Custom Shopify App Development for Managing Shipping Rates

The expedition to higher sales is almost incomplete without effective shipping tactics!  Having a lucrative and easy to handle backend shipping can make your experience of running an online store more convenient and effective with ease. Since shipping rates are amongst major deciding factors that people consider while shopping, providing your consumers with reasonable rates is a must to scale up sales.

Here are a few stats that clearly boasts about the effects of smart Shipping practices on sales:

• 79% of US consumers said that free shipping would make them more likely to shop online. (Walker Sands)
• Only 15% of US consumers said that online retailers always offer shipping options that meet their expectations for speed of delivery, compared to 30% that report the same for Amazon. (Walker Sands)

Hence, having an effective shipping strategy along with reasonable shipping charges can easily make you a shopper’s favorite and not to mention it can also be a major boost to your brand’s image. Major eCommerce Platforms like Shopify offers a number of apps that can aid in Shipping management but, it still lags behind in catering to the needs of individual sellers. Hence, if you own an online business a custom Shopify App for Shipping Method integration can be the answer to all your shipping management hurdles.

Our Experience

Recently our expert developers also had a chance to create a Custom Shopify App for Shipping method Integration for one of our valuable clients. Our client had a few specific requirements which could only be fulfilled through a customized solution. Here is the client’s requirement which we had to address through our solution:

• A Shipping management system to manage the shipping rates for different locations.
• A System to make every order transfer to Shipcompliant for compliance checking through API.

Hence to cater to all of these requirements we decided to create a custom Shopify App using the YII 2.0 framework and integrated it with the APIs of Shipcompliant.

Why use a Custom Solution instead of Shopify Standard Shipping?

Although Shopify provides The Shopify Standard Shipping for its merchants to manage their shipping, we decided to create a custom solution for our client. As its functionalities were quite restricted and wouldn’t cater to the individual requirements. Here are a few major limitations of Shopify standard Shipping due to which we decided to create a custom solution:

•  Shopify Shipping does not provide services to the US and Canada which can restrict the merchant.
• Further, they provided a limited option of providers to fulfill shipment and there is no scope of using Shipment service according to your choice.
• The Shopify Standard shipping does not provide taxes & duty rates according to location automatically. And in case of international shipping setting up taxes and shipping rates automatically can be quite a hurdle.

Hence to overcome such hurdles using a custom solution for Shipping management is a much better alternative.

How does the Custom Shopify Shipping Management App Works?

The custom Shipping Management app is a great aid for managing the Shipping procedure. With this app, the client can manually enter the shipping charges manually in a CSV file according to the Zip Code and location. Also in this app, the merchant can manually decide upon shipping rates according to the amount of product purchased by the buyer as well which helps in elevating the user’s experience.

Further, not only the admin is capable of managing shipping rates through the app it also views the shipping charges to the user dynamically on the checkout process. Furthermore, once the buyer has completed the purchase order details directly goes to the merchant’s ShipCompliant account for compliance check and shipping. As a result, this became the final solution that catered to our client’s requirements in each and every way.

Features of Custom Shopify App for Managing Shipping Rates

The amazing and unique usability of the custom App can be credited to its unique features. We were able to induce following unique feature into the application which aided in catering to all the client’s requirement and made it easier for him to manage his store’s shipment:

• Managing Custom Shipping Rates in CSV 

Firstly, we wanted to allow our client to manually manage the shipping rates for each location he provides his services. This allows him to provide his consumers with reasonable shipping rates along with specifying conditions as well to let buyers avail of free shipping. This amazingly easy to operate feature of our application aids the merchants in creating drool-worthy offers for its consumer. Further, by providing the merchant with an option for independently deciding the shipping charges they can manage their shipment process in a profitable way to scale up their business.

• Creating Specific Shipping Rates According to Product Condition

Next, to provide the client with the option to widen his shipping services and consumer experience he can also manually create shipping offers according to product quantity of buyers. This not only makes the services of merchant’s brand appealing but it also helps them in pushing their customers to buy more which automatically leads to higher sales. With this, the merchant can easily open gateways to higher profits by tactfully handling the shipping rates according to product quantities.

• Display of rates dynamically according to location

After making it easy for the merchant to make changes in the shipping rates and alter the shipping cost according to the product quantity we also made it possible to display the dynamic shipping rates as well. With the display of dynamic shipping rates, the buyer gets access to the proper information about shipping charges which makes their shopping experience transparent. Also, in this section, all the shipping discounts are made visible as well to inform consumers of the availed perks.

• Transferring Shipping details in ShipCompliant through SOAP API  

Once the purchase is made from the store all the order information is transferred to a third party compliance service known as ShipCompliant. Although there were a few complications in achieving this feature, we were able to finally implement it through SOAP APIs. This transfer of data was an important step for the merchants as for his business abiding by compliance rules before processing for shipment was a must.

Once the order data goes to the merchant’s Shipcompliant account through SOAP APIs and all the compliance rules are checked the order gets shipped with a notification to the merchant and the buyer as well.

Challenges faced at Shopify Shipping App Development

After a series of rigorous coding and testing, we were finally able to create the Shopify App as per the client’s requirement. However, over the course of the development process, we discovered a number of new techniques and were able to overcome all the major challenges.

One of them was transferring order data to the client’s ShipCompliant Account. As with all the previous custom apps created by our developers such as Custom Shopify Checkout App or the Custom Shopify Wholesale App we never had the requirement of transferring data to a third-party service, however in this case for compliance check the client needed to transfer the data to ShipCompliance account.

To overcome this we had to go through the API documentation of ShipCompliance to search for the one that would cater to our requirements. With little support available at our exposure we had to look through the whole documentation. After, traversing through the never-ending list of APIs mention we decided to use their SOAP API. This API enabled us to securely transfer the order details to the client’s ShipCompliant Account for further processing.

Conclusion

A custom App can be a great aid in overcoming eCommerce Store management hurdles. With a customized solution that caters to individual business requirements, merchants can process orders and manage their stores without any hurdles. An application such as Shipping management tools not only make it easier for the client to manage their store it can also be a great tool to indulge in elevating a shopper’s experience as well. This makes the customized solutions a must-have aid for merchants of all niche.

If you own an online store and are looking for similar solutions that would address your business’s requirements, you can contact us anytime or drop us a mail with ease. Our expert Shopify developers can cater to all your functionality requirements with ease and deliver you one of a kind products in the blink of an eye.