Want to set shipping rates based on product weight? It’s a great way to increase conversions and personalize the customer experience. This post shows you how to set up weight-based shipping in WooCommerce and explore the best plugins for this functionality.
When it comes to shipping rates, WooCommerce store owners have three options:
- Free shipping: Consumer surveys have found that online shoppers hate paying shipping fees. However, ‘free shipping’ isn’t free at all, the shipping cost is transferred to and hidden in the product price. It’s a good strategy to offer free shipping on a minimum order amount to protect your margins and motivate buyers to increase their order size.
- Flat rate: This isn’t well-suited to WooCommerce products that vary in size and weight. Charging customers according to their order size is better than offering flat rate shipping, which is expensive for smaller orders and lightweight packages. Setting rates according to item weight or size, or WooCommerce shipping by weight is optimal in this case.
- WooCommerce shipping by weight and size: This will allow you to set shipping prices for small and large items strategically. You’ll have many opportunities to define prices based on the minimum and maximum quantities, product category, and specific products.
What are the advantages of WooCommerce shipping by weight?
The psychology behind purchase decisions, from the context of shipping cost, is quite complex. On the one hand, shoppers want free shipping. On the other, they’re willing to pay more for faster delivery, where quick access to the product takes precedence over an extra line item in the invoice.
The good news is you have the opportunity to build perceptions about shipping cost savings to win customers over. Charging customers based on their order weight is an effective way to offer discounts and incentives.
You could, for example, offer free shipping or a reduced shipping rate for products above a certain order value or a certain order weight. It would motivate shoppers to add more books to their cart, or purchase the heavier, better quality mattress with a bigger price tag from your catalog. If your product line has items of similar size and weight, flat rate shipping would be a straightforward rate to apply. However, if your product line has items that vary in size and weight, you’ll need a tool to apply shipping rates in an advanced way. WooCommerce shipping by weight will also create transparency around how you set your shipping rates and create positive perceptions about your business.
How to enable WooCommerce shipping by weight and size?
It’s not possible to configure weight-based shipping in WooCommerce. You’ll need a shipping plugin that enables this functionality. You could, of course, use PHP to create shipping rules, including WooCommerce shipping by weight. This shouldn’t be a problem if you have coding skills and you’re familiar with PHP code snippets and CSS. If you’re new to WordPress and WooCommerce, a plugin is a risk-free way to add shipping by weight.
Top 5 WooCommerce weight-based shipping plugins
If you use air freight to fulfill orders, you will need to apply shipping charges on orders to recoup your shipping costs. Ideally, you should have the flexibility to add shipping charges based on product weight, category weight, and total cart weight. You should be able to show or hide WooCommerce shipping methods and delivery costs for different types of products. In addition, you should be able to set up different shipping charges for different weight ranges.
What to look for in a plugin that lets you deploy WooCommerce shipping by weight and size:
- Flexibility: It’s a lot less difficult to maximize revenue from strategic shipping when you’re able to create several conditions and options to apply shipping rates.
- Ease of use: Implementing WooCommerce shipping by weight and size shouldn’t be a chore. A straightforward plugin interface will let you set conditions quickly.
- Support: Using a plugin from a reliable developer who rolls out updates and offers support is good for your peace of mind!
There are many WooCommerce plugins that let you set rules or conditions to show shipping charges, methods, and other options based on specific product weight, size or other variables.
Here’s a look at the top plugins for WooCommerce shipping by weight and size.
1. Flat Rate Shipping for WooCommerce
The plugin from The DotStore gives you complete control over the shipping costs and methods for your WooCommerce store. You can create various rules to allow or restrict shipping methods, options, payment methods, and more, based on multiple variables. Here are some WooCommerce shipping by weight and other rules you can use to get the most from your shipping strategies:
- Set dynamic shipping fees and formulas to calculate shipping based on product
- Configure shipping rules based on cart makeup, including quantity and weight
- Set conditions for shipping methods and payment gateways available at checkout
- Enable shipping charges based on locations and postcodes
- Shipping override to enable free shipping at a particular threshold
- Enable customers to get all available shipping options
- Enable only particular shipping options based on the products they choose and product weight
- Quantity-based shipping for conditions like minimum/maximum amounts or weights, and costs
- Tiered shipping charges based on order amount
Views on Flat Rate Shipping for WooCommerce
Tried a few different plugins for creating rules on shipping based on location and product, none worked in a logical way so I dropped the coin on this one. Not only is it exactly what I needed to limit locations/methods on certain products but the Support Staff actually helped me build the filters and rules correctly. Top notch plugin with top notch support. I highly recommend.
CJ – Business Analysts
I had very complicated shipping rules & requirements for different products & categories and also a large amount of various shipping zones that needed to be done.
Kristin – Marketing Heads
This is an awesome plugin. So happy we found it. It’s simple, intuitive and easy-to-use, yet has advanced functionality to cover a large range of shipping requirements. Comes with excellent email support. Can highly recommend. Look no further. Choose this one.
