How to Create a Shipping Experiment
This guide walks you through the full setup process for a shipping experiment in Elevate — from configuration to launch.
Plan requirement: Shipping experiments require access to third-party carrier-calculated shipping rates. See Getting Started for plan details.
Step 1: Create an Experiment
From your Elevate dashboard, go to Experiments and click New Experiment. Select Shipping Experiment.
If this is your first shipping experiment, Elevate will check that your store has the required shipping permissions and carrier service enabled. Follow any prompts to grant permissions — this is a one-time setup.
Step 2: General Info
Enter your experiment details:
Name — Something descriptive like "Free Shipping $50 vs $75 Threshold" or "Flat Rate $4.99 vs $7.99"
Description — What you're testing and why
Hypothesis — What you expect to happen
For example:
"Lowering our free shipping threshold from $75 to $50 will increase conversion rate and average order value, as more customers will add items to reach the free shipping minimum."
Choose your experiment goal. Revenue Per Visitor is the default and usually the best choice for shipping experiments, since it captures both conversion rate and order value changes.
Step 3: Select Shipping Profile and Zones
This step connects your experiment to your existing Shopify shipping configuration.
Select a Shipping Profile
Choose which shipping profile to test against. Most stores have a "General" profile that covers all products. If you have multiple profiles (e.g., for heavy items or special product types), select the one relevant to your test.
Enable Shipping Zones
You'll see all the shipping zones within the selected profile. Toggle on the zones you want to include in the experiment.
For each enabled zone, you'll see its existing shipping rates. Select which rates you want to override with your test variations.
Important: Shipping experiments apply store-wide — they cannot be limited to specific products or collections. All products within the selected shipping zones will use the test rates.
Step 4: Configure Shipping Rates
Select the rates you want to test within the zones you enabled. The existing rates in your zone are shown, and you choose which ones to include in your experiment.
The rates you select here become the baseline for your variations — you'll customize the actual prices, thresholds, and conditions in the next step.
Step 5: Set Up Variations
Each variation represents a different set of shipping rates that a group of visitors will see at checkout.
Control — Your current live shipping rates. Automatically populated from your Shopify configuration.
Variations — For each variation, configure the shipping rates you want to test. For every rate in the variation, you can set:
Rate name — What the customer sees at checkout (e.g., "Standard Shipping," "Free Shipping")
Price — The shipping cost
Free shipping threshold — The cart total above which shipping becomes free (for free shipping threshold rates)
Delivery time — Min and max delivery day estimates
Description — Optional text shown at checkout alongside the rate
Conditional Rates (Optional)
For more advanced setups, you can enable conditional shipping on individual rates. This lets you set different prices based on:
Cart price — Different rates based on the order total (e.g., $9.99 shipping for orders under $50, $4.99 for orders $50–$100, free for orders over $100)
Order weight — Different rates based on total weight (e.g., free shipping for orders under 5kg, $12.99 for heavier orders)
You can add multiple rates per variation to offer customers different shipping speed/price options (e.g., "Standard" and "Express" within the same variation).
Step 6: Edit Content (Optional)
This step lets you customize on-page content for each variation using Elevate's visual editor. This is typically needed when:
You're testing a free shipping threshold and display that amount across your site (e.g., "Free shipping on orders over $75")
You have shipping banners or messaging that reference specific shipping prices or offers
You want the on-page messaging to match the shipping rates the visitor will see at checkout
If your site doesn't display shipping-specific messaging, you can skip this step.
Need help with content setup? Click Request Shipping Content Setup and the Elevate team will assist you.
Step 7: Traffic Allocation
Set how traffic is split between your variations. The default is an even split. Adjust as needed — percentages must add up to 100%.
Step 8: Add Audience Targeting (Optional)
Narrow your audience if needed — by device, location, traffic source, visitor type, or UTM parameters.
For the full list of targeting options, see Audience Targeting.
Step 9: Review and Launch
Review your experiment configuration — double-check that each variation has the correct rates, prices, and thresholds. Then click Create Experiment to submit.
The experiment moves into review status. Once you've completed QA, click Launch Experiment to go live.
After Launching
QA your experiment — Place a test order and verify the correct shipping rates appear at checkout for each variation. See the Shipping Test QA Checklist.
Monitor results — Check the Results tab to track performance. Shipping experiments include shipping revenue in the revenue calculations.
Wait for significance — Let the experiment run until it reaches a definitive status. See Statistical Significance.
End the experiment — When ready, see Ending an Experiment
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