts as expected.
Can I use customer tags?
Currently we can not offer rates based on customer tags. Shopify doesn’t share customer tag information when they send a rate request so there is no way for us to tell who is logged-in to your shop. This limitation applies to all third-party shipping rate apps, not just Parcelify.
How often are Products and Collections synchronized?
Product information and Collections are synchronized in real time via webhooks from Shopify. This information includes:
- SKU
- Vendor
- Product Type
- Product Tags
There is one scenario where real-time updates do not occur: Automatic Collections. Automatic Collections are dynamic collections based on set of rules. If a Product is updated and becomes added or removed from the Automatic Collection, Shopify does not notify us of the change.
In addition to real-time updates, we do full synchronizations of our merchants’ data once every 24 hours. This daily sync includes Automatic collections.
Can I force a synchronization of Products and Collections?
Not directly. Our synchronization system has been built to always be up to date and not require manual requests to synchronize.
If you have any concerns that Parcelify is out of sync, please contact our support with information about what product you suspect is not up-to-date and we’ll check it out!
Can I use Parcelify to add Taxes/tariffs/VAT?
While it is possible to add a percentage of the order total to your shipping rates, we recommend against using this to implement taxes and tariffs. The prices we provide are included in the shipping rate amount rather than its own separate line item.
Still have questions?
We have a robust documentation that we are constantly updating and amending based on the feedback from customers like you. Please feel free to contact us if you have further questions about Parcelify.