Overview
In this article, we'll cover the options within Shopify to create and set up local pickup options within your store to help prevent oversize items from having costly shipping.
If you're an online seller, you know how hard it is to keep track of your inventory and fulfill orders. Upright Labs helps your team turn your inventory into a meaningful business at every step of the e-commerce journey.
Table of Contents
Background
For every product added to Shopify, you must provide a Fulfillment Location. This tells Shopify where the posted item will be fulfilled from when purchased. Fulfillment locations can provide different settings for fulfillment, including shipping rates and local pickup.
We recommend adding at least two locations for Shopify, one dedicated to shipping, and another dedicated to "Pickup only" items. The pickup only location will implement the Shopify Local Pickup feature.
It will take about 20 minutes to configure this. You only need to set this up once. First, we'll walk through how to setup a Shopify Local Pickup location. Then we'll walk through how to make that location work as a Lister "Pickup-only" location.
Note: Screenshots in this article are taken using the "Debut" theme from Shopify. Your results may differ if using another theme. For more information, please see the Shopify Theme Guide
About Shopify Local Pickup
Shopify Local pickup allows a seller to configure pickup locations and creates a great buyer experience for pickup items. Throughout the purchase process, the buyer is constantly updated with information of where and when they can pick something up.
Shopify Local Pickup Checkout
Local Pickup Post-checkout
Typically, the Shopify fulfillment workflow only allows a seller to mark as fulfilled:
Shopify Local Pickup adds a new fulfillment workflow specific to pickup items. (You can even customize the buyer notifications for this workflow)
As a note, marking an order as picked up in Lister will mark it as fulfilled in Shopify.
Configuring Shopify Local Pickup
First, create a new location for pickup-only items. (You can also enable local pickup for your default location, but we recommend also adding one for when you list that large item.)
💡 Operational Tip: For streamlined onboarding to Lister, add the word "Pickup" to your pickup-only location. Lister will automatically recognize this as your pickup location when you connect your shop.
Next, you'll want to turn on local pickup for this location. On your shop's Shipping Settings, click the "Manage" button in the "Local Pickup" section. Then make sure your location allows local pickup.
Making your location "Pickup-only"
The Problem
Let’s say you are selling something that’s too large to ship. On other channels, you might set this item as pickup-only. By default, Shopify Local Pickup locations will also allow shipping.
The Solution
Your Local Pickup location can be made into "Pickup-only" with some additional configuration. As stated in the introduction, we recommend setting up a "Shipping" location for your warehouse, as well as a "Pickup-only" location. This will allow you to explicitly mark which products are pickup-only using the Carrier select on the Lister product form.
Below, we'll make your pickup location require pickup:
Setup A (Minimum required for pickup-only): Disable all shipping rates if the buyer selects “Ship”
Setup A and B (Recommended): Allow the buyer to select a custom “Local pickup” shipping rate
Setup A) Disable all shipping rates if the buyer selects “Ship”
Disable shipping rates for your pickup only location to prevent customers from using the “Ship” method at checkout (Click Manage > Remove rates from X location)
Your buyer will see this if they select the “Ship” method:
This will prevent buyers from placing shipping orders on products that can only be picked up. For a smoother fallback option, please also follow Setup B.
Setup B) Setting up a Local pickup “Free” shipping option
From the Shopify admin, find your Local Pickup location
Add a shipping zone
Give your zone a name and select "Rest of the World". This step is important.
If you set a boundary to your zone (only United States, for example) Shopify will show shipping rates for your pickup items to customers outside the zone.
IMPORTANT: Make sure to click Save in the top right corner when you're done!
After setting this up, your buyer will see this if they accidentally choose the "Ship" option and are within local pickup range:
Now that you've configured your pickup location on Shopify, it's time to pull the locations into Lister and list your first pickup-only item:
Unsupported Shopify Pickup Workarounds
There’s a known workaround for posting pickup items, using the “This is a physical product” checkbox, Lister does NOT support this from the listing form. This is typically meant for digital products/services, and we found the Shopify Local Pickup workflow to be a newer and more powerful buyer experience. Depending on feedback, we can also look into adding support for this in the future.
Physical product workaround – Admin view
Unsupported product workaround – Buyer checkout experience (bad communication of where and when to pickup)
Related Guides
Have questions? Reach out to us at support@uprightlabs.com or via chat anytime between 9am-6pm ET, Monday to Friday.