Shipping for online stores in Egypt — a practical guide
Shipping is the line item that eats the most margin in small Egyptian stores, and the one most often calculated wrong.
The problem is that most merchants pick a single number — "shipping is 50 EGP" — and that number is right in Cairo and wrong in Aswan.
Calculate the real cost, not the average
A single shipment carries:
- The courier's price for that governorate
- The cash collection fee, if the order is cash on delivery
- The cost of a return (shipping both ways, and a product back in stock two weeks later)
- Packaging
Count only the first and you lose money on every shipment outside Cairo and Giza.
Three ways to price shipping
One flat price. Simple for the customer, but it has to sit above your average cost — meaning Cairo customers subsidise Aswan. Fine if most of your sales are in one place.
Priced by governorate. The fairest and most accurate. It needs a platform that calculates it automatically, because 27 governorates is not a table you maintain by hand.
Free above a threshold. Raises average order value, but set the threshold properly: if your average order is 400 EGP, put it at 600, not 450.
Free shipping is not free. Either you pay for it, or it is priced into the product. Both are fine — just know which one you are doing.
The far governorates
Upper Egypt, Sinai and the New Valley cost more and take longer. Three options:
- Charge more for those areas — the clearest and most honest.
- Absorb it from margin — workable while they are a small share of orders.
- Do not ship there — a legitimate decision, but say so on the shipping page, not at checkout.
The worst option is accepting the order and then phoning the customer to say you do not cover their area.
Bring returns down
A return costs you twice. The most common causes:
- The customer does not answer. Confirm the order with a message before shipping.
- The product is not what was pictured. Real photos, sizes as numbers.
- The customer changed their mind. Long delivery times make this worse — every extra day raises the chance of a cancellation.
Track your money while it is in transit
With cash on delivery, your money sits with the courier for weeks. If you cannot say how much they are holding right now, you are buying stock on guesswork.
What you need is one number: what has been collected, what is still in transit, and what came back.