Click & Drop customs declarations for Shopify orders
Each item on a parcel leaving the UK needs a customs description, an HS code and a country of origin, along with its value and weight, and Click & Drop uses what's on the order for the declaration that travels with the parcel. Typing that into every order is slow and easy to get wrong. With AK: Royal Mail Click and Drop you choose once where each field comes from in your Shopify product data, and each international order reaches Click & Drop with its customs filled in from those fields.
1. The description of each item
Choose the product type (the default), the product title, a product metafield, or your own fixed words. Customs officers want a plain name for the goods, such as "cotton t-shirt" or "ceramic mug", so a tidy product type is often all you need. The app doesn't use your product description, which is written to sell and runs far longer than a declaration allows. When the field you chose is empty for an item, your own fixed words are used if you've set them, else the product title, and the order says when the title was used.
2. The HS code
The HS code says what kind of goods an item is, for duty. The app reads it from Shopify's own product field (on the product page, under shipping, as the HS code) or from a metafield. Shopify can also hold a separate code per destination country, and when an item has one for the country the parcel is going to, that code is sent ahead of the general one. A code needs at least 6 digits, and one that's shorter isn't sent.
3. The country of origin
That's where the item was made, not where you post from. It comes from Shopify's country of origin on the product, a metafield, or one country you set for everything (GB unless you change it).
4. Value and weight
Each item's value is its price on the order before tax. Its weight is the variant's weight in Shopify, or the weight you set in Settings for items with none (100 g unless you change it), and your packaging weight is added to each parcel.
5. Why the parcel is being sent
Most shop parcels are an online sale of goods, which is the default. Gifts, commercial samples, documents and returned goods each have their own choice, for the parcels that aren't a sale.
6. Who pays duty and tax, and IOSS
For parcels to the EU you pick the delivery terms once, and your IOSS number goes in Settings if you're registered. The choices, in Royal Mail's own terms:
- Customer pays duty, tax and fees on delivery
- VAT charged at checkout (IOSS), customer pays duty and fees
- You pay duty, tax and fees through Click & Drop
- VAT charged at checkout (IOSS), you pay duty and fees
- Delivered Taxes Paid, Royal Mail's commercial services (OBA)
- IOSS and Delivered Taxes Paid, commercial services (OBA)
Parcels to the USA have their own setting with 3 of those choices, the ones without IOSS.
7. EU parcels from 1 November 2026
Royal Mail now asks for each item's SKU and a product code on EU parcels of goods sold. The app sends both. The code is the variant's GTIN, else another barcode or the SKU, else the Shopify variant number, and the order says when it had to fall back. Products with a barcode in Shopify need nothing more.
8. Parcels to the USA
Royal Mail asks for a link to each product's page and a phone number or an email for the customer. The app sends the link to the product on your online store, and the order warns you when an item has no page there (a custom item, or a product not on the Online Store channel) or when the order would go with neither a phone nor an email.
Before your first international order
- Give each product a product type that names the goods plainly, or pick the field that does.
- Add HS codes and the country of origin to your products in Shopify.
- Put your IOSS number in Settings if you have one, and choose the delivery terms.
- Check that variants have weights, or set the default weight.
- Try a few orders in the app's practice account before using your real Click & Drop.
Setting up from the start? How to connect Shopify to Royal Mail Click & Drop has every step, and the app is on the Shopify App Store.
This app isn't made by Royal Mail, and none of this is customs advice for your goods. Questions about the app? Write to me at support@aislekit.app.