1-6. Setting up shipping methods

Tip: if your profit margin allows, consider offering free shipping for orders over a certain amount. Multiple studies proved that free shipping works better than 10% off promotions and can be a real competitive advantage for your business. Plus it is a good way to increase the average order value because your buyers will want to get over that minimum order total to have free shipping on each order.

There are multiples shipping methods you can set up in the store as well as a combination of the method below as well as different methods and rates for different user groups:

1. Free
2. Flat rate
3. Formula based rates (calculated according to destination shipping zone, the order total, order weight, or combination)
4. Real-time rates (your new store supports all the major carriers like UPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS, CanadaPost, etc)

The easiest way to do this is to prepare the requirements for the shipping calculations you want to have and send them to us for set up.
If you want to do it yourself or check the existing setup, below is some information that will help.

6.1. Shipping general setup

Go to WooCommerce -> Shipping
The first tab "Shipping zones" will have the list of all the destination zones set up in the store. Those zones are used for Free, Flat, and Formula based shipping rates. You generally do not need to set up separate zones if you are using real-time rates because the carrier server will return the correct rate according to the destination address.



The second tab, "Shipping options" has some general settings you can adjust. For example, you want to force the shipping address to be the same as the billing address to reduce fraud orders but this is more useful for B2C stores because business buyers often ship to multiple locations.



The "Shipping Classes" tab is used to set up different shipping classes. Each product can be assigned to a different shipping class and each class can have different shipping rates.

6.2. Adding or changing shipping methods

To access the list of shipping methods assigned to a particular destination zone, go to WooCommerce -> Shipping -> Shipping zones
and click "Edit" under the shipping zone you want to modify.



Depending on which modules you have installed in the store, you will see different selections in the list of shipping methods you can add:



Please contact us to add the methods you require in your store. There is a small license fee for the integration with some carriers but it's usually insignificant and well worth the convenience of offering accurate shipping rates to your users.

6.3. Modifying a shipping method settings

There is one last layer of settings you can access to fine-tune that method.
go to WooCommerce -> Shipping -> Shipping zones -> and click "Edit" under the shipping zone you want to modify -> click "Edit" under the shipping method you want to adjust
On the shipping methods details page, you can set up the origin, your box sizes, rates to be shown (List or Account rates), shipping services you offer, and over settings.
With some methods, you will see additional tabs in WooCommerce -> Shipping menu which will allow managing some general settings for this method (like API credentials for example).





Shipping setup can be complex in some cases but has to be done only once so, please consider asking for help - we can save you a ton of time and frustration.