Getting the best shipping partner for your products is an essential part of your business. Excellent shipping services guarantee customer satisfaction, and it builds a good relationship with them too. WooCommerce is a platform that offers multiple built-in options that makes it possible to ship to your customers and decrease the abandoned cart rates.
WooCommerce Shipping: Shipping Menu
You can easily access the shipping menu of WooCommerce with only three clicks. All you have to do is to go to WordPress, then Dashboard clock on “WooCommerce” > “Settings” > “Shipping,” and voila! The page will provide you with all the shipping management options that you need.
Moreover, their shipping settings are divided into three subsections that include
- Shipping zones – You get to set the shipping zones and methods that your customers will select from while placing an order.
- Shipping options – It contains the general shipping settings to select from.
- Shipping classes – You are given the option of selecting the shipping classes for each of your products. This helps in managing the rates of shipping.
WooCommerce Shipping: Shipping Classes
WooCommerce shipping classes depend on the type of product that you are shipping. It’s a better way to cut extra costs on specific products and special rates on every product category.
How to Create a New Shipping Class
The steps involved in creating a new shipping class include
- Click on “Shipping Classes” and further click on “Add Shipping Class.”
- Enter the shipping class of your choice (you can enter as many as you want)
- Click on “Save shipping classes.”
That’s how you get your WooCommerce shipping classes on board.
How to Assign a Shipping Class to Your Product
This is the part where you connect your product to the shipping classes that you created. The steps include
- Click on “Products.”
- For a single product, you will go ahead and click “Quick edit.” For cases of multiple products, you’ll select the products that don’t have classes and click “Bulk actions” > “Edit.”
- Click the “Shipping class” drop-down menu and select the shipping class to assign the products to.
- Click the “Update” button to apply the changes.
What are Shipping Zones within WooCommerce?
Shipping costs in WooCommerce are geographical areas where you’ll ship your products. You can either set the shipping zones in general levels or go down in regions and zip codes.
How to Set Shipping Zones within WooCommerce
The following are steps to set shipping zones for your products.
- Return to WooCommerce shipping menu.
- From the WordPress Dashboard, click on “WooCommerce” > “Settings” > “Shipping” > “Shipping zones”.
- Click on “Add shipping zone” and move forward to create a zone.
In the process, you’ll add the name of the shipping zone, the region will follow, then the countries.
How to Add Shipping Methods in WooCommerce?
This step precedes the creating of the shipping zone step. There are three shipping methods in the basic WooCommerce version.
- Flat rate shipment. In this method, you are required to provide a standard rate per item, per order, or shipping class. It works well if you have WooCommerce shipping classes because it covers several products.
- Free shipping. This applies according to your specification. It might be for customers with valid free coupons, minimum order amount, either of the two or both coupons and minimum order amount.
- In-store/local pickup.
In-Store/Local Pick-Up with WooCommerce
This is a shipping method that doesn’t require many options apart from establishing the costs and indicating the taxes. You can, however, restrict the pickup method to a specific zip code that applies to customers who are close to a warehouse.
WooCommerce Shipments: General Settings
You can use some settings by clicking on “WooCommerce” > “Settings” > “Shipping” > “Shipping options” to guide you to the general settings. You can change some of the settings, including important ones like
- “Hide shipping costs until an address is entered.”
- “Default to the customer shipping address.”
- “Enable debug mode.”
Which Carriers to Choose for Your WooCommerce Store
It is not easy to choose the shipping carriers to partner with since there are multiple alternatives. Delivery is a vital link to your customer satisfaction chain because it affects whether or not a customer will come back.
