If you are selling physical products through your WooCommerce store, then shipping is an integral part of it. You need to take extreme care in your shipping fulfillment, as it is somewhat directly linked to customer satisfaction. WooCommerce offers great flexibility when it comes to extending the shipping functionality. There are numerous extensions available for WooCommerce shipping functionality in varied aspects. This may vary from displaying real time rates of prominent shipping carriers, table rate shipping, printing invoices and labels, etc. Here is a look at some of the free WooCommerce Shipping extensions that you can find in the WordPress plugin repository. WooCommerce Weight Based Shipping Calculating the shipping cost accurately is a tedious task for WooCommerce shop owners. Weight based shipping method allows you to determine the shipping costs based on the weight of the products in an order. With WooCommerce shipping extensions like this, you can set different rules to achieve the best possible results for your business. It allows you to create shipping rules based on multiple parameters. You can take into account the total weight of the order, or the sub total from line items. You can also consider the destination where you are shipping to. Depending on your store’s orders and shipping trends, you can choose a rule that best suits you. It can be a constant one like ‘Flat Rate’, or something that dynamically take into account multiple parameters like weight and destination. The plugin has a straightforward configuration procedure. You can set all the rules on the Settings page itself. With over 10,000 active installs and close to 40 five star ratings, this plugin is really popular in the community. WooCommerce Advanced Free Shipping Free shipping is an unavoidable business strategy for online stores. It really improves the perception of the store if you periodically take the burden of shipping costs. Customers are bound to feel good when the shipping costs are not passed on to them often. However, you need to achieve this without really burning a hole in your pocket. WooCommerce Advanced Free Shipping Extension helps you with just that. You can set up advanced rules as to when the free shipping offer is displayed to the customer. In the process, you get the full control of implementing the offer. The plugin achieves this by creating conditions from a variety of parameters such as order quantity, sub total, user role, shipping destination, product category, etc. Each of these can be set up strategically using ‘OR’ condition groups within which there are ‘AND’ conditions. DHL WooCommerce Shipping Method Offering shipping rates of leading shipping carriers is a great way to impress customers. This way, there is transparency in the rates that you display. Also, your customers would be more assured with the fact that a leading shipping company is handling their shipment. Here comes XAdapter’s DHL WooCommerce Shipping Method plugin that offers a seamless integration with DHL. You will be able to capture the various shipping services and rates from the DHL API and display them on your Cart and Checkout pages. Product details and address information are the only parameters that you require to enable this functionality. It is quite easy to set up the plugin, but you need to have an account with DHL for this plugin to work. The DHL account details are required to fetch the real time rates from the API. The is getting increasingly popular with support for all three DHL services — Express, Paket and eCommerce. premium version of this plugin Fedex WooCommerce Shipping Method Plugin Similar to DHL, this plugin helps you get shipping rates from the FedEx API. The plugin will dynamically display the shipping rates on the Cart and Checkout pages. The rates will be based on parameters like the shipping destination address, product dimensions etc. Your customers can choose a service that they prefer from the available options. FedEx is really a global leader in shipping fulfillment with services in over 220 countries. It can impart a lot of reliability and promptness to your WooCommerce store’s shipping process. The result will be more happy customers and better sales. Flexible Shipping for WooCommerce This WooCommerce shipping extension allows you to calculate shipping rates on various parameters like product weight and cart total. With the help of this plugin, you will be able to add insurance or handling charges for orders above a certain value. Similarly, you can add a cost to your Cash on Delivery option too. Using this plugin, you can create unlimited Shipping methods and rates. You will be able to create these shipping methods with personalized titles and descriptions. Setting minimum and maximum values for cart weight and total is also possible. Free shipping override and option to display only specific methods for your registered users are also available. With over 9000 active installs, this plugin has a reassuring user base. The plugin is updated regularly as well. UPS WooCommerce Shipping Method Plugin Similar to DHL and FedEx, this plugin provides integration to UPS services on your WooCommerce store. UPS is one of the most reliable shipping service company in the world, and integrating their services on your WooCommerce store would definitely give you an edge. Moreover, UPS has several offers for small and medium eCommerce businesses. Utilizing these would surely help you improve your store’s customer experience and financial viability. We have written an in more detail. Please read it to get a better idea on its advanced features. article on the configuration of this plugin WooCommerce Shipping Label If creating shipping labels is a constant hassle for your WooCommerce order management, this plugin can help you a lot. The plugin is capable of generating and printing labels from WooCommerce orders. This will save you from a lot of manual effort to copy and paste order details. The advantage of using this plugin is that you can customize the content that is to be displayed on the label. The label by default will contain origin and destination addresses, order number, weight of the package, and date. You can choose to include company name, logo, return policy and custom footer according to your requirements. The plugin also allows to configure the label size with two options — full page or 4*6 inches. The label will be in PDF format and you will be able to preview it before printing. You can . read more about setting up this plugin here WooCommerce USPS Shipping Method Plugin The advantages of using the services of a popular shipping carrier are many. When it comes to USPS, you will get free flat rate boxes and greater security for your shipments. Also having a clear understanding of your shipping costs helps you plan and prioritize your strategies. According to requirements, you can choose to opt for priority delivery or normal one. Also, the range of USPS in delivering to US addresses is quite huge. Besides, it is the only carrier in the US that can serve to government addresses. The lack of any surcharges is also a good reason to choose UPS over other carriers. This plugin helps you display USPS shipping services and rates on your WooCommerce store, so that your customers can pick the appropriate ones for delivering their orders. It is one of the most popular plugin in its category with quite a satisfied user base. WooCommerce — APG Weight and Postcode/State/Country Shipping This plugin calculates shipping rate based on address details or post code, as you specify. You can set a fixed flat rate and/or add an additional handling cost for each shipment or product. Unlimited rates can be created with values set according to maximum weight or dimension, or both. In addition, you can create separate rates for specific shipping classes according to your store’s shipping strategy. You can set up APG Shipping as a shipping method under any of your existing shipping zones and configure it. The settings page allows ample choices to workout a shipping strategy that is profitable and customer friendly. WooCommerce Shipping Pro with Table Rate This is another efficient option if you want to define multiple shipping rates based on product weight and destination country. You can group multiple countries to create regions to implement similar shipping scenarios. Apart from setting up shipping rates based on cart weight, order weight or destination country, this plugin can be used for certain other aspects. For example, if you want to set up conditional free shipping or flat rate shipping, you can do it easily. Conclusion Shipping is an integral part of your business strategy if you are selling physical goods. Reasonable and transparent shipping costs would do a lot of good in your sales conversion too. WooCommerce has all the right options to set up basic shipping options when you start out. However, when your business and customer base grows, you may want to opt for some of the advanced shipping options. WordPress repository provides a great range of free WooCommerce shipping extensions that you can make use of. Some of them are mentioned in this article. If we have missed out on any, please let us know by leaving a comment in the below section. Originally published at learnwoo.com on September 27, 2017.
