At a glance
The breakdown of order count and revenue by shipping method (Standard, Express, Free Shipping, Overnight, Local Delivery, etc.) over the period. BigCommerce’s shipping economics differ from Shopify’s: BC uses per-channel shipping rate sets (the same SKU can have different shipping methods on web vs Amazon vs B2B portal), so this card has more complexity than the equivalent Shopify card. The card surfaces method usage so the merchant can decide which methods to promote, retire, or reprice.
| What it counts | COUNT(orders) GROUP BY shipping_method_name plus SUM(shipping_cost) per method. Each order maps to exactly one shipping method (the chosen one at checkout); orders with multiple shipments map to the primary method on the parent order. |
| VAT / tax treatment | Shipping cost shown is the customer-paid figure (tax-inclusive in UK / EU; tax-exclusive in US per BC’s tax-handling defaults). |
| Shipping | This card is the shipping breakdown. |
| Discounts | Free-shipping discounts and shipping-discount coupons appear as 0 cost from a free-ship promo). |
| Refunds | Refunded orders count toward their shipping method; refunded shipping is not netted out. |
| Cancelled orders | Excluded. |
Incomplete orders | Excluded. |
| Currency | Multi-currency without FX. Shipping costs aggregate per native currency. |
| Channels / sources | Per-channel breakdown is essential on BC. Each channel has its own shipping rate set; the same “Standard” method on web might be a different rate set than “Standard” on POS. The default view aggregates across channels; toggle to per-channel for sharper reads. |
| BC’s per-channel shipping | BC supports defining shipping methods at the channel level via the Shipping Manager (Settings → Shipping). A single physical method (UPS Ground) can have different display names, rates, and rules per channel. This card surfaces the merchant-facing names, not the underlying carrier identity. |
| Custom shipping methods | BC allows custom-named shipping methods (e.g., “Curbside Pickup”, “White Glove Delivery”). Each appears as a distinct method on the chart. |
| Time window | 30D (rolling 30 days). |
| Alert trigger | None; this is a composition card. |
| 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 home goods brand on BigCommerce, 30-day window. Multi-channel: web (channel_id = 1), Amazon Channel Manager (channel_id = 1019847), POS (channel_id = 1020114).
| Shipping method | Order count | % of orders | Revenue ($) | Avg shipping cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Shipping (>$50 threshold) | 2,840 | 49% | $268,000 | $0 |
| UPS Ground (web standard) | 1,420 | 24% | $129,000 | $9.50 |
| UPS 2-Day (web express) | 480 | 8% | $58,400 | $19.50 |
| FedEx Overnight | 95 | 2% | $14,200 | $35.00 |
| Local Delivery (3-mile radius) | 320 | 5% | $24,800 | $5.00 |
| In-Store Pickup (POS) | 410 | 7% | $32,200 | $0 |
| Amazon Prime (Channel Manager) | 295 | 5% | $48,400 | $0 (Amazon-paid) |
| Total | 5,860 | 100% | $575,000 |
- Free Shipping is 49% of orders. This is structurally normal for stores with a free-ship threshold; the AOV-lift effect of “spend 50 threshold; raising to $65 might push more orders to UPS Ground (paid) and improve unit margin.**
- UPS 2-Day at 8% is healthy for express. Below 5% means customers don’t value speed (lower the express price or reposition); above 15% means express is a primary driver (consider keeping it premium or adding overnight options).
- FedEx Overnight at 2% / 95 orders is the high-value tail. Average order value on overnight is typically 2-3x DTC AOV; these are gifts, urgent replacements, or last-minute purchases. Don’t optimise this segment for cost; optimise for reliability.
- In-Store Pickup at 7% is the omnichannel signal. POS-eligible web orders being picked up in-store reduces shipping cost to zero and increases foot traffic for upsell. Promote pickup more visibly at checkout to grow this share.
- Amazon Prime at 5% reflects Amazon’s fulfilment economics (Amazon pays the shipping; the merchant pays a fulfilment fee instead). The revenue per Amazon order is similar to web but margin is lower due to FBA fees.
- Local Delivery at 5% is the local-business signal. If your radius covers a city, expand the radius gradually; if it covers a suburb, consider partnerships with local courier services.
- Optimise the Free Shipping threshold. Run an A/B at 65 thresholds to see if AOV lifts and free-ship share drops appropriately. Most stores find the sweet spot at 1.4-1.6x of AOV.
- Audit shipping method utilisation per channel. A method at <2% on web might be over-due for retirement; a method at >5% should have rate optimisation reviews quarterly.
- Track shipping cost as % of revenue via BC Shipping %. Most apparel sits at 4-7%; home goods 6-12%; furniture 8-18%. Outside the band suggests pricing issues.
- Add Local Delivery if you don’t have it. ~5% adoption on most urban-area stores; pure margin lift if courier costs are below $7/delivery.
- Consider per-channel shipping rate experiments. BC’s per-channel shipping lets you test cheaper rates on Amazon (where customers won’t notice) without affecting web pricing perception.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with Shipping Methods |
|---|---|
| BC Shipping % | The proportion of revenue captured as shipping. This card is composition, that one is magnitude. |
| BC Total Shipping | Absolute dollar amount. |
| BC Free vs Paid | Boolean breakdown: which orders had a shipping charge versus which were free. Simpler than this method-level breakdown. |
| Total Revenue | The denominator for understanding shipping-method economics. |
| AOV | Free-ship-threshold sensitive. Higher AOV stores typically have higher free-ship adoption. |
| BC Top Cities | Geographic dimension for local-delivery and zone-rate optimisation. |
| Fulfillment Rate | Different shipping methods have different fulfilment SLAs; track rate per method to find bottlenecks. |
| BC Channel Revenue Mix | Per-channel context for shipping method choices (Amazon Prime vs web Standard). |
| BC Cancellation Rate | Slow shipping methods have higher cancellation rates; reading the two together exposes service-quality issues. |
| BC Refund Rate | Damaged-in-transit refund rate varies by carrier; per-method refund analysis identifies carrier issues. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in BigCommerce’s own dashboard: The closest native view is BC Control Panel → Settings → Shipping → Shipping Manager, which shows method definitions and rules but not usage. For usage analytics:- Plus / Enterprise: BC Insights → Reports → Shipping Methods (this view shows order count by method).
- Standard: Use the Orders export (Settings → Data Solutions → Export → Orders) and pivot on
shipping_methodfield.
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Method-name normalisation | Either | If a merchant renames a shipping method mid-period, BC reports may show two separate rows for old name and new name; we collapse to the most recent name. |
| Time zone | Boundary days off | UTC vs store time zone. |
| Sync lag | Ours lower for last 30 minutes | Webhook fanout. |
| Custom methods | Either | Merchant-defined custom methods may not appear in BC’s standard reports until manually added; ours surfaces all method strings. |
| Refunded orders | Either | We include refunded orders’ shipping methods; some BC reports exclude them. |
| Channel-specific shipping | Ours more granular | BC’s standard report aggregates across channels; we expose per-channel detail. |