Understanding Order Shipping Costs

Learn how Conjura's Order Shipping Costs import enhances contribution margin analysis by tracking the actual shipping and fulfillment costs incurred for specific orders, ensuring accurate profitability insights in Retail Analytics.

Note: Accurate tracking of order-level shipping costs is essential for calculating your true contribution margin.

When to Use a Custom Order Shipping Costs Import

This feature allows you to upload precise, order-specific shipping expenses, ensuring your profitability metrics reflect real-world fulfillment costs.

Common use cases include:

Actual carrier charges: When you receive invoices from shipping carriers (e.g., Royal Mail, UPS, DHL) with the exact costs per order
Special shipping arrangements: Orders with custom shipping rates, expedited fees, or international surcharges
Correcting missing data: Filling in shipping costs for orders where cost data wasn't properly recorded

For example, you might upload actual carrier charges of £4.85 for Order #12345, or override incorrect shipping costs pulled from your system.

Once uploaded, these costs are incorporated into your Shipping & Fulfilment Costs and Contribution Margin metrics across all

dashboards.

Important: This import is for order-specific actual costs. For setting up standard shipping method costs by carrier, country, or weight bands, use the "Shipping Costs Import" instead.

How Order Shipping Costs Are Applied

Imported order shipping costs are the highest priority source for shipping costs. The system uses the following priority order when determining shipping costs for an order:

1. Order Shipping Costs import (this import) - used first if

available

2. Weight-based banded shipping costs - from the Shipping Costs

import, allocated by product weight

3. Flat-rate banded shipping costs - from the Shipping Costs

import, split equally across line items

4. Percentage of revenue shipping costs - from the Shipping Costs

import

5. System shipping costs - pulled from your connected platform

(e.g., Brightpearl, Linnworks)

This means your imported order shipping costs will override any shipping costs pulled from your connected platforms for those specific orders.

ShipStation: If you have ShipStation connected, ShipStation shipping data takes priority over this import. This import will only be used for orders that don't have ShipStation shipment data.

How to Use a Custom Order Shipping Costs Import

Using the Form Interface

Navigate to Connect & Import and select Order Shipping Costs.
Download the CSV template, which will contain all your existing orders with the following information pre-populated:
- Order ID: Your unique order identifier (required, read-only)
- Order Reference: Your order reference number (read-only)
- Order Date: The date the order was placed (required, read-only)
- Store: Which store/channel the order came from (required, read-only)
- Currency: The currency for the shipping cost (e.g., GBP, USD, EUR)
- Shipping Cost: The actual shipping cost incurred for this order
- Remove Order: Select "Yes" to remove previously imported costs for this order
Complete the template by filling in:
- Currency: Specify the currency of the shipping cost
- Shipping Cost: Enter the actual shipping cost paid for each order
- Remove Order: Leave blank or set to "No" for normal imports; set to "Yes" to delete previously imported data for specific orders
Delete all template rows that you don't need to update before uploading your data.
Upload the completed file by dragging and dropping it onto the editor.
Select Submit Data.

Your data will sync overnight and appear in your reports.

Using CSV for Bulk Uploads

For bulk uploads, download the CSV template from the Order Shipping Costs page. The template includes all your orders with key information pre-filled.

Important: Only fill in shipping costs for orders where you want to add or update cost data. Delete all other template rows before uploading your data.

Managing Your Imports

To remove imported shipping costs, you have two options:

Remove specific orders: Use the "Remove Order" column in the CSV template, set it to "Yes" for the orders you want to remove, and re-upload the file.
Delete entire import file: Locate the file under My Imported Data in the custom data import tab and select the delete button to remove all costs from that import.

Data Structure

The import requires the following information:

Order ID (required): Your unique order identifier from your system
Order Date (required): Must match the date in your system
Store (required): Must match your connected store name
Currency: ISO currency code (e.g., GBP, USD, EUR)
Shipping Cost: The actual cost amount as a positive number

Important: The Order ID, Order Date, and Store must match exactly with orders in your Conjura account. These fields are pre-populated in the template to ensure accuracy.

How Costs Are Allocated

Shipping costs are allocated proportionally across line items within each order, based on each line item's share of the order's total product value. This ensures accurate per-product profitability analysis.

Example

Order ID	Order Reference	Order Date	Store	Currency	Shipping Cost	Remove Order
123456	ORD-001	2024-01-15	Main Website	GBP	4.85
123457	ORD-002	2024-01-16	Main Website	GBP	6.20

Tips

Match your carrier invoices: Upload costs directly from your shipping carrier invoices for maximum accuracy
Regular updates: Upload shipping costs monthly or weekly as you receive carrier invoices
Currency consistency: Ensure the currency matches the order currency
Don't delete template columns: Keep all columns in the template, even if some are empty