The path from local business to global brand is more accessible than ever. Merchants are selling across regions and fulfilling orders from multiple locations. As your business grows, fulfillment needs to keep pace.
Fulfillment can be straightforward when products ship from one place. But once inventory spreads across multiple locations, the rules that determine shipping rates, delivery eligibility, and split shipments, become harder to coordinate and can conflict or leave gaps. When they do, managing fulfillment becomes difficult to manage and your customers don't see all the ways you can get orders to them at checkout.
Good news: Whether you’re expanding beyond one location or already selling across markets, your fulfillment setup is about to get easier, just in time for the holiday season. Even better news: Your customers get the same trustworthy checkout experience, with more accurate shipping prices, clearer shipment expectations, and more choice in how they receive their orders.
What’s coming to Shopify’s fulfillment
Shopify is bringing three releases that work together to simplify fulfillment as you scale.
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Shipping options by markets: Organize shipping around the markets you sell into and charge a single flat rate regardless of the number of products or shipments involved in the order.
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Ship and pickup in one order: Let customers choose shipping and store pickup in a single checkout. Combined with existing support for ship and carryout in a single POS order, customers get flexible delivery options wherever they shop.
- Default split shipping: Show customers the expected number of shipments based on your shipping setup.
These updates are rolling out in stages. Some are already available for testing, while others will become available over the coming months. These features will automatically become your default experience by July 1, 2027.
Set up shipping options by market
Your shipping strategy isn't one-size-fits-all. For example, you may fulfill orders for your home country’s customers locally, with lower rates and faster delivery, while international orders may ship from a single location with longer delivery times and higher rates.
You can now set up shipping options for each market that you sell to, rather than managing shipping around products and locations. A market can represent a group of countries, sub-regions (states or provinces), or B2B customer locations.
When more than one rate in a shipping option applies to a cart, only the single highest matching rate applies at checkout, instead of the rates being added together. For example, within a Standard shipping option, you could create $5 shipping for regular products and $10 for oversized products. If a customer’s cart includes both a regular product and an oversized product, they’ll be charged the highest applicable rate at $10.
Markets and shipping settings are now managed in the same admin experience so you get clearer shipping setup and more predictable rate behavior at checkout.
Timeline:
- October 1, 2026: Opt-in begins. Shopify will begin moving new and eligible existing shops to the new shipping setup.
- July 1, 2027: The new shipping setup will be enabled for all shops.
Heads up on apps: Custom or third-party apps that read, create, or modify merchant delivery profiles will need to be updated. Read our help doc or pass our upgrade guide to your development partner.
Let customers choose shipping and pickup in one order
Customers can choose different delivery methods for different products in a single checkout, instead of placing separate orders. They get more flexibility at checkout, with fewer delivery limitations standing between them and completing their purchase. With more products available for purchase, you also have more opportunities to increase order value and drive foot traffic to stores.
Ship and pickup in one order is available now for Plus and Enterprise plans through Test Drive. Starting January 2027, ship and pickup in one order opens up to all new shops with both shipping and pickup enabled, extending the feature beyond Plus and Enterprise plans. All shops with both shipping and pickup enabled will have the feature by default by July 1, 2027.
Timeline:
- Now: Opt-in available through Test Drive.
- October 12, 2026: Expanded support for cart visibility and partial availability, where customers can select a pickup location even when not all items in the order are available there.
- April to July 1, 2027: Shopify will begin automatically enabling ship and pickup in one order for eligible existing shops.
- July 1, 2027: Ship and pickup in one order is on for all eligible shops.
Heads up on apps: If your store uses third-party or custom apps that interact with delivery, fulfillment, or order management, test this feature in Test Drive and confirm compatibility with your app or development partners. See the help doc and community forum. Share our testing guide with your development partner.
Show customers an accurate number of shipments
Split shipping occurs when you send an order in multiple shipments, typically when products are stored at different locations, have varying delivery timelines, or require multiple shipping methods. Showing the expected number of shipments at checkout can help reduce post-purchase confusion and the customer support questions that follow.
We are phasing out the split shipping setting, and checkout will automatically show the exact number of expected shipments based on your order routing logic.
Timeline:
- October 2026: Split shipping will be auto-enabled in phases alongside new shipping setup by markets.
- July 1, 2027: Split shipping toggle will no longer be displayed and split shipping becomes the default for qualified checkouts.
We highly recommend turning on the split shipping setting and confirming that checkout reflects the expected number of shipments. Read the help doc.
Get ready for the 2026 holiday season
You do not need to change your fulfillment setup right away, but we recommend that you make the most of these updates during the holiday season.
- Enable ship and pickup in Test Drive.
- Enable the split shipping setting.
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Be ready to opt-in to the new shipping setup by markets on October 1, 2026
- To prepare, check how you charge for shipping across products and locations, and adjust your shipping profiles and markets so rates combine as intended.
Testing early not only gives you time to adjust your operations, but can help unlock more sales:
- A customer searching for a last-minute gift can pick up an available item the same day.
- Clearer, lower shipping rates can help customers make a faster purchase decision.
- Accurate shipment details help them understand how many packages to expect and whether their gifts will arrive in time.
Shopify is working with partners across the ecosystem to help apps prepare. You can help by passing along this blog (and the partner blog) to your dev partners as well.
