Why delivery details matter
“Can this arrive before Friday?” and “Do you deliver to my postcode?” need specific delivery information. Publish the destinations you serve, shipping charges and realistic delivery estimates alongside your product details.
Separate the time you need to prepare an order from the time it spends with the carrier. Include any minimum spend, delivery restrictions or special conditions. A chilled-food order, a heavy bag of pet food and an electronic device may need different delivery terms. Shopify explains handling and transit time.
Google supports shipping information in product listings through structured data and Merchant Center settings. Providing it does not guarantee a search appearance or an AI recommendation. Google’s shipping guidance.
What OptAEO reads from Shopify
During sync, OptAEO reads delivery profiles and active shipping methods to build a shipping summary for your products. Flat rates and carrier-calculated methods can both contribute information.
The current Shopify import uses the first variant’s delivery profile, so check exceptions affecting other variants separately. Transit estimates are inferred from shipping-method names; they are not confirmed delivery promises.
These setup instructions are for Shopify. The shipping information available through other platform connections differs.
How shipping readiness affects your score
Shipping readiness is part of OptAEO’s 16-factor AEO model. It assesses estimated transit times and recorded free-shipping availability across each product’s synced destinations.
A product marked as not requiring shipping is excluded from this factor. A physical product with no shipping information remains a gap to review.
This is OptAEO’s assessment, not an AI engine’s ranking or a live delivery quote. Keep your shipping terms accurate for your business; do not add destinations or promise free delivery simply to change a score.
What to check in Shopify
- Check coverage and rates. In Shopify, open Settings > Shipping and delivery. Confirm which products and destinations each shipping option covers, including rate conditions and exclusions. Shopify’s setup guidance.
- Check what shoppers actually see. Use a fresh checkout with representative products and delivery addresses. Compare its charges and estimates with your product pages and shipping policy, including any free-delivery threshold. Shopify’s troubleshooting checklist.
- Review structured shipping information. Check any shipping markup or Merchant Center settings against those same terms. OptAEO’s generated shipping markup does not capture every charge or condition. In particular, check that conditional free shipping is not presented as free delivery for every order.
- Refresh and review in OptAEO. On Pro, Business or Enterprise, select Sync now on your Dashboard after changing Shopify settings. Wait for sync and scoring to finish, then review Shipping readiness on the product page. If information is still missing or does not match your store, contact support before treating the score as current.
For the wider checklist, read Product data quality for Shopify. For help using OptAEO, visit Docs / Help.