When a customer goes to checkout with a subscription product in their cart, there are two delivery groups for which to choose shipping options. One for their order that will be fulfilled as a result of completing the checkout, and one for the recurring orders that will take place as a result of the subscription product.
The input to the Delivery Customization function (at cart → deliveryGroups → deliveryOptions) has all the appropriate options as input for the first delivery group. The problem is that the second delivery group only ever has the very first option, despite multiple rates being configured in the Shopify delivery profile and/or multiples rates coming from a CarrierService provider. This seems like a bug/unintended behavior and is an issue as the ability to provide multiple shipping options for recurring subscription orders should be allowed. This issue has been brought up before, see this community thread.
Whether this is an issue with the Delivery Customization function or something else related to the shipping options available to each delivery group, the effect is that there is only ever one shipping option for subscription order delivery groups, regardless of what’s configured in the delivery profile or is sent from CarrierService providers. This is affecting our merchants who have subscription products/apps and want to use our Delivery Customization function.
Hey @ColemanCook - thanks for flagging this. Would you be able to share a shop and some steps we can use to try and replicate this?
If you’d like to keep some of that info private, no worries, just let me know in this thread and I can DM you so that we can troubleshoot. Happy to look into this and potentially get in touch with the team here to dig into this further if we can’t confirm expected behaviour.
Just wanted to check if there was any update on this. We’re seeing the same issue: recurring order delivery groups only ever get a single shipping option, even when multiple rates are configured.
It would make a big difference for our merchants if the recurring order shipping rates could mirror the same options as the initial checkout delivery group.
Thanks in advance for any clarity or updates on whether this is expected behavior or something under review.
Hey @Alex_Hooper - no worries, thanks for the ping here. I can confirm this is expected behaviour at the moment. Just sharing from our docs:
Right now, Subscription recurring orders aren’t yet compatible with the Delivery Customization Function API. When multiple subscriptions are in the cart, shipping rates are consolidated if they share the same selling plan billing and delivery policies, and the recurring delivery group (for future subscription orders) only receives a single shipping option.
I definitely understand it’s not the most ideal situation though for sure. So I’m more than happy to set up a feature request for you at the very least. Feel free to ping me here if you’d like to share your use case (specifically what you’d like merchants to offer for recurring order shipping options) so I can get that sent up with context.
Hope this helps, let me know if I can clarify anything as always
That date could be a Saturday, which carries a different rate (and cost) than a weekday.
For the recurring orders, Shopify currently assigns a single shipping rate, often the cheaper weekday rate, even though those recurring deliveries still occur on Saturdays (matching the initial delivery cadence).
This means merchants end up undercharging for shipping on future subscription deliveries and have to absorb the cost difference.
If recurring order delivery groups could show multiple shipping options, and the Delivery Customization Function API were supported for subscriptions, our system could automatically hide or show the relevant rates. For example, if the first order is scheduled for a Saturday, we’d hide the weekday rate and surface only the weekend one for all subsequent deliveries.
Here’s a screenshot example from one of our merchants showing how that plays out: the first order correctly charges the Saturday rate (£7), but the recurring order defaults to the weekday rate (£5). Ideally, merchants could offer the same set of shipping options for both the initial and recurring delivery groups:
Thanks for the detailed context and the use case explanation, really appreciate you taking the time to share this
Definitely understand the pain point here. The scenario you’ve described (date-based delivery rates for recurring orders) makes a lot of sense, and I can see why having only a single shipping rate for subscription delivery groups creates issues.
I can’t make any promises about if or when this might change, but I’m happy to take this internally to see if expanding Delivery Customization Function support to subscription recurring orders (or providing an alternative solution for this use case) is something on the roadmap.
I’ll loop back with you here once I have more info.
Just wanted to loop back here with you. I’ve flagged this internally and can confirm that we’re aware of this limitation and are actively looking at improving how subscriptions work with delivery customizations. I don’t have specific timelines to share just yet, but this is definitely on our radar.
In the meantime, I did want to share a possible workaround. If you’d like to try this as a path, you technically implement a custom carrier service to provide rates. The carrier service can return the correct rates based on day of the week, customer tags, cart attributes, etc. without needing delivery customizations since you’d be able to control the dynamic logic of the service.
- thanks for flagging this. Would you be able to share a shop and some steps we can use to try and replicate this?