Luke – CEO & Co-Founder
I need a variety of shipping rates: domestic and international, flat rate, free, express, discount express, with/without coupon and other options. This plugin does it all.
Peter – Sales Manager
See more testimonials here.
The shipping plugin charges you annually, starting at $129 for one site, $299 for five sites and $348 for 30 sites. You can set up rules for WooCommerce by shipping and see how it works on the front end with a 14-day free trial.
2. Conditional Shipping and Payments
The plugin allows you to use conditional logic to restrict shipping and payment options in your store. Some of the conditional rules you can create are:
- Restrict shipping methods based on package weight, item count, or cart total
- Make free shipping available for a specific product, category, or shipping class
- Offer free shipping with subscription renewals
You can create rules to disable shipping methods conditionally by weight, item quantity, or cart total, and by other variables. You can also create shipping country and state restrictions based on cart or shipping package totals.
Compared to Flat Rate Shipping for WooCommerce, the plugin has fewer features specific to WooCommerce shipping by weight and size, such as tiered shipping charges. However, it is fast and well-supported.
The plugin is priced at $79 for a single site and has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
3. WooCommerce Advanced Shipping
Using WooCommerce Advanced Shipping, you can create multiple shipping methods and rates. You can apply conditions based on:
- Product weight
- Item quantity
- Shipping class
- Category
You can add more features with the Advanced Pricing extension. While the plugin and its extensions allow for a good deal of customization for WooCommerce shipping by weight and size, they’re not very easy to configure. It may not be smooth sailing for non-technical users, and require support from the developer.
The plugin costs $23 for a single site, with updates and support for six months.
4. Table Rate Shipping for WooCommerce
This is another plugin to consider to set up rules for WooCommerce shipping by weight and size. The free version allows you to configure rate shipping based on shipping weight and total shipping cost. With the premium version, you can calculate shipping rates for a combination of conditions. If the buyer’s cart matches the conditions, then the shipping cost defined in the particular rule is applied. You can create unlimited rules to calculate shipping rates, and a support table rate and flat rate shipping based on the following:
- Total product or order weight
- Product quantity
- Total cart value
- Different product categories
- WooCommerce shipping classes and zones
- Destination country, city state and zip codes
You can also set up multiple tiers and add additional handling fees for each order and set. The plugin is priced at $79/year for one site, $149/year for five sites, and $249 for 100 sites. For a slightly higher price, you can get Flat Rate Shipping for WooCommerce and access more features.
5. Weight Based Shipping
Weight Based Shipping is the other plugin to explore when you’re looking for an easy way to set up WooCommerce shipping by weight and size. Using the solution, you can:
- Create unlimited shipping rules for different destinations, order weights and subtotal
- Configure each rule to show a flat race or a progressive price based on cart, weight or both
- Offer free shipping based on subtotal, total weight, and other conditions
- Override the way the shipping charge is calculated for each shipping class
At $19 for a single site license, you receive automatic updates and support for a year, and a full refund after 14 days if you’re not satisfied with the plugin.
How to enable WooCommerce shipping by weight using Flat Rate Shipping for WooCommerce?
Follow this tutorial to install and activate Flat Rate Shipping for WooCommerce. You can then easily configure the plugin settings and create rules for WooCommerce shipping by weight from your WordPress dashboard.
Add weight-based rules for shipping rate
In this example, we’re going to use the following conditions:
- If the cart weight is less than and equal to 5 lbs, then a fee of $6.39 will be applied
- If the cart weight is greater than and equal to 5 lbs, then a fee of $2.88 will be applied
- If the weight unit falls between 5 lbs and 10 lbs, then a fee of $2.88 will be applied
The screenshot below shows the condition for a cart weight less than and equal to 5 lbs. This is for a single condition. Similarly, you can configure fees for higher cart values and values falling between 5 lbs and 10 lbs. You can set up more conditions by clicking ‘+ Add Row’.
Shipping cost by category weight
You can apply shipping costs based on the product category. You’ll need to enter the category, and the minimum and maximum weights for the category, as seen in the example below. The shipping fee will increase 3% for a 1 lb increase in weight for purchase in the ‘Hoodie with zipper’ category.
Advanced WooCommerce shipping by weight rules
Say someone bought a heavy item from your store and you want to add an extra £10 in shipping charges for every 5 kg increase. You can add the specific amount and weight, as seen below.
The extra charge will appear on the front end as seen below.
Set up WooCommerce shipping by weight and size easily and grow your margins
Flat Rate Shipping for WooCommerce is a user-friendly plugin to configure shipping fees based on product and category weight. It lets you set advanced rules and multiple conditions to apply rates that fit your shipping strategy and boost your margins. The solution has more features than other WooCommerce shipping plugins, with excellent support and reviews to match.
Try the plugin risk-free with a 14-day money-back guarantee!
