Skip to main content
The total shipping charged to customers on every order after their first.

​
Formula

Returning Customer Shipping Revenue = SUM ( Order Shipping ) WHERE the order is a returning-customer order

​
Formula Components

​
How It Works

Upstack gives each Shopify customer one new-customer order, their earliest order that isn’t cancelled. Every other order from that customer is a returning-customer order, including a second order placed an hour after the first and every subscription renewal. This metric adds up the shipping charged on all of those orders. A few things follow from the way it’s built:
  • Volume drives it. More repeat orders means more shipping revenue, even if you charge less per order. Use Returning Customer Shipping Per Order to separate price from volume.
  • Refunded shipping isn’t subtracted. If you refund shipping on a late delivery, this total doesn’t drop.
  • Cancelled orders aren’t removed. A cancelled repeat order keeps its shipping in the total.
  • Orders without a customer are left out. Shopify orders with no customer attached have no customer type, so they count in Shipping Revenue but not in the new or returning version.

​
Example

A coffee brand starts free shipping for returning customers on orders over $50 in May. Repeat orders grew by 250, but shipping revenue from them fell by $4,033, and the cost to ship them rose by $1,625. The perk cost about $5,658 in shipping margin for the month. Whether that’s worth it depends on whether those extra 250 orders, and the customers behind them, keep coming.

​
How to Interpret It

Read it against shipping cost, not on its own. Shipping revenue only matters relative to what shipping costs you. Returning Customer Shipping Cost comes from your shipping rates in Cost Settings, so the gap between the two is your shipping margin on repeat orders. A falling value with rising repeat orders usually means a free-shipping threshold or perk is doing its job. A falling value with falling repeat orders is a retention problem, not a shipping one. Split by order type if you sell subscriptions. Renewals are returning-customer orders. The order type breakdown (one_time_order, subscription_first_order, subscription_recurring_order) shows how much of this total comes from renewals, which may follow different shipping rules from one-time repeat orders. Compare with new customers. New Customer Shipping shows the same total for first orders. Totals mostly reflect order volume, so compare the per-order versions to see whether repeat buyers actually pay less shipping than first-time buyers.

​
FAQ

No. It’s the shipping recorded on each order. Refunds are tracked in the refund metrics.
Anyone placing an order that isn’t their earliest non-cancelled order with your store. Upstack decides this from the orders it has received for your store.
Orders that Shopify sent without a customer have no customer type, so they’re only in the store-wide Shipping Revenue.
No. Shipping revenue is what customers paid you. Shipping cost is what you pay to ship, based on your Cost Settings.
See all Adjustments metrics →