For most merchants, a year of order volume doesn't arrive evenly. It concentrates into a few weeks between October and December. The dates are known months out and most operations plan hard for them. What planning can't change is that it's the same team and the same hours in a day, against several times the volume of orders.
The tools to ship those weeks now live in your Shopify admin. Not a faster way to work one order at a time, but more delivery choices for your customers, a way to run a whole day's orders at once, and fewer things to chase after the box ships.
This guide covers what's new and how to set each piece up, in the order you'd work through it: what customers see at checkout, how orders move across your floor, and what happens after the box leaves. Anything you set up now will be familiar by the time volume climbs.
Give customers more ways to get their order
Peak starts before the first order does, with what a customer sees when they check out. Many of the people buying from you in November are buying from you for the first time, and what they see at checkout is the basis for whether they trust the delivery date. The first two pieces below are set up on your products and rates. The next two change what appears at checkout.
Calculate rates based on what's actually in the box
Add dimensions to your products, and when an order with multiple items comes in, Shopify works out which of your saved packages those items fit into together. Before, package selection only applied to single-item orders and everything else used your store default.
That means the rate a customer sees at checkout reflects the real box, and the right package is already selected when you buy the label on Shopify.
How to start:
- Go to Products, open a product, and add packed product size in the Shipping section. Use the bulk editor if you have a large catalog.
- Go to Shipping and delivery settings in your admin. In the Packages section, click Add package and enter the outside dimensions of each package you ship in.
Set up shipping options based on market
Set up shipping rates by country, region, and more, so you no longer have to manage shipping around products and locations. When an order has more than one rate in a shipping option, only the highest matching rate applies at checkout. This means customers see lower shipping costs instead of a total with multiple rates added together.
How to start:
- Starting October 1, 2026, all merchants will be eligible for market-driven shipping. Go to Shipping and delivery settings in your admin to opt in.
- Read the help doc, and see the announcement for the full update.
Ship and pick up in one order
A customer can have some items shipped and pick up others in the same order, instead of choosing one delivery method for everything in the cart. They choose per item at checkout, and the order comes into your admin as separate fulfillments grouped by method.
Fewer customers abandon a cart because one item couldn't ship the way they needed, and pickup brings people into the store.
How to start:
- Ship and pickup is available as a Feature test drive for businesses on the Shopify Plus and Enterprise plans. It will be available to all plans in 2027.
- Go to Feature test drives in your admin, find ship and pickup in one order, and click Activate feature on stores. Read the help doc to learn more.
Show customers how many packages to expect
When an order ships from more than one location, or contains preorder or subscription items, checkout shows the customer that it's arriving as separate shipments and what each one costs. They can pick between the lowest-price grouping and the fastest.
This means nobody opens one box and wonders where the rest of their order went.
How to start:
- Go to Shipping and delivery settings in your admin. In the Shipping section, click Split shipping, then select Show split shipping in checkout.
- Read the help doc to learn more. Note that split shipping will be enabled for all merchants in July 2027.
Work a whole day's orders in one pass
Those orders then land in your admin, and from there the job is volume. The work each order takes doesn't change during peak. The number of times you repeat it does.
Batch orders to save time
Group up to 250 orders into a batch that moves through picking, packing, and label buying together instead of one order at a time. One pick list covers the whole batch, so someone walks the floor once and pulls items for every order in it.
Batch however you actually work. Put every single-item order together and clear most of your day in one run. Group the orders containing the same item so you pick from one shelf. Pull the express orders so everything facing the same carrier cutoff goes out together. Then arrange the steps to match your process and assign each one, so everyone knows what they're on.
How to start:
- Go to Orders in your admin, select the orders you want to fulfill, and click Create batch.
- Customize your pick list, packing slip, and invoice templates in Shipping and delivery settings under Templates. Read the help doc to learn more.
Verify before you ship
Scan to verify is a step inside the batch workflow. Scan items as you pick so you're pulling the right products off the shelf, and scan again as you pack so the right products go in the box.
This matters most when volume spikes and the floor is moving fast. Catching a wrong item before the box seals is the difference between a correct order and a return, a refund, and a support conversation in the middle of your busiest week.
How to start:
- Scan to verify is an action inside a batch. Create a batch on the Orders page, then add it to the steps where you want to scan.
- You need barcodes on your products and a Shopify-compatible barcode scanner. Without one, you can adjust quantities manually in the admin. Read the help doc to learn more.
Automate label buying with Flow
Set the rules once and Flow bu your shipment doesn't change based on the weight or destination of your package. The price is based only on the size of the package you use. So a dense item crossing the country costs the same as a light one going across town.
For a list of eligible One Rate® packages, refer to Understanding shipment packaging and weights.
How to start: Go to Shipping and delivery settings in your admin. In the Shipping section, click Packages, then click Add package. Click Carrier package, click FedEx, select the One Rate package you want, and click Add package. Read the help doc to learn more.
Manage what happens after the box ships
The box going out isn't the end of the order. More orders means more that go sideways. Now you can sort them out without leaving your admin.
Buy return labels from more carriers
Businesses in the U.S. can now buy UPS return labels in their admin.
You aren't charged for a return label until the customer actually ships with it. That means you can preemptively include a return label and it costs nothing if the customer keeps the product.
How to start: There's no setup. Go to Orders in your admin, open the order, and click Return. Enter the items coming back, then select Create a return label in Shopify.
Proof of delivery photos are now available
For supported carriers, the delivery photo now appears on the order in your admin. When a customer says a package never arrived, you can see where it was left before deciding what to do, and the photo goes in with the evidence if the order becomes a chargeback. Non-delivery claims climb in December, when more parcels are sitting on doorsteps than at any other point in the year.
How to start: Nothing to turn on. For supported carriers, the photo appears on the order in your admin once the parcel is delivered.
Get started today
Help customers see accurate rates and more ways to get their order. Fulfill a whole day of orders at once instead of one at a time, and pick from a wider range of shipping carriers than ever before. All of it is included in your Shopify plan. Your busiest week of fulfillment now runs on the same admin as your quietest one.
