At a glance
Total shipping revenue as a percentage of total revenue. The “how much of what customers pay is for shipping” KPI. Most BC stores sit at 4-12%; outside this band suggests either over-charging (above 15% looks predatory and depresses conversion) or under-charging (below 3% means shipping is a cost centre rather than a revenue line). Different from BC Free vs Paid, which is the boolean breakdown; this card gives the dollar share.
| What it counts | SUM(shipping_cost) / SUM(total_inc_tax) over the period. Customer-paid shipping divided by total customer-paid revenue. |
| VAT / tax treatment | Both numerator and denominator are tax-inclusive (UK / EU) or tax-exclusive (US) consistent with the store’s tax-handling configuration. |
| Shipping | This card is the shipping percentage. |
| Discounts | Free-shipping discounts pull this card down. Shipping-discount coupons (50% off shipping) reduce the shipping numerator without affecting the denominator. |
| Refunds | Not deducted. Gross shipping divided by gross revenue. |
| Cancelled orders | Excluded from both numerator and denominator. |
| Currency | Multi-currency: per-currency calculation, or weighted-average for blended view. FX-conversion not applied. |
| Channels / sources | All channels aggregate. Per-channel breakdown via toggle: marketplace channels (Amazon) typically have shipping baked into the product price (showing 0% here); DTC channels have explicit shipping (4-12%). |
| B2B Edition behaviour | B2B orders typically have palletised LTL shipping with much higher per-order shipping cost (often 8-20% of order). High-B2B stores see this card pulled up. |
| Per-channel rate-set caveat | BC’s per-channel shipping rate sets mean the same SKU can have different shipping costs on different channels. The blended figure averages across channels weighted by order count. |
| Time window | 30D (rolling 30 days). |
| Alert trigger | >20% (margin pressure). Above 20% indicates either undue shipping cost (bad carrier rates) or low-value orders (small AOV with fixed shipping costs). |
| Sentiment key | shipping_pct |
| Roles | owner, operations |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your BigCommerce 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 US apparel brand on BigCommerce, 30-day window. Multi-channel.| Channel | Revenue ($) | Shipping ($) | Shipping % | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Web (channel_id = 1) | $172,000 | $14,800 | 8.6% | Standard for apparel DTC |
| Amazon UK | $42,400 | $0 | 0.0% | Amazon-paid, Prime |
| B2B Edition | $6,800 | $1,180 | 17.4% | Palletised LTL pulls up |
| POS | $1,800 | $0 | 0.0% | In-store, no shipping |
| Blended | $223,000 | $15,980 | 7.2% |
- Web at 8.6% is the read that matters. This is the actionable number; B2B and Amazon distort the blend. Apparel DTC sits at 5-9% typically; 8.6% is at the upper edge of healthy. A merchant looking to improve margin should investigate whether shipping is overcharged (loses competitive conversion) or undercharged (consuming margin).
- B2B at 17.4% is normal for palletised orders. B2B AOV is high ($500+ typical); LTL freight quotes scale linearly. This is not a problem, just a structural difference.
- Amazon at 0% because Amazon Prime customers don’t see shipping line items; the cost is bundled into Amazon’s FBA fees. Margin per Amazon order is lower than apparent; the FBA fee (10-15% of order value typically) is the hidden equivalent.
- The 7.2% blended is not the actionable number. Reading the channel-mix-aware version is more useful: web 8.6% means web shipping margins; B2B 17.4% means B2B is structurally shipping-heavy; Amazon 0% means margin is in Amazon’s hands.
- Watch for drift over time. A web shipping % gradually climbing from 8% to 11% over 6 months suggests carrier rate inflation outpacing price increases; renegotiate carrier rates or raise shipping prices.
- Compare to category benchmarks. Apparel: 5-9%. Beauty: 4-7%. Home goods: 6-12%. Furniture: 8-18%. B2B: 12-25%. Outside the band investigate.
- Investigate per-channel anomalies. Web shipping % rising while AOV is flat = carrier rates rising; raise shipping prices or renegotiate carrier contracts.
- Audit free-ship-threshold sensitivity. A 1pp shift in shipping % typically corresponds to a 5-10% change in free-ship-eligible order share.
- Consider postcode-zone-rate optimisation. Stores using flat-rate shipping miss zone-rate opportunities; switch to zone-rate where carrier APIs allow.
- Cross-reference BC Channel Revenue Mix to understand whether channel-mix shifts are driving shipping % changes (B2B share growth pulls % up).
