How add_shipping_info works
This is the GA4 event for the delivery step of a checkout. It fires when the shopper submits an address or chooses a shipping method, and alongside the usual basket contents and total it carries one extra field that makes it worth having: the shipping tier, meaning the name of the option chosen — standard, express, inside the valley, collection from the shop, whatever your own labels are.
Like the other checkout events, nothing produces it automatically. Something in the checkout has to announce that the step was completed, usually through a data layer that Google Tag Manager reads. On a one-page checkout there is no page load to hang it on, so it has to be tied to the form section being completed instead.
Why add_shipping_info matters
Delivery is where a lot of orders quietly die. The basket total the shopper had in mind changes at this step, and for anything heavy, bulky or going outside the main city the change can be large. Splitting the checkout into a delivery step and a payment step tells you which of the two is doing the damage, and the answer changes what you should do about it.
The shipping tier makes it more useful still. If almost nobody picks the faster option, it is priced wrong or explained badly. If orders bound for districts outside the Kathmandu Valley fall away here while city orders do not, that is a delivery pricing and coverage question rather than a website question. None of that is visible from a single checkout completion figure.
Common mistakes with add_shipping_info
The most common is skipping it. Many shops implement the checkout start and the purchase, leave the middle steps out, and then wonder why abandonment cannot be explained. The second is firing it when the delivery form is displayed rather than when it is submitted, which turns a completed step into a viewed one and hides the drop entirely.
The third is leaving the shipping tier blank, or filling it with an internal code nobody can read in a report. Send the human label. And if you sell digital goods or services with no delivery at all, do not invent this step — a checkout that has no shipping stage should not report one.
How to act on it
Compare the count at this step with the checkout starts before it and the payment step after it. A sharp fall here points at the cost, the delivery estimate or the coverage area, not at your payment provider. Look at what the shopper sees at that moment: is the charge a surprise, is the estimated arrival vague, is their district even selectable?
Then fix the cause rather than the page. Showing delivery costs earlier — on the product page or the basket — moves the surprise forward, which loses some baskets but saves more checkouts. If the drop is concentrated in particular areas, the answer is a courier or pricing decision. Make sure the step is measured properly first; getting the middle of the checkout instrumented correctly is standard work in a GA4 ecommerce setup.