At a glance
Distribution of orders by shipping method (Standard, Express, Next-Day, Click-and-Collect, etc), aggregated from Order.shippingLines.title. Tells operations which carrier mix to plan around.
| What it counts | COUNT(orders) GROUP BY shippingLines[0].title over the 30D window. Each order’s first shipping line is used; multi-shipment orders surface only the first method. |
| VAT / tax treatment | Not applicable, count metric. |
| Shipping | Not applicable as a £ figure here, but the method label is the shipping line itself. |
| Discounts | Not applicable; shipping discounts (free-shipping promo) usually retain the original method label with a price-reduction. |
| Refunds | Not deducted; the original shipping method choice is what counts. |
| Cancelled / voided orders | Included if Shopify indexed them. |
| Currency | Multi-currency safe (count metric). |
| Channels / sources | All channels. POS sales typically have a “POS Pickup” method or no shipping line; B2B sales often have “Account Shipping” or contracted methods. |
| Time window | 30D (default rolling 30D) |
| Alert trigger | None; descriptive distribution. |
| Roles | owner, operations |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Shopify 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 UK lifestyle brand on Shopify, single warehouse in Leicestershire, Royal Mail / DPD / Click-and-Collect. 30D window 12 Apr 26 to 12 May 26.| Shipping method | Orders | Share | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Mail Tracked 48 (Standard) | 4,820 | 60.4% | Default, free over £40 |
| Royal Mail Tracked 24 (Express) | 1,310 | 16.4% | £4.95 paid upgrade |
| DPD Next Day | 980 | 12.3% | £6.95 paid upgrade |
| Click-and-Collect (Leicester store) | 410 | 5.1% | New offering, growing |
| International Tracked | 280 | 3.5% | EU + non-EU |
| DPD Saturday | 95 | 1.2% | Weekend bonus |
| POS / In-store | 78 | 1.0% | Pop-up bookings |
| Total orders | 7,973 | 100% |
- Standard is the natural majority. 60% on Royal Mail Tracked 48 is healthy DTC; 70%+ suggests free-shipping default is too generous (customers never upgrade), 50% or less suggests express is over-marketed or standard is too slow.
- Express + Next-Day = paid-upgrade revenue. ~28% combined share on paid options. Pair with Total Shipping Revenue to see the £ this generates. For most DTC, paid-shipping revenue is 5-10% of gross.
- Click-and-Collect is the new lever. 5.1% share, growing. Each C&C order avoids ~£3-4 in carrier cost; if it grows to 15%, the brand saves ~£10k/month in shipping. Worth pushing in the cart for postcodes near the store.
- International is the operations risk. 3.5% of orders carry the bulk of customer-service tickets (lost parcels, customs delays, returns from abroad). Pair with Top Cities for the geo split.
- Weekend Saturday delivery is tiny. 1.2% suggests price elasticity is unfavourable; customers won’t pay £8+ for Saturday. Consider testing a free-Saturday-over-£75 promotion to see if volume responds.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Shipping mix is the operational planner’s first chart. The companions:| Card | Why pair it with Shipping Methods |
|---|---|
| Total Shipping Revenue | The £ generated from paid-shipping methods. Combine to see method-by-£ ratio. |
| Shipping Cost as % of Revenue | The benchmark version. Watch upward drift on this card when express share grows. |
| Fulfillment Rate | The shipping mix affects fulfilment SLAs; express orders have stricter pick deadlines. |
| Top Cities | Geographic correlation. Far-flung cities skew toward express; local skews toward standard. |
| Average Order Value | Free-shipping thresholds drive AOV; the standard-vs-express split tells you whether the threshold is incentivising upsell. |
| Customer Countries | International method share should match your country-of-shipping mix. |
| Refund Rate | Returns spike on express deliveries (impulse-buy regret); cross-reference. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Shopify Admin: Shopify doesn’t expose a single dedicated Shipping Methods report; piece it together from:- Analytics → Reports → “Sales by shipping method” (under Sales). The most direct equivalent; gives £ and order count by method.
- Settings → Shipping & delivery: shows the method definitions, not the usage data.
- Orders → Filter by shipping method: order list filtered to one method; useful for spot checks.
- Apps like Shippo, ShipStation, EasyPost dashboards: report on labels-printed-by-method, slightly different population than orders-placed-by-method (some orders are cancelled before label).
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| First-line vs all-lines | Either | We use shippingLines[0].title. An order split across two shipments (e.g. one express, one standard) only contributes to one method count here. Shopify’s report can show both. |
| Time zone | Boundary days | UTC vs store time zone. |
| Method renames | Either | If you renamed “Standard Delivery” to “Tracked 48” mid-period, the same orders show under different labels in the two halves of the window. |
| Custom rate names | Different label | Apps that calculate live carrier rates can write per-order method labels (e.g. “DPD £6.95 - Next Day”). Shopify normalises some of these in the report; we show the raw label. |
| Sync lag | Ours lower for “today” | Most-recent 5 to 15 minutes of orders may not be in the index. |
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
| Carrier-portal volume reports | Should align method-by-method | Carrier reports include returns and reshipments; this card counts only customer-facing orders. |
| 3PL / WMS dashboard | Same | 3PLs see picks-by-method, slightly downstream from orders-by-method. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
My method labels are inconsistent. Why? Three usual causes:- Carrier rate apps writing custom labels. Live-rate apps (Shippo, Shipstation Connect, EasyPost) sometimes write per-order method labels with the carrier price embedded. The label varies per quote.
- Renames mid-period. Renaming a method in Settings doesn’t backfill historical orders; old orders keep their original label.
- Multi-warehouse with different rate setups. Orders fulfilled from a London location vs Manchester location can end up with subtly different method labels.
- If standard >75%: free-shipping threshold may be too generous; test raising it to push more upgrades.
- If express >25% of paid: customers are willing to pay; consider a “premium” tier above express (next-day-AM, named-day) for additional margin.
- If C&C is rising: invest in C&C marketing in cart and checkout; each C&C order saves carrier cost.
- If international share is rising: review your international rate cards; high international share with low international margin is a profitability trap.
- If method labels are messy: spend a session standardising in Settings → Shipping & delivery; consistent labels improve every shipping report.