For a shop, shipping is not a price, it is a distribution. Orders land across several published bands and the difference between the bands is larger than the difference between carriers, which is why the first useful thing a shop can do is sort a month of dispatches by packed weight rather than shop for a better rate. Evri publishes 0-1kg Small at £3.04 and 1-2kg Standard at £4.79, and most small shops have orders sitting either side of that line without knowing it.
Band your orders before you shop for a rate
Take a month of dispatches, weigh and measure a representative sample of each product, and count how many fall into each published band. Almost every small shop finds its volume concentrated in one or two, and a discount negotiated against a band it barely uses is worth nothing. This costs an afternoon and is the only piece of analysis that reliably changes a shop's shipping cost.
The two inversions worth knowing
Royal Mail's Tracked 48 Small Parcel is £3.65 online where its 2nd Class Small Parcel is £3.95, so the tracked service is cheaper than the untracked default a lot of shops use. And Evri's price gap between 0-1kg Small at £3.04 and 1-2kg Standard at £4.79 is £1.75 for parcels a customer would describe identically. Packing to stay under a line beats switching carrier at small volumes.
Where a shipping solution for ecommerce actually sits
On top of these rates rather than instead of them. A tool negotiates, prints labels and picks between services; it does not change what carriage costs the carrier. At a thousand parcels a month a tool that saves thirty pence each is a real business; at fifty it is an expense with a dashboard. Nothing in this record prices the tools, because none of them publishes a rate card that could be read.
The international tail, which is a second business
Parcel2Go publishes £7.79 to Germany, £7.99 to the Netherlands, £9.19 to Spain, £11.59 to the USA and £11.75 to Canada on its own destination pages. Each is carriage only, and the duty decision behind it, whether you pay it or leave it with the customer, is a pricing decision rather than a shipping one. Refused parcels on unpaid duty are the most expensive failure mode a small shop meets abroad.
Questions people ask about shipping ecommerce
What does ecommerce delivery cost per order?
On published bands, from £3.04 for a 0-1kg Small with Evri and £3.65 for a Royal Mail Tracked 48 Small Parcel bought online, both read on 10 September 2026 and both carriage only.
How do I reduce my shop's shipping costs?
Band your orders first. The gap between Evri's 0-1kg Small at £3.04 and its 1-2kg Standard at £4.79 is £1.75 for parcels that look the same to a customer, and packing under a line beats a small percentage discount.
Is a shipping platform worth it for a small shop?
It depends on volume. It sits on top of the carrier rates rather than replacing them, so a saving of pennies per parcel is a business at a thousand a month and an expense at fifty.
What does it cost to ship an order to Europe?
Parcel2Go publishes £7.79 to Germany, £7.99 to the Netherlands and £9.19 to Spain on its own country pages, each the cheapest of five services priced there and each carriage only.