Shipping profiles and zones
Shipping profiles and zones are a Shopify feature, configured entirely in Shopify Admin under Settings > Shipping and delivery, not in STOQ. Use this guide to understand how they interact with market-scoped preorder offers, so customers in every market you sell to actually see a shipping rate at checkout, not just the preorder button.
STOQ does not create, read, or modify shipping profiles, zones, or rates. STOQ's market controls decide whether the preorder button is shown to a market; Shopify's shipping profiles and zones separately decide whether a shipping rate exists there at checkout. Both need to line up for a smooth preorder purchase.
Before you begin
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Shopify Markets set up | Only relevant if you sell internationally. Single-market stores use one shipping profile with zones for domestic/international regions and don't need to think about this. |
| Access to Shopify Admin shipping settings | Shipping profiles and zones are configured in Settings > Shipping and delivery in Shopify Admin. STOQ has no UI for this. |
| A market-scoped preorder offer (optional) | If you're restricting a preorder offer to specific markets, read this article to confirm those markets also have shipping coverage. |
How shipping profiles and zones work
Shipping profiles
A shipping profile is a group of products and variants that share the same shipping rates and zones. Every Shopify store has a General profile that applies by default to all products not explicitly assigned elsewhere. You can create custom shipping profiles in Shopify Admin and move specific products into them when those products need different rates, carriers, or origin locations than the rest of your catalog.
Each profile contains:
- Origin locations: which of your fulfillment locations can ship the products in this profile.
- Zones: geographic regions (countries, or groups of countries/markets) you ship to from those locations.
- Rates: the shipping methods and prices offered within each zone (flat rate, carrier-calculated, free shipping, and so on).
Shipping zones
A shipping zone is the set of countries or regions inside a profile that share the same rates. For example, a "Domestic" zone might cover your home country with a flat $5 rate, while an "International" zone covers everywhere else with a carrier-calculated rate. When Shopify Markets is active, zones are commonly organized to align with your markets, for example a zone per market, or a zone covering several markets that ship the same way.
At checkout, Shopify determines the customer's shipping rate by matching:
- The product's shipping profile (General, or a custom profile it's assigned to).
- The customer's shipping address / market, matched against that profile's zones.
- The rates configured for the matching zone.
How this interacts with STOQ market-scoped preorders
STOQ's market scoping (in the offer editor's Markets section) is a separate, app-level control from Shopify's shipping profiles and zones:
| Control | Owned by | What it decides |
|---|---|---|
| Preorder offer market scoping | STOQ | Whether the preorder button and offer are shown to a customer browsing from a given Shopify market |
| Shipping profiles and zones | Shopify | Whether a shipping rate exists at checkout for a customer's address/market, for the products in that profile |
These two systems don't talk to each other. STOQ reads your Shopify markets to populate its market picker, see Sell preorders in multiple markets, but STOQ has no visibility into which shipping profile a product belongs to or which zones are configured. It's possible to enable a preorder offer for a market that has no shipping coverage for that product's profile: Shopify will show the preorder button (STOQ's part is satisfied), but the customer will hit a checkout blocker with no shipping rate available (Shopify's part is not satisfied).
Enabling a market in STOQ does not guarantee a shipping rate exists for it. Before restricting or expanding a preorder offer to a market, confirm in Shopify Admin under Settings > Shipping and delivery that the product's shipping profile has a zone covering it. Otherwise customers there can see the preorder button but fail to check out.
What customers will see
- Market has shipping coverage: the customer sees the preorder button, adds the product to cart, and checks out normally, choosing from the shipping rates configured for their zone.
- Market has no shipping coverage: the customer still sees the preorder button and product page, since STOQ doesn't check shipping before showing it, but checkout has no shipping option, so they can't complete the order.
Check your setup
- In Shopify Admin, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery and open the shipping profile that contains your preorder product. Confirm a zone exists that covers every market where the offer is enabled.
- Use Shopify's storefront preview, or an incognito checkout test, from an address in each target market and confirm a shipping rate appears at the cart/checkout step for the preordered product.
- Cross-check against the offer's Markets section in STOQ: the set of markets the preorder button is shown in should be a subset of the markets with shipping coverage.
Troubleshooting
Customers can see the preorder button for a market but can't complete checkout
The product's shipping profile probably doesn't have a zone covering that market. Go to Shopify Admin's Settings > Shipping and delivery, open the profile, and add a zone and rate for that country.
A market has no shipping zone in Shopify at all
STOQ still shows the preorder button there, since it doesn't check shipping coverage before displaying it. Either:
- Add coverage for that market in Shopify.
- Remove the market from the offer's Markets section so the button doesn't show there.
You want preorder products to ship at different rates than the rest of your catalog
That's controlled by Shopify, not STOQ. Create a custom shipping profile in Shopify Admin and move the preorder product's variants into it.
FAQ
Do I need to do anything in STOQ to set up shipping profiles or zones?
No. Shipping profiles, zones, and rates are configured entirely in Shopify Admin under Settings > Shipping and delivery. STOQ has no settings for this and doesn't read or write shipping profile data.
Does STOQ's shipping timeline or message setting affect shipping rates or zones?
No. STOQ's Shipping section (in the offer editor) covers the delivery timeline, the customer-facing shipping message, fulfillment status, and hold/split behavior. It only affects messaging and fulfillment timing, not the shipping rate a customer pays or which zones exist. See Set up fulfillment and shipping options for that section.
I sell in multiple markets. Do I need a shipping zone for each one?
You need at least one zone, in some shipping profile, that covers each country you want to sell and ship to. Whether that's one zone per market or a single zone spanning several markets depends on whether those markets share the same shipping rates and carriers, a Shopify shipping-profile design decision, unrelated to how you've scoped the preorder offer in STOQ.
Does this affect Shopify Managed Markets differently?
The shipping-profile-and-zone mechanism is the same regardless of whether you manage markets yourself or use Shopify Managed Markets. Shopify still needs a shipping profile/zone match to offer a rate. See Preorders and Shopify Managed Markets for what Managed Markets specifically changes (duties, taxes, and localized pricing) versus what stays the same.
Related guides
Sell preorders in multiple markets
Restrict which Shopify markets see a preorder offer's button.
Preorder locations, markets, and shipping
Map fulfillment locations to markets so the preorder button shows correctly on non-product pages.
Set up fulfillment and shipping options
Configure STOQ's shipping timeline, display message, and fulfillment status.
Preorders and Shopify Managed Markets
How Managed Markets duties, taxes, and localized pricing apply to preorders.
Preorder double shipping fix
Troubleshoot orders charged shipping twice on mixed preorder/in-stock orders.