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with Shipping % |
|---|---|
| BC Total Shipping | Absolute dollars. This card is the ratio; that one is the magnitude. |
| BC Shipping Methods | Composition by method. Tells you which methods drive the percentage. |
| BC Free vs Paid | Boolean breakdown of order-level shipping. |
| Total Revenue | Denominator. |
| AOV | Lower AOV stores have higher shipping % (shipping is fixed cost, AOV scales). |
| Discount % of Revenue | Pair to see total customer concession (discount + shipping subsidy). |
| BC Channel Revenue Mix | Channel-mix shifts drive shipping % changes. |
| BC Top Cities | Geographic distribution affects shipping % (long-haul shipments cost more). |
| Cancellation Rate | High shipping % can drive cancellations from sticker-shock at checkout. |
| Refund Rate | Damaged-in-transit refunds correlate with shipping cost; cheap shipping methods often cause more damage. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in BigCommerce’s own dashboard: BC Insights doesn’t expose shipping % directly. The merchant calculates it by dividing two figures from BC reports:- Shipping revenue: Reports → Sales by Date or Insights → Shipping Methods (sum the cost column).
- Total revenue: Reports → Sales by Date.
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Tax handling | Either | If BC reports show ex-tax revenue but inc-tax shipping, the ratio is inflated; we use consistent tax treatment. |
| Refund treatment | Either | We include shipping on refunded orders in the numerator; if the merchant calculates from net data, the figures differ. |
| Multi-currency | Either | We compute per-currency; BC may convert. |
| Channel aggregation | Either | Our default blended view weights by orders; BC may weight by revenue. |
| Time zone | Trivial | Boundary days off. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
My shipping % jumped from 6% to 9% in a month, what changed? Three usual causes: (1) carrier rate increase (UPS, FedEx, USPS publish rate changes; check carrier announcements), (2) channel-mix shift (more B2B or international orders pulled the percentage up), (3) free-ship threshold change (raising the threshold pushes more orders to paid shipping). Pull BC Channel Revenue Mix and check Settings → Shipping for recent changes. Is 12% shipping % bad? Depends on category. Furniture and home-decor merchants commonly run at 12-18%; apparel at 12% is high. The benchmark band is the answer. Should I raise shipping prices to improve margin? Cautiously. A 10% rate increase typically reduces conversion by 1-3% and reduces order count by similar. The net effect on revenue is usually small but margin improves. A/B test before rolling out. Why is my web shipping % higher than my competitors’? Possible reasons: (1) you offer fewer free-ship promotions, (2) your carrier contracts are less negotiated (smaller volume = worse rates), (3) you ship from one warehouse to a wide geography (long-haul costs more). Use BC Top Cities to see if order distribution is geographically wide. Can I see shipping % per shipping method? Yes via Ask Viq: “shipping % for UPS Ground over last 30 days”. Useful for identifying which methods are well-priced versus overcharged. Why does my Amazon channel show 0% shipping? Amazon Prime / FBA orders show $0 customer-paid shipping; Amazon pays the carrier and charges you a fulfilment fee instead. The shipping % on Amazon is structurally always 0; the equivalent cost lives in BC Channel Revenue Mix margin reports. Should I bake shipping into product prices instead of charging separately? Free-shipping with prices-include-shipping (“baked in”) improves conversion by 5-15% on most stores but reduces apparent unit price by 5-15%. Net revenue impact varies; A/B test for your category. My B2B is showing 22% shipping, is that a problem? Probably not. LTL freight is structurally expensive; 15-25% on B2B is normal. The customer expects it. If buyers complain, consider negotiating LTL rates with a 3PL or offering pickup discounts. Can I see shipping % over time? Yes via Ask Viq: “shipping % over time for last 90 days”. The chart will show day-by-day or week-by-week movement; useful for catching carrier-rate-change effects. Why does my POS channel show 0% shipping? POS = in-store transactions; no shipping involved. Always 0% structurally. My shipping % is 3%, should I raise prices? Probably yes; below 4% means you’re absorbing shipping cost. Even raising to 5% closes a margin gap of 2pp = ~2% net margin improvement. Test the customer reaction. Does this include handling fees? Yes if the merchant uses BC’shandling_cost field. Some merchants charge handling separately; others bake into shipping. The card aggregates both because customers don’t distinguish them.
Should this match my carrier invoice?
No. This card shows what customers paid for shipping; the carrier invoice shows what you paid the carrier. The difference is your shipping margin (often 30-60% on standard methods, near-zero on calculated rates).