WooCommerce stores are easy to operate and moderate for the businesses of all kind. Whether you are good at the technical side or not, your store can be managed using this WordPress-backed e-commerce platform without hassles.
Now, as you are selling online, shipping becomes an inseparable operation for your business. With increasing locations and setups for the shipping processes, you keep adding shipping methods to your store. For the local buyers, residing near your physical stores and warehouses, you may introduce free shipping and/or local pickup facilities.
One thing is clear here. Your increasing shipping methods and their availability on the cart page, even when not required, are harming your store in one way or another. We mean that it could be adversely affecting your site’s user experience or confusing the buyers, thereby, reducing sales.
‘How to avoid it?’ must be your question now, right?
Well, just hide other shipping methods when free shipping, or free shipping & local pickup, is available for the cart. Let us explain the procedure for using the same.
The Prerequisites
You need WordPress and WooCommerce well-installed on your server, to begin with. As you own an e-commerce store, we are assuming that it’s done long back. So, the next requirement is to install the free plugin – Hide Shipping Method for WooCommerce from the WordPress plugin directory to your store.
You can do it by going to your WordPress admin dashboard, navigating to Plugins > Add New, searching for the name of the plugin, installing it on your store and activating it. Alternatively, you can use to above link to download this plugin, and upload it to your website.
Bonus Suggestion – If you do not want to install the plugin prior to trying it, use this live demo link [click on ‘View Admin’ once you reach the demo page] to follow our guide and test this plugin.
Once activated, this plugin will show up in the WooCommerce section as a link named ‘hide shipping’. You can see it in the life sidebar of your website’s administrator dashboard.
Now, as you are all set to hide shipping for your WooCommerce store, let’s get started.
How to hide all other WooCommerce Shipping Methods when Free Shipping is available?
Free shipping, when available on the cart page, requires no other shipping method – neither for selection nor for display. The reasons are –
- If you will make other shipping methods available for selection, the customer might choose a costly method and leave unsatisfied.
- If you will make other shipping methods available on the cart page just for the display, it will occupy unnecessary space, confuse the buyer and diminish the buying experience.
So, in all scenarios (except special cases or when the local pickup is available), it is better to hide all other shipping methods when a buyer’s cart is eligible for the free shipping facility.
And guess what? You can do it in just 2 minutes using Hide Shipping Method for WooCommerce Plugin. Just follow these steps –
- Go to WooCommerce > hide Shipping > General Settings.
- Choose the first radio button that has the value ‘Hide all other shipping methods when “Free Shipping” available on the cart page’.
- Save settings.
Yes, that’s it. Your shop won’t display other shipping methods whenever free shipping will be applicable for the cart. For more clarification, look at these screenshots from an online store that hides its shipping methods using the said plugin
Before the deployment of its settings, the cart is showing ‘free shipping’ as one of the available options that your buyer might miss. But after the deployment of hiding-related rules, the cart is showing ‘free shipping’ as the only method, making the ordering process more convenient and benefit-driven for the buyer.
How to Hide the Shipping Method Depending On Day Time in WooCommerce
How to hide all other shipping methods when Free Shipping and Local Pickup are available on the cart page?
Though the above case we work for most of the free-shipping cases of your store, it won’t be a good idea to use it, if local pickups are allowed for the customers. The cause is simple. You won’t want to disallow your buyers to utilize local pickup service, will you?
Obviously, not.
So, in this case, enable free shipping as well as local pickup shipping methods for the cart so that the buyer could choose. Simple!
How?
Just go to WooCommerce > hide Shipping > General Settings. At this page, select the radio button with value ‘Hide all other shipping methods when “Free Shipping” and “Local Pickup” available on the cart page’.
In the end, save settings and check the cart where this should work. You will see two options as you needed.
The Final Word
While hiding shipping methods is easy with the free version of this plugin, and is perfect for the small shops that need not hiding shipping methods for various conditions, but giant online businesses will definitely require the Advanced Version of Hide Shipping Method for WooCommerce Plugin.
