How to set shipping charges for your online store flat, free, or free above ₹X

TL;DR

• • Know your number: courier rate for your usual parcel, across your usual mix of destinations, plus packing.
• • Pick a model: flat, free on everything, or free above a threshold (the usual best start).
• • Cover the gap in your price if you want “free delivery” in your ads.
• • COD costs you more than prepaid; a small COD charge is fair if you say it up front.
• • No surprises: the delivery charge belongs on the product page, not only at checkout.

Step 1: work out what a parcel really costs you

Before you pick a number, find out what you actually pay. Four things go into it:

• • The courier rate. It depends on the parcel’s weight and how far it goes. Courier aggregators such as Shiprocket and Shipmozo show you the rate for your parcel to any pin code before you book. Couriers charge by the bigger of the real weight and a weight worked out from the box’s size, so a light but bulky box can cost more than you expect.
• • Packing. Box or mailer, tape, filler, the printed invoice.
• • Cash on delivery extras. Couriers usually add a fee for collecting cash, and COD parcels are refused more often. A refused parcel comes back, and you usually pay for the trip out and the trip back.
• • Your mix of destinations. Same city, rest of India and far-off areas are priced differently. What matters is your average across the orders you actually get.

Here is a worked example for a 500 g parcel. The rates and shares are made-up round numbers to show the method; take real rates from your courier panel and real shares from your last month of orders.

In this example a parcel costs you about ₹88 on average. That is the number every option below has to cover, one way or another. If you are still setting up couriers, start with how to ship orders from home.

Step 2: pick a model

“Zones” just means charging by distance: less for nearby addresses, more for far-off ones. Large stores with heavy goods do it because their costs vary a lot. For a small store, one number the buyer can predict usually works better than a number that changes when they type their pin code.

On SitesPlaced there is one delivery charge per store, with no per-pin-code, per-weight or per-product tables. If your costs vary a lot by area, set the flat charge to cover your average, use the waiver checkbox for your own city (step 5), and build extra into the price of heavy items.

Step 3: build the courier cost into your price (worked example)

Say a product costs you ₹250 to make or buy, you want to sell it for about ₹599, and your average parcel costs ₹88 (from step 1). Here are three ways to cover it:

A and B leave you almost the same money. The difference is how it reads: in B the price the buyer sees is the price they pay, which is easier to put in an ad. C shows why thresholds work. The second item shares one parcel (assuming both fit at a similar rate), so your delivery cost doesn’t double while your takings nearly do.

The product pricing calculator and profit margin calculator do these sums with your own numbers. If you are registered for GST, ask your CA how delivery charges should appear on your invoices rather than guessing. Picking the threshold itself is covered in how to increase average order value.

Step 4: should cash on delivery cost extra?

Cash on delivery (COD) means the buyer pays the courier in cash when the parcel arrives. It costs you more than a prepaid order: the courier’s cash-collection fee, more refused parcels coming back, and waiting for the courier to pass the cash on. You have three honest choices:

• • Absorb it. No extra charge. Simplest, and fine if few of your COD parcels come back.
• • Charge a small COD fee. It covers the courier’s fee and gives buyers a reason to pay online.
• • Turn COD off for things you can’t resell if refused, such as made-to-order or perishable items.

On SitesPlaced, set it under Settings → Checkout → Extra COD charge. It is added only when the buyer picks cash on delivery, shown next to the COD option at checkout, and never charged on online or WhatsApp orders. If you switch on the delivery line on the product page, it says so plainly, for example “Cash on delivery · save ₹49 by paying online”.

To see whether COD is worth it for your store, try the COD vs prepaid calculator, and read how to reduce RTO and fake COD orders.

Step 5: local delivery, pickup and express

• • Your own city, or pickup. A waiver checkbox at checkout, such as “Are you in Jaipur?”, sets the delivery charge to ₹0 for buyers who tick it. It works on trust, so check the address before you confirm the order.
• • Express delivery. Offer a faster option at a higher flat fee, and buyers choose Standard or Express at checkout. Express is always its own flat fee: it never becomes free above the threshold, and the waiver checkbox doesn’t apply to it.

Both live in Settings → Shipping on SitesPlaced, free on every plan.

Step 6: show every charge before checkout

The problem is surprise, not the charge. A delivery fee that appears only at the last step is a well-known reason buyers leave a cart behind. Tell them earlier:

• • On the product page: “Free delivery over ₹999”, “Cash on delivery available”, “Ships in 24 hours” and your returns rule.
• • While they shop: how much more they need to add for free delivery.
• • In your Instagram bio or highlights, and in your first WhatsApp reply to anyone who asks.
• • On a shipping policy page, with dispatch times and what happens if a parcel is late. The return policy generator helps with the returns part.

On SitesPlaced, the delivery line under the buy button reads these from your own settings, so it never promises something your checkout doesn’t do. It is built into the eleven brand-style templates and is a free switch on the General Store (Settings → Sales boosters). The free-shipping bar appears on your store by itself once you set a delivery charge and a threshold.

Setting it up on SitesPlaced

1. Open Settings → Shipping. Enter the Delivery charge, the Free delivery above amount, and the label buyers see (“Delivery” or “Shipping”).
2. Optionally, turn on Express delivery and the waiver checkbox in the same section.
3. Open Settings → Checkout and set an Extra COD charge if you want one.
4. On the General Store, open Settings → Sales boosters and switch on the delivery line, ticking Say what delivery costs and Say that cash on delivery is available.
5. Press Save, then add something to your cart on your phone and check every number at checkout.

All of this is free on every plan. The step-by-step guide is in the Help Center: set delivery charges. Courier rates change, and so does where your orders go, so work out your average again every few months and adjust.

Frequently asked questions