Test free shipping against no free shipping when you are unsure whether the offer pays for itself. Profit should be the main signal because the merchant pays the shipping cost.
What Shopify supports natively
Shopify can publish shipping rates and discounts. A merchant can remove a free shipping offer or add one manually. But comparing offer vs no offer fairly requires consistent traffic assignment, storefront messaging, and completed-order attribution.
Manual workaround
Run the store without the offer
Record orders, revenue, conversion, average order value, and shipping cost for a baseline period.
Turn on free shipping later
Run a second period with the free shipping offer and compare the totals.
Estimate shipping cost
Subtract the cost of orders where the merchant paid shipping.
Adjust for campaign changes
Exclude sales, ad spikes, seasonality, and stockouts that can distort the comparison.
Where the workaround breaks
The second period may perform differently because of traffic, not because of free shipping.
More orders are not enough if the store gives away too much shipping margin.
How Lioriq helps this use case
Lioriq can help compare free shipping against a no-free-shipping setup and review the result with profit, revenue, completed orders, and conversion. That gives the merchant a clearer view of whether the offer itself is worth keeping.
Find out whether the offer is worth the cost
Test free shipping as a business decision, not just a conversion tactic.
Install on Shopify App StoreWhen this setup is useful
You are not sure the offer pays back
Use profit to decide whether the lift covers the shipping cost.
Margin is tight
A small conversion lift may not justify paying shipping on more orders.
You are testing a new region
Validate whether free shipping is needed before making it the default promise.
How to set it up
- Choose the market or store context you want to test.
- Define the no-free-shipping version clearly.
- Define the free shipping offer and threshold clearly.
- Run one active test at a time.
- Wait for the minimum time, exposure, matched-order, confidence, and traffic-quality checks.
- Review profit per exposure first, then revenue and conversion.
- Confirm the result before keeping the live threshold or applying store rates.
If store rates win, confirming that outcome pauses the tested free-shipping offer. The completed result remains in history.
FAQ
Why test free shipping against no free shipping?
Because free shipping is not free for the merchant. A test helps determine whether the offer creates enough profit lift to cover shipping cost.
What should I measure?
Review profit first, then revenue, completed orders, average order value, and conversion. Revenue alone can hide shipping cost.
Can a no-free-shipping variant still show a banner?
It can, but keep the test definition clear. For example, use a shipping information banner instead of a free shipping threshold message.
When should I avoid this test?
Avoid starting during unusual campaigns, major inventory problems, or low-traffic periods where there may not be enough completed orders to read the result.