In-cart calculators allow customers to preview shipping rates before they have initiated a checkout. Certain Shopify themes include them out of the box; for others, code needs to be added. This can be done with certain apps, or you could add the required code yourself if you are comfortable with the manipulations required. Shopify provides a tutorial about how to do that.

These calculators capture limited details of the customer’s address–in particular, they don’t harvest the street address. Without that, UPS cannot determine whether the address is residential or commercial. And because no company name is provided, either, UPS will always treat the address as residential. As a consequence, UPS will not display 2nd-Day Air a.m. rates, because this service is only available to commercial locations. Note also the UPS limitations described here .

The limited address information provided by in-cart calculators causes similar issues to arise with FedEx, because the company name is not provided. So FedEx Ground will not in general appear; rather, FedEx Ground Home Delivery will be shown.

Whether or not you decide to set up an in-cart calculator in your shop is completely up to you. If you choose to have one, it will no doubt boost the number of shipping calculations your shop requires, meaning that you might have to subscribe to a higher level Boxify plan than you would otherwise have to.