Delivery profiles & split shipments

Overview

Sometimes a customer reports that a checkout quote is far higher than they expect — and higher than the same goods cost when quoted as a single parcel in the Transdirect website calculator or members area. In almost every case the cause is the same: Shopify has split the cart into more than one shipment and quoted each part separately.

This article explains how that happens, how the checkout price is then calculated, and the settings that fix it. The behaviour is driven by Shopify, not by the Transdirect app — but a couple of settings on your side determine whether a split is harmless or expensive.

What is a delivery profile?

A delivery profile is a native Shopify concept (Settings → Shipping and delivery → custom rates per product group). Every product belongs to exactly one profile. Most stores have a single “General profile”, but it’s common to create extra profiles — for example a “Bulky items” profile for goods you want to quote or invoice separately.

The important rule: Shopify quotes each delivery profile as its own shipment. If a single cart contains products from two different profiles, Shopify treats it as two shipments and asks the carrier service (the Transdirect app) for rates twice — once per profile — even when everything ships from the same warehouse.

How the checkout price is calculated

When a cart spans two profiles, the checkout price is built in three steps. Walk through them with a worked example.

Scenario. A homewares store ships from one warehouse. A customer in a regional area has a cart of:

Four lightweight items (~0.25 kg each) — all in the General profile
One free gift item (~2 kg) — sitting in a separate “Promo items” profile

Step 1 — Shopify splits the cart

Because the gift item is in a different profile, Shopify creates two shipments and requests rates separately:

Shipment	Profile	Contents	Weight
A	General	4 lightweight items	~1.0 kg
B	Promo items	1 gift item	~2.0 kg

Step 2 — each shipment is trimmed to your display setting

The store’s quote options are set to Cheapest and fastest, so for each shipment the app returns only the single cheapest and single fastest courier — not the full list. The trap is that the cheapest courier can differ between the two shipments:

Shipment	Cheapest returned	Fastest returned
A (4 light items)	Metro parcel courier — $70	National freight carrier — $210
B (gift item)	A different parcel courier — $25	National freight carrier — $210

A cheap courier may genuinely quote both shipments, but if it isn’t the single cheapest on one of them, it gets filtered out before the response is sent.

Step 3 — Shopify keeps couriers common to both, and sums them

To present one shipping choice for the whole order, Shopify keeps a courier only if it appears in every shipment, and charges the sum across shipments. Shopify matches couriers by the service name the buyer sees.

In the example, the two parcel couriers each won only one shipment, so they’re dropped. The only courier present in both is the national freight carrier — so Shopify is forced onto it and bills its minimum charge twice:

$210 (shipment A) + $210 (shipment B) = $420 shown to the customer

Quoted as a single parcel, the same goods would have come back around $95 — because the freight minimum applies once and cheaper parcel couriers can carry the combined parcel.

How to diagnose it

Compare checkout vs single-parcel quote

Quote the same goods to the same destination in the Transdirect website calculator. If the calculator is much cheaper, a split is likely.
Check whether the cart spans delivery profiles

In Shopify, confirm which delivery profile each product in the cart belongs to. If they’re not all in the same profile, Shopify is splitting the order.
Look for a free-gift or promo item

Promotional and gift products are frequently the odd one out, sitting in their own profile.
Test metro vs regional

If metro destinations quote sensibly but regional ones are several times higher, that’s the signature of a split combining onto a single freight carrier.

How to fix it

There are two changes. The first removes the cause; the second is a safety net so a split can never blow up like this again. Doing both is recommended.

1. Keep parcel products in one delivery profile (primary fix)

Make sure every product you want quoted live at checkout lives in the same delivery profile, so a normal cart is a single shipment. Move stray items — especially gift/promo products — into the main profile. Reserve a separate profile only for genuinely bulky or freight-only goods you intend to quote or invoice separately.

Result: the cart quotes as one consignment. The freight minimum applies once and cheaper parcel couriers win.

2. Set quote display to “All” (safety net)

If you leave display on Cheapest or Cheapest and fastest, each shipment is trimmed to one or two couriers, which is what strands a split order on the single expensive carrier common to both. With All, Shopify receives every courier for each shipment, so its combine step can find a cheaper shared option.

See Quote display to change this setting.

Optional: group couriers under shared names

Because Shopify matches couriers across shipments by their display name, you can use courier grouping to give several couriers the same label (for example “Standard Delivery”). When the cheapest courier in each shipment shares a name, Shopify can line them up and combine on that name instead of collapsing onto a single expensive carrier.

Summary

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Checkout much higher than single-parcel quote	Cart split across delivery profiles	Consolidate products into one profile
Regional fine in metro, huge in regional	Split combining onto one freight carrier	Quote display → All, and/or group couriers
Only happens on orders with a free gift	Gift product in its own profile	Move the gift into the main profile