Shipping Testing - Getting Started
Learn how Shipping Testing can optimize your store’s shipping strategy.
Shipping testing lets you experiment with different shipping rates, free shipping thresholds, and delivery options to find the combination that maximizes your revenue and conversions. Instead of guessing whether free shipping at $50 or $75 will work better — or whether $5.99 flat rate beats $7.99 — you test it with real customers and get a data-backed answer.
What Is a Shipping Experiment?
A shipping experiment splits your visitors into groups, with each group seeing different shipping options at checkout. Elevate tracks how each set of shipping rates affects conversion rate, revenue, average order value, and cart abandonment — so you can find the sweet spot between customer satisfaction and profitability.
Common things to test:
Free shipping thresholds — Does free shipping at $50 drive more revenue than at $75? What about $100?
Flat rate pricing — Is $4.99 shipping better for conversions than $7.99? Does cheaper shipping increase enough orders to offset the cost?
Free shipping vs. paid — Does offering free shipping on all orders increase total revenue, or does it just eat into margins?
Delivery speed options — Do customers convert more when they see a faster delivery estimate?
Conditional rates — Different rates based on cart total or order weight
How It Works
Elevate integrates with Shopify's Third-Party Carrier Service API to dynamically serve different shipping rates at checkout based on which variation each visitor is assigned to.
Here's the flow:
You set up a shipping experiment with different rate configurations for each variation
When a visitor reaches checkout, Shopify requests shipping rates from Elevate's carrier service
Elevate checks which variation the visitor is assigned to and returns the corresponding shipping rates
The visitor sees only the shipping options for their assigned variation
Elevate tracks the conversion and attributes the order to the correct variation
The visitor's assignment is stored in a cookie, so they always see the same shipping rates on return visits. From the customer's perspective, the checkout experience is completely normal — they don't know they're in an experiment.
Plan Requirements
Shipping experiments require access to Shopify's Third-Party Carrier-Calculated Shipping Rates, which is available on:
Shopify Advanced plan
Shopify Plus plan
Any Shopify plan with annual billing (or the carrier-calculated shipping add-on)
This is a Shopify platform requirement, not an Elevate restriction. If you're on the standard Shopify monthly plan and want to run shipping tests, you can either switch to annual billing or contact Shopify Support about enabling carrier-calculated rates.
What You Can Configure
Each shipping variation supports a full range of rate options:
Rate name
The shipping option name visitors see at checkout (e.g., "Standard Shipping," "Express")
Price
The shipping cost
Free shipping threshold
Cart total above which shipping becomes free
Delivery days
Min and max delivery day estimates shown to the customer
Conditional rates (price-based)
Different rates based on cart total (e.g., $5 shipping for orders under $50, free for orders over $50)
Conditional rates (weight-based)
Different rates based on order weight
Description
Optional text shown alongside the rate at checkout
You can configure multiple rates per variation — for example, one variation might offer "Standard ($5.99)" and "Express ($12.99)" while another offers "Free Standard" and "Express ($9.99)."
Shipping Profiles and Zones
Elevate works with your existing Shopify shipping profiles and zones. During setup, you'll:
Select which shipping profile to test against
Choose which shipping zones to include in the experiment
Select which existing rates within those zones to override with your test rates
This means you can run targeted experiments — for example, only testing new rates for domestic shipping while leaving international rates unchanged.
Next Steps
How to Create a Shipping Experiment — Step-by-step setup guide
Shipping Test QA Checklist — Pre-launch verification steps
How to Hide Cart Item Properties — Optional cleanup for cart display
Audience Targeting — Control which visitors see your experiment
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