Shipping defaults

“Sender & packages” in “Settings”, in the “Shipping” group, holds what every new shipment starts from. Getting it right once saves correcting it on every label. It was called Shipping Defaults until September 2026, when the label settings moved next door to “Labels & printing” and the address checks to “Address checks”.

Default sender

“Default sender” and “Sender address” decide who the parcel comes from. Choose from your saved addresses.

The address book used to be a section of its own. It was merged in here, because it only ever existed to feed this field, and having the same value in two places invited them to disagree. An old link to the addresses section now lands here.

Default carrier

“Default carrier” picks which of your connected carriers is used unless you say otherwise. It has to be a carrier you have connected. See Connect a carrier account.

Compare prices

“Compare prices”, under the default carrier, shows live prices so you can choose your default carrier and service from real figures rather than guesses. It quotes your newest open order across your carriers, from your saved ship-from address and parcel, and says which order and destination it priced.

Each row shows the carrier, the service, the transit time when the carrier gives one, and the price. The first row is marked “Cheapest”. Pick a row to fill in “Default carrier” and “Default service” with it, then save the page as for any other change. A row your plan cannot book says “Not bookable on your plan” and cannot be picked. See Choose a plan.

“Refresh” prices the newest open order again. With no open order, the card says prices appear once you have one. When your ship-from address, sender phone or usual parcel is missing, it asks you to save them first. If the carriers cannot price the order, it says so.

Packaging

“Packaging” lists the boxes, envelopes and soft packages you ship in. One of them is your default, marked “Default”.

Every parcel ships in the default, except a parcel holding a single item whose product has its own packaging. You give a product its own packaging in the “Packaging” column of the Products page, or several products at once: tick them and use “Set packaging…”. The first choice in both is the default, shown with its name; a product left on it follows the default when you make another box the default. This is the rule Shopify uses for a product’s package when it ships alone.

“Add packaging” asks for a name, a type, the three sides in centimetres and “Weight when packed (kg)”. That weight is not the weight of the empty box: it is what a typical parcel in it weighs once packed. Labels use it when an order has no weight of its own. At checkout, no parcel is priced lighter than it, and a cart of several items that weighs more is priced as several parcels; a cart of one item is always one parcel. A side or a weight far beyond what any carrier takes is refused as a likely typo, such as millimetres typed into a centimetre field.

“Make default” makes another box the default. The default has no delete button: make another box the default first. Deleting any other box asks first, says how many products ship in it, and sends them back to the default.

Shopify does not let apps read the packages saved in your Shopify store, so nothing here is copied from Shopify or sent to it. Add your boxes here.

Labels

The “Label” card is in “Labels & printing”. There, “Label format” and “Label size” decide what comes out of your printer, for every label you buy: from an order, in bulk, from the create order form or by an automation rule. Set them to match the printer you actually have. Not every carrier can print every format or size; “Label formats” beside them takes you to the table further down the same section that says what each carrier prints. See Printing. Return labels keep the carrier’s own format, since your customer prints them.

Chronopost prints Chrono 13 and Chrono 18 on its 10x15 cm thermal label (ZPL), which needs a label printer, whatever “Label format” says. To get them as a PDF for an ordinary A4 printer instead, turn on “Chronopost PDF labels for Chrono 13 and Chrono 18” on the same card. It is off until you turn it on. Once on, it applies to Chrono 13 and Chrono 18 however you buy the label, Saturday delivery included, and to their return labels, so your customer gets a PDF they can print rather than a thermal label. Chronopost’s other services always print as PDF.

Exceptions for some orders

These defaults apply to every order unless something more specific says otherwise for that order. A rule can pick another carrier or service, a different box with “Set the package”, or another of your saved addresses with “Set the sender address”. The sender’s contact name and phone stay the ones set here. See Automation rules.

The carrier and service are the last word only when nothing more specific applies. First come your automation rules, then the carrier service you mapped the order’s checkout method to, the option the customer chose when paying, on the “Checkout methods” tab of the “Automation” page; then these defaults. A method you have not mapped keeps these defaults. See Checkout methods.

That card was in this section until September 2026. A short note here says where it went, and “Open checkout methods” opens it.

Label readiness

“Label readiness” is a checklist of what still has to be true before a label can be bought, including “Sender address chosen”.

Read it before your first label rather than after a failed attempt. An incomplete setup here is the usual reason a label will not buy, and the readiness list names the missing piece directly.

Getting here from an error

When something on an order fails for a missing default, the app offers “Open shipping settings”, a link straight to this section, rather than telling you to go and find it. The address then names the section, so a refresh or a copied link opens it again.