The Ultimate Guide to E-commerce Shipping on WooCommerce, Shopify and Magento

Magento ("Adobe E-Commerce" since April 2021) is a powerful e-commerce platform for bigger e-commerce companies with lots of flexibility and space for customization. Shopify can be great for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) looking to grow their online presence. WooCommerce is a good fit for SMEs looking to scale up.

It is hard to choose the best e-commerce platform for your future online store. When selecting a specific e-commerce platform one should look at the shipping functionality as well. Shipping affects your sales significantly: according to eMarketer more than 86% of cart abandonment is related to high shipping costs and inconvenience.

Do you know which e-commerce platform offers the best shipping experience for your customers?
Let's have a look at this ultimate guide on Shopify vs Woocommerce vs Magento shipping to see which one fits best your requirements.

WooCommerce Shipping is very easy to use. You can create as many WooCommerce shipping zones as you like. It can be specified right down to zip code or a specific region. With WooCommerce shipping you can choose to generate shipping labels in bulk or print them as you process the orders individually. In general, it can be said that WooCommerce is suitable for businesses of all sizes and budgets.

There is a limited choice of WooCommerce shipping options, shipping carriers, and no WooCommerce Table Rates shipping is available. Each shipping option can be assigned to different shipping zones, however, they are not flexible enough. Also, WooCommerce shipping does not support multi-carrier integration. You can get real-time rates and generate labels only from DHL and USPS.

For more advanced shipping features like Multi-Origin Shipping, Delivery Days, Dimensional Shipping, and Landed Cost, you will need to add a third-party shipping plugin.

Shopify shipping calculates shipping costs based on the product weight and the package dimensions. This feature is very similar to smart packaging that is offered by Calcurates, and it helps retailers to obtain the most accurate dimensional shipping rates.

The shipping functionality offered by Shopify has limitations. For shipping within Australia, flat rates will be added to your account by default. For shipping within the US and Canada, shipping rates from the corresponding carriers will be added. That is it. If you want to apply some shipping rules or custom shipping scenarios, you will need to install a 3rd party shipping Shopify app.

Shipping zones are technically offered within Shopify Shipping. The user can set a shipping zone based on countries to where the same shipping rate applies.

Magento 2 Shipping offers table rate shipping, flexible flat rate calculations, in-store pickup, and basic shipping rules unlike its competitors Shopify and WooCommerce.
You can connect FedEx, USP, USPS, and DHL to your Magento store.

The current 2.4 version of Magento supports Multi-source Inventory Management. This is a huge leap for any Magento 2 e-commerce. Multi-source Inventory Management allows users to manage and control their inventory for single or multiple sources. The algorithm links the separate sources to one store and selects the best shipping method to ship the products.

There are some limitations when it comes to shipping with Magento. First, Magento 2 Shipping does not offer any advanced shipping features such as volumetric (dimensional) shipping or delivery dates. There are more carriers offered by default Magento 2 than by WooCommerce or Shopify but it is still missing major and local European, Canadian, and Australian carriers.

As for other e-commerce platforms, also for Magento 2, you will need a 3rd party shipping extension in order to achieve shipping flexibility.

Calcurates is multi-carrier shipping software that helps you to set up custom shipping scenarios and cost-effective shipping at checkout on WooCommerce, Magento 2, and Shopify. It seamlessly integrates with major carriers worldwide and provides with many advanced shipping features that can help you calculate and display the right shipping methods and rates to your customers.

Each e-commerce platform Woocommerce, Shopify, and Magento is limited to some extent. Mainly, they are all missing enough carrier integrations. Shipping options can be combined with shipping rules and restrictions. E-commerce stores are not able to restrict shipping based on geolocation, product attributes, or customer segment. Look at how shipping rules and restrictions can make your shipping more flexible with these exemplary case studies.