Shopify shipping rules: show different shipping methods by customer tag

Short answer: Shopify’s shipping profiles set rates by product and location. To hide, rename or reorder a shipping method for a tagged customer, you need a delivery customization, which runs through an app. BTB’s Shipping Rules builds those rules in a UI: tag a customer wholesale, and that customer sees the methods you choose.

Two kinds of shipping rule

“Shipping rules” covers two different jobs.

1. Rules that set what a method costs. Shipping profiles and rate apps do this.
2. Rules that decide which methods a buyer sees, what they are called and in what order. Delivery customizations do this.

BTB does the second kind only. It does not create or calculate rates. It works on the methods your store already offers.

What Shopify does natively

Per Shopify’s help center, “a shipping profile is a set of shipping rules for specific products and locations.”

• Every store has a general profile. Custom profiles hold products that need different rates.
• Zones and rates are configured per fulfilling location.
• A store can have up to 99 custom shipping profiles.
• Shopify is gradually replacing shipping profiles with shipping options by market. Existing stores keep their setup until upgraded.

Shipping profiles are built around products and locations. If your rule is “this product ships at this rate from this warehouse”, a profile is the right tool.

Rules about the buyer run through Shopify’s Delivery Customization Function API, which “renames, sorts, and hides delivery options that are available to customers at checkout”. Per Shopify’s checkout apps page, public apps built with Shopify Functions are available on Basic Shopify or higher. A store can activate at most 25 delivery customization functions.

For the wholesale side of native Shopify, see Shopify B2B plans and features.

Shipping rules by customer tag with BTB

A rule has three parts.

• Who: all customers, customers with a specific tag, or a lifetime-spend threshold.
• When: order conditions of seven types, matched with all (AND) or any (OR).
• Then: hide, rename or reorder a method. Actions can be stacked in one rule.

You target a method by typing part of its name. Matching is case-insensitive, so Stand matches Standard Shipping. The admin shows the rule as a live sentence while you build it:

When a customer tagged wholesale has a cart total over $500, then hide Express and rename Standard to Freight.

Shopify prepends the carrier name to a renamed option’s title at checkout, so test how the new name reads.

Three wholesale examples

Freight for large wholesale carts. Customer tag wholesale, cart total > 500. Hide Express. Rename Standard to Freight.

No free shipping on wholesale orders. Customer tag wholesale. Hide the method whose name contains Free.

Local Pickup first for nearby buyers. All customers, shipping ZIP code in 94103, 94107. Reorder Local Pickup to the top.

Rate apps vs method rules

If you need custom rates by postal code or SKU, a rate app is the better fit. Advanced Shipping Rules, for example, offers flat and real-time carrier rates. BTB does not set rates.

Set it up

1. Tag the customers. Add wholesale to your trade buyers in Shopify admin.
2. Build the rule. In BTB, choose the customer tag, add order conditions, pick the action and type the target method name.
3. Test at checkout. Log in as a tagged customer, fill a cart that meets the conditions and check the shipping step. Repeat with an untagged customer.

Do the same for payment methods

Payment Rules uses the same condition types. It hides, renames or reorders payment methods, for example hiding Cash on Delivery for tagged customers.

Related: order limits on Shopify, the Shopify wholesale portal guide and BTB pricing.