How Can You Restrict Free Shipping Based on Customer Group in Magento 2?

When it comes to attracting and retaining customers for an online store, offering free shipping is always an effective strategy. After all, who doesn’t love to save money even if it is a small amount! According to the below figure, 48% customers abandon their cart simply because of the shipping costs, taxes, and other fees.

Therefore, offering free shipping is a perfect way to reduce cart abandonment. However, store owners must realise that offering free shipping to every user is not recommended nor desirable. After all, free shipping means that the store owner themselves are bearing all the shipping costs.

Over time, free shipping for everyone can easily undermine the store’s financial position. Even if that’s not the situation, the customers may become accustomed to free shipping, opting to stay away when the store does charge a shipping fee. Hence, it is better to restrict free shipping based on specific customer groups.

In this article, we will guide you about implementing free shipping restrictions for customer groups in Magento 2.

Offering free shipping is a powerful marketing strategy to attract customers, increase conversions, and reduce cart abandonment. However, in many cases, it may not be cost-effective to offer free shipping to every customer. To manage shipping costs more effectively, Magento 2 offers flexibility in setting up shipping rules, including the ability to restrict free shipping based on customer groups. This article will walk you through how to restrict free shipping based on customer group in Magento 2 using the platform’s default features and additional extensions.

Magento 2 Shipping Restrictions – Why Restrict Free Shipping?

We acknowledge that offering free shipping helps attract and retain customers. But the following points elaborate on why implementing free shipping restrictions can prove beneficial:

Profit margins

As said earlier, when a store is offering free shipping, it is bearing the shipping fees itself. Unless a store is selling high-value items, the shipping fees will reduce overall profitability. This is why most stores don’t offer free shipping on low-margin products.

Segmentation

If you are offering free shipping to everyone, you are effectively treating all customer the same. This can quickly demotivate your most loyal customers who expect special privileges. So, it would be better to offer free shipping to only specific customer groups such as frequent buyers.

Shipping Costs

If you are shipping an item with 1 kg weight, the shipping costs will be quite low. Now, if you are shipping a 10, 20 or 30 kg item, the costs will be significantly higher. Therefore, it makes little sense to offer free shipping in this case. Likewise, if you are shipping in the same city, the costs are low compared to shipping internationally or to another city.

Wholesale or B2B customers

Another reason to implement free shipping restrictions is because of wholesale or B2B customers. These customer groups buy in bulk quantities. Therefore, it is impractical to offer them free shipping based on how high the shipment costs would be.

Understanding Customer Groups in Magento 2

Before we move to the ‘how’ part, we need to understand various customer groups in Magento 2. By default, Magento 2 has four customer groups:

General: These are the regular customers.

Not Logged In: Refers to the users that are browsing the store without logging in. They can be described as guest users.

Wholesale: They are the bulk buyers.

Retailers: Users who purchase goods in large quantities with the intention of reselling them.

Creating Custom Customer Groups in Magento 2

Of course, you can create additional customer groups to suit your store requirements. To do so, go to the Admin Panel -> Customers -> Customer Groups -> Add New Customer Group button. Enter the relevant information and click on Save Customer Group. You can create groups such as ‘VIP Customers’, ‘Frequent Buyers’, and so on.

Magento 2 Shipping Restrictions – How to Restrict Free Shipping Based on Customer Group

Although a very powerful platform, Magento 2 does not have native support for restricting free shipping based on customer groups. Instead, merchants need to tweak with the cart price rules along with the free shipping methods. This method can prove frustrating as it involves too much hassle. Therefore, a Magento 2 shipping restrictions extension is a much better option.

To set up free shipping restriction based on customer group using FME’s Magento 2 Shipping Restrictions extension, follow the below instructions:

• Go to the Admin Panel -> Stores -> Configuration -> Shipping Restrictions (or Shipping Rules).
• The next step is to ‘Create a New Rule’ and then configure the settings. You will first need to select which shipping method to restrict. In this case, it will be ‘Free Shipping’.
• Afterwards, define the customer group conditions i.e. what customer groups to apply the restriction to.
• Add other conditions (if required) e.g. order weight, product attribute, cart attribute etc.
• Save the rule and test it.

Using Magento 2 Shipping Restriction Extension to Restrict Free Shipping Based on Customer Groups

If you are looking for an extension, then check out FME’s Shipping Restrictions Magento 2 Extension. It offers a wide range of features which Magento 2 does not offer natively. For example, if you wish to restrict a shipping method based on state, city, area code, or even a specific address, you can do so easily. Apart from this, merchants can set up restrictions based on product attribute, cart attribute, individual customer, and of course, the customer group.

Final Thoughts on Restricting Free Shipping in Magento 2

While free shipping can help attract and retain customers, it is not always the right strategy. Instead, merchants should restrict free shipping based on customer groups, allowing them to balance profitability with customer satisfaction. This is a much more sustainable and effective strategy.

While Magento 2 does offer in-built features for restricting free shipping based on customer group, the process is tedious. The better option is to use a Magento 2 Shipping Restrictions Extension, giving merchants access to other advanced features as well, including ability to restrict shipping methods based on individual customer.