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. A common cause: 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.

Note

This is a quoting-behaviour topic, not a bug. The Transdirect app faithfully quotes whatever Shopify asks it to quote. Understanding why Shopify asks for two quotes is the key to fixing the price.

What is a delivery profile?

A delivery profile (Shopify also calls it a shipping profile) is a native Shopify feature, set up under Settings > Shipping and delivery. Every product belongs to one profile. Most stores have a single general profile, but it is 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.

Caution

A split is triggered by delivery profiles, not by warehouse locations. A store with one location can still split a cart if its products span two profiles. A common trap is a free-gift or promotional item that sits in a different profile from the rest of the catalogue: every qualifying order then splits.

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 Display 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 courier, $210
B (gift item)	A different parcel courier, $25	National freight courier, $210

A cheap courier may genuinely quote both shipments, but if it is not the cheapest (or fastest) on one of them, it is filtered out before the rates are sent to Shopify.

Step 3: Shopify combines rates by name, and sums them

To present one price for the whole order, Shopify adds together rates that have the same name in each shipment. Shopify matches on the rate name the buyer sees, which is the courier name (or your rename / group label). If no names match at all, Shopify instead adds the cheapest rate from each shipment and shows it as “Shipping”. See Shopify’s guide to combining rates from different profiles.

In the example, the two parcel couriers each appear in only one shipment, so neither has a match. The only name present in both is the national freight courier, so the customer is offered its minimum charge twice:

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

Quoted as a single parcel, the same goods could come back far cheaper, because the freight minimum applies once and cheaper parcel couriers can carry the combined parcel.

Tip

This is also why metro addresses look fine while regional addresses blow out. In metro areas a parcel courier usually services both shipments, so Shopify can combine on it cheaply. In regional areas the cheap couriers each cover only one shipment, leaving an expensive freight courier as the only shared option.

How to diagnose it

1. Check the app’s Dashboard

   If your delivery profiles each quote Transdirect separately, Recent shipping activity shows a Possible split profile entry that names the affected profiles.

2. Compare checkout with a 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.

3. 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.

4. Look for a free-gift or promo item

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

5. Test metro against regional

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

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 and 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 “Display all quotes” (safety net)

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

See Quote options to change this setting.

Optional: group couriers under shared names

Because Shopify matches rates across shipments by their 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 combine on that name instead of collapsing onto a single expensive courier.

Caution

Grouping changes the name a courier is shown under, not the underlying service. Test a regional checkout after configuring it to confirm the combined rate behaves as expected, and remember customers will see the group label rather than the real courier name.

Summary

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Checkout much higher than single-parcel quote	Cart split across delivery profiles	Consolidate products into one profile
Fine in metro, much higher in regional	Split combining onto one freight courier	Quote display Display all quotes, and group couriers if needed
Only happens on orders with a free gift	Gift product in its own profile	Move the gift into the main profile

Next steps

• Quote display and configuration
• Courier settings: rename and group couriers
• How quoting works