At a glance
Shipping revenue collected from customers as a percentage of total revenue. Useful for spotting when free-shipping thresholds, carrier rate hikes, or shipping-promotion campaigns shift customer-paid shipping economics. This is the customer-paid shipping figure, not the merchant-cost shipping figure. True shipping margin requires combining this with carrier-side cost data from a shipping connector (ShipStation, EasyPost).
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Adobe Commerce data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A B2B+DTC homewares merchant on Adobe Commerce 2.4.7. UK base, GBP. 4,820 orders in last 30 days. Period: 14 Apr 26 to 13 May 26. Aggregate shipping figures:
Card calculations under different definitions:
Insight pattern:
- Card default reads 6.15%. Within the healthy 4-8% band for UK merchants. Not breaching the 12% alert threshold.
- VAT bias is real. The “fair” comparison (both sides net or both sides gross) is 7.38%. Always report the same definition consistently to Finance.
- Shipping discounts cost £14,200 in the period. That’s 1.49% of revenue absorbed as free-shipping promos. If the merchant raised the free-ship threshold from £75 to £85, AOV could shift up; analytics should A/B before changing.
- Slice by Store View: UK shipping % is 6.5%; US shipping % (USD orders) is 4.2%. Difference is mostly Royal Mail vs USPS rate spread, partly different free-ship thresholds.
- Trend over prior period (15 Mar to 13 Apr 26): 5.4%. Recent rise from 5.4% to 6.15% suggests either AOV dropped (it did, from £215 to £197 due to the supplier sizing problem causing return-replacements at lower per-line value) or shipping rates rose (carriers raised in late Mar). Investigate via Total Shipping (the absolute figure).
- Action implication: if the trend is AOV-driven (most likely here), fixing the supplier issue restores AOV and the percentage drops back; if rate-driven, renegotiate carrier or pass through to free-ship threshold.
- Cross-link with carrier-side data (
shipstation.shipping_cost): customer-paid £58,400. Merchant-paid carriers £52,800 (cost). Net shipping margin ~9.6%. If this card’s % rises while ShipStation’s cost-% rises faster, margin is shrinking; raise the customer-paid rate or threshold.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Adobe Commerce Admin: Adobe Commerce does not surface shipping % as a single Admin number; it must be derived. Components:Reports > Sales > Shipping for the shipping value. Set “Show By” to the period. Reports > Sales > Orders for the revenue value. Set the same period and divide.For per-shipping-method breakdown:
Reports > Sales > Shipping with “Show By” set to “Shipping Method”. Lets you see whether the % is driven by an expensive method (Royal Mail Special Delivery, FedEx Priority) or by a high free-ship absorption.Why our number may legitimately differ from a manual Admin computation:
Internal identity (within Adobe Commerce):
shipping_pct = SUM(shipping_amount) ÷ SUM(grand_total) × 100
Component cards:
Cross-connector reconciliation (when these connectors are connected for this merchant):
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Why is the percentage lower than my “real” shipping rate? Because the default uses excl-taxshipping_amount over incl-tax grand_total. This biases low. For a true rate, switch the manifest to net-of-VAT both sides or incl-tax both sides. The bias is roughly 1.6-1.8 absolute points for UK/EU merchants (20% VAT on shipping share).
Does this include free shipping?
The free-shipping orders contribute zero to the numerator (shipping_amount=0 after the discount) and their full grand_total to the denominator. So a high free-ship-share drags this percentage down. To see “what shipping would cost without promos”, use the pre-discount view (shipping_amount + shipping_discount_amount) which is exposed on the card detail panel.
My free-ship threshold dragged the % down, is that good?
Depends on the AOV impact. Free-ship promos that lift AOV above the threshold by enough to cover the absorbed shipping are net positive. Free-ship blanket campaigns (free shipping on all orders) are usually net negative; the % drops but margin drops faster. Use google_analytics.ga_aov_lift_from_freeship for the proper attribution.
Why does the card not include the merchant’s actual carrier cost?
Because Adobe Commerce only knows what the customer paid, not what the merchant paid the carrier. To compute true shipping margin, connect ShipStation (or your carrier integration) and pair this card with shipstation.shipping_cost. The Vortex IQ workspace combines them into a “shipping margin” view.
B2B orders, are they in this card?
Yes. B2B often uses freight (LTL, FTL) charged separately of the platform; those orders may show low or zero shipping in Adobe and the freight bill arrives via email/PDF. If your B2B traffic is freight-heavy and freight is invoiced outside Adobe, this card under-reports the real shipping economics for B2B. Filter to DTC-only via Customer Group for cleaner numbers.
Why is my % rising even though I haven’t changed anything?
Three common causes: (1) carriers raised rates (most common, often Q1 or post-fuel-surcharge); (2) AOV dropped (shipping is a fixed cost per order; lower AOV = higher %); (3) order mix shifted to cheaper SKUs (lower per-line value but same shipping, ratio rises). Cross-link with AOV and the carrier rate cards.
The 12% threshold isn’t right for my heavy-goods category, can I change?
Yes. Heavy-goods (furniture, machinery) routinely run at 15-25% shipping. Customise the threshold in the manifest. The +relative trigger (week-on-week jump) is more universally useful.
My multi-store, can I see per-Store-View shipping %?
Yes. Filter by store_id. Comparing UK vs US Store Views often reveals very different shipping economics worth investigating.
Refunded shipping, does it appear here?
No, the card is creation-time. Refunded shipping is captured separately on Credit Memos (see Refund Value). For “net shipping economics” you would compute (collected − refunded − carrier cost) per period; that requires combining cards.
Why doesn’t ShipStation match?
ShipStation knows what you paid carriers. This card knows what customers paid you. They are two sides of a margin calculation, not the same number. Both are correct.