At a glance
Total customer-paid shipping revenue over the period. The dollar twin of BC Shipping % and BC Shipping Methods. On BigCommerce specifically, this aggregates across per-channel rate sets: a SKU shipped on web, on Amazon Channel Manager, and on a B2B portal can have three different shipping rates, all summed here. The card answers “how much did customers pay us for shipping?”, which is different from “how much did shipping cost us” (the carrier-invoice number).
| What it counts | SUM(shipping_cost_inc_tax) over the period. The customer-billed shipping figure (inclusive of any tax on shipping where applicable). |
| VAT / tax treatment | Tax-inclusive if the merchant configured shipping as taxable (typical for UK / EU). US stores’ shipping tax-handling varies by state. |
| Shipping | This card is the shipping revenue. |
| Discounts | Net of free-shipping promos and shipping-rate discounts. A free-shipping coupon reduces this card by the customer-side shipping value. |
| Refunds | Not deducted (gross). Refunded shipping is captured separately. |
| Cancelled orders | Excluded. |
Incomplete orders | Excluded. |
| Currency | Multi-currency without FX. |
| Channels / sources | All channels aggregate. Marketplace orders typically show $0 shipping because the marketplace (Amazon Prime, eBay) absorbs the shipping cost; the merchant doesn’t see customer-paid shipping on these orders. The card therefore predominantly reflects DTC web shipping. |
| Per-channel rate set | BC’s per-channel shipping rate sets mean the same SKU has different rates on different channels. Aggregate across all channels in this card. |
| Handling fees | Included if the merchant uses BC’s handling_cost field. Some stores charge handling separately (e.g., $2 handling); this card sums shipping + handling because customers don’t distinguish. |
| B2B Edition behaviour | B2B orders typically use palletised LTL freight, with high per-order shipping costs (300+). B2B share of this card is disproportionate to B2B order share. |
| Time window | 30D (rolling 30 days). |
| Alert trigger | None directly; alerts on the rate version live on BC Shipping %. |
| Roles | owner, operations |
Calculation
Worked example
A US apparel brand on BigCommerce, 30-day window. Multi-channel.| Channel | Orders | Shipping revenue ($) | Avg shipping per order |
|---|---|---|---|
Web (channel_id = 1) | 4,820 | $14,800 | $3.07 |
| Amazon Channel Manager | 1,610 | $0 | $0 (Amazon-paid) |
| B2B Edition | 88 | $1,180 | $13.41 |
| POS | 410 | $0 | $0 (no shipping) |
| Total | 6,928 | $15,980 | avg $2.31 |
- **Web average shipping is 50). Free shipping is the customer experience win, but the unit economics need monitoring: each free-ship-eligible order at low AOV may actually lose money on shipping cost vs revenue.
- Amazon at $0 shipping revenue because Amazon Prime customers don’t see shipping line items. Margin per Amazon order is invisible at this card’s level; the equivalent cost is the FBA fulfillment fee (10-15% of order value typically), which sits in BC Channel Revenue Mix.
- **B2B avg 600+ typical) absorbs the cost.
- Total 223,000 = 7.2% shipping %. Sits in the healthy band for apparel (5-9%); not a concern.
- POS at $0 because in-store transactions involve no shipping. Always structurally zero on this card.
- Monitor the dollar absolute and the rate jointly. Absolute shipping rising with revenue rising is normal scaling; rate creeping up means carrier costs outpacing pricing.
- Renegotiate carrier rates annually. UPS, FedEx, USPS all publish rate increases each year; without negotiation, your absolute shipping spend grows 4-6%/year.
- Audit free-ship-threshold sensitivity. If 60%+ of orders qualify for free shipping, threshold may be too low.
- Use BC Shipping Methods to see which methods drive most shipping revenue; some methods may be over-priced (depressing conversion) or under-priced (eating margin).
- Pair with BC Top Cities to see geographic distribution of shipping revenue; long-haul cities (Alaska, Hawaii, Pacific Coast for East-Coast warehouses) drive disproportionate shipping cost.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with Total Shipping |
|---|---|
| BC Shipping % | The ratio version. Absolute and rate together give full picture. |
| BC Shipping Methods | Composition by method. Which methods drive the absolute number. |
| BC Free vs Paid | Boolean breakdown of paid vs free shipping. |
| Total Revenue | Denominator. |
| BC Top Cities | Geographic dimension. Long-haul cities = high shipping. |
| AOV | Free-ship threshold sensitivity is AOV-driven. |
| BC Channel Revenue Mix | Channel mix shifts (Amazon growth) reduce this card’s growth. |
| Cancellation Rate | Sticker-shock at high shipping cost drives cancellations. |
| Refund Rate | Damaged-in-transit refunds correlate with shipping cost. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in BigCommerce’s own dashboard: The native view is BC Control Panel → Reports → Shipping Reports (Plus and Enterprise) or the Sales by Date report exported to CSV (all tiers). Sum the shipping_cost column for the comparable figure. For finance reconciliation, Settings → Data Solutions → Export → Orders with the shipping fields included is the working data. Why our number may legitimately differ from the vendor’s:| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Tax handling on shipping | Either | Whether shipping is taxable affects whether shipping_cost_inc_tax matches shipping_cost. Configuration changes mid-period cause discrepancies. |
| Time zone | Boundary days off | UTC vs store time zone. |
| Sync lag | Trivial | Webhook fanout. |
| Refund treatment | Either | We show gross; BC may show net. |
| Handling fees | Either | We include handling_cost; BC report may show separately. |
| Currency | Trivial | Per-currency aggregation. |