Shopify has a gross merchandise volume of over $49.7 billion & presence in over 174 countries. Therefore, custom shipping method development can become an excellent playground for any Shipping business that wishes to scale up its revenue by tapping eCommerce merchants.
Our industry-wide research suggests that the global eCommerce logistic market will reach US$ 3221 billion in 2033 – Anurag Singh, CEO, Future Market Insights, Inc.
In 2023 alone, Shopify merchants will have over 700 million buyers. Therefore, if you own a carrier services company, it’s the right time to invest in Shopify custom shipping method integration so that you can join the global eCommerce logistic market club that offers carrier services to Shopify merchants.
Does that sound interesting? Well, today we will guide you on the right approach for integrating your carrier services on stores of Shopify merchants. Additionally, we will also share a recent case study where our Shopify experts have helped a leading Shipping services provider to integrate with Shopify successfully. So, let’s begin!
The need for Shopify custom shipping method integration
In addition to Shopify Shipping, hundreds of more third-party shipping solutions are available on the Shopify app store. However, each shipping provider has its limitations depending on the scale & location of its operations. For example, Shopify Shipping is available only for merchants in The United States, The United Kingdom, and Australia.
Additionally, other factors like shipping costs, return costs, and more compel Shopify store owners to keep on searching for better shipping solutions. It’s an opportunity for local/small-scale shipping service providers to tap into the Shopify space. They can fill the gaps using Shopify custom shipping method development to offer their services.
Building a Custom shipping method in Shopify for your shipping company will allow the Shopify merchant to integrate your services. Thus, It allows them to ship orders placed in their store using your custom shipping gateway. Moreover, you can also equip such apps with capabilities like generating shipping labels and processing shipping fees.
Our Shopify development agency has helped small-scale and local shipping services to set up custom shipping method in Shopify. So we will clarify the process for you and share our recent experience assisting with eFMX integration with Shopify.
How to add custom shipping methods in Shopify?
The life of an eCommerce merchant doesn’t work like a usual customer having the liberty to spare enough time to update each shipping request manually in your system. For e-commerce merchants, manual updation of shipping requests can become a big pain point.
Though it may work well for merchants who fetch a couple of orders in a day, merchants with large volumes will always prefer an automated solution to update the fulfillment requests in the systems of their shipping providers.
Here comes the role of a Shopify custom shipping method integration using API integrations and a Shopify app. Shopify allows integrations via the use of apps and external API requests. So, you need to fulfill the following requisites for adding custom shipping methods in Shopify.
- Custom Shopify Fulfillment App
- Merchant’s Store API integration
- Shipping provider’s API Integration
1. Custom Shopify fulfillment service app
Shopify fulfillment/shipping app is required to create an interface allowing the merchants to send fulfillment requests to the service provider. Such apps also help to track orders, generate shipping labels and manage shipping fees for the shipping service provider integrated with Shopify stores.
Apart from that, these apps also offer a solution to oversee and manage order shipments with the ease of their original Shopify dashboard. The below points will help you understand the working of a custom Shopify shipping app made for third-party shipping services:-
- Customers place orders, and merchants submit the fulfillment request for orders.
- The app receives the request & assigns it to the shipping company’s system.
- Third-party shipping services handle the shipments & delivery of assigned orders.
2. Shipping gateway API Integration
APIs play a vital role in Shopify custom shipping method development. It facilitates the fulfillment data to sync between the Shipping service app and Shopify. The REST Admin API and GraphQL Admin API are available to implement FullfillmentOrder resource models in custom Shopify apps.
These APIs act as a library to share the required information and data resources with the Shipping company’s platform. Thus, you can hire Shopify developer to add features like automatic customer bills, order status updates, print shipping labels, and provide delivery estimates.
Is it possible to create a Carrier service for Shopify using Admin API?
The logistics companies can create custom shipping apps for Shopify by establishing API endpoints. On successful checkout, Admin API calls will be initiated to pass the order details to such apps so that the shipping provider can process the shipments accordingly.
Shopify sends a standard payload to your callback_url that can be used to calculate your rates and echo a response. However, there are a few things to keep in mind before going for Shopify Custom Shipping Method Development:-
- The merchants should be on an advance plan or higher to use 3rd-party carrier services.
- Your service APIs should not take longer than 10 seconds to respond to avoid a timeout limit.
- Shopify has request limits for API depending on its nature & caches requests for 5 minutes.
Developing Shopify custom shipping method for eFMX
eFMX is an express delivery service provider based in Malaysia that approached our Shopify development experts to carry out Shopify custom shipping method integration for their services. They aimed to extend their services to eCommerce merchants using a custom shipping methods Shopify app with the following features:-
- Create consignments for single & multiple products
- Fetch and add balance to wallet through eFMX APIs
- Retrieve the Tracking ID & Shipping labels for orders
Roadmap we followed to deliver eFMX custom shipping method in Shopify
Our Shopify experts carried out integrations of eFMX APIs & Shopify APIs with our custom shipping app. The eFMX APIs were deployed to authenticate the merchant logins and fetch the relevant data from the merchant accounts created on the eFMX portal.
Similarly, we integrated the Shopify APIs with our app to fetch the data from the merchant stores. Once we integrated the Shopify Admin APIs into our app, it can pull in the following details from the merchant’s stores:
- Order ID on new order creation
- The date of placing the order
- Payment status for the orders
- Customer name and address
The merchant can see all these details in the admin dashboard of the app, thus making it easier to take necessary action for creating shipping consignments. Let’s have an overview of some significant features that we provided to make this Shopify app work for the merchants as well as Shopify stores:-
1). Merchant interface for custom Shopify shipping app
A good UI/UX design is vital in making user interaction more efficient and intuitive. Therefore, we utilized core PHP and HTML to build an intuitive merchant dashboard enabling the Shopify store owners to access their eFMX accounts from within their Shopify admin panel.
2). Ability to create consignments for ordered products
Once the app fetches the completed orders into its dashboard, merchants can create consignments to initiate the delivery. They also have the option to club two or more orders in a single consignment if they have the same delivery address.
3). Option to view and update the wallet balance with eFMX
The app for Shopify custom shipping method integration also displays the wallet balance for the eFMX account. The merchants were not required to log in to their eFMX account to check the balance or update it if running low.
4). Feature to print the shipping labels for consignments
Once the merchant creates a shipment for the orders, the app fetches the shipping labels from the eFMX portal. Lastly, the merchants can download/print these shipping labels and paste them on the packages meant to be shipped/delivered by eFMX.
Conclusion
These were some insights into building custom shipping method in Shopify and our recent experience building custom shipping gateways for clients who recognize the need of the hour by offering plug-and-play shipping gateways to eCommerce merchants operating on different platforms.
We strongly believe that Shopify custom shipping method development can become a game changer for local shipping service providers around the globe. Hence, if you seek a similar solution to integrate your shipping/fulfillment services with Shopify, our certified Shopify development team is just a click away!
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