Shipping is one of the most important parts of any eCommerce business. The products must be packed and shipped from the sellers to the shopper’s doorstep. There are many shipping options available today. Each shipping option charges different pricing and delivery times based on the distance from the seller’s location to the customer’s location.
By default, WooCommerce has 3 shipping methods: free shipping, flat rate, and local pickup. But that is not enough to proceed with shipping to some national and international shipping.
In such cases, we usually depend upon shipping carriers and service providers such as FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, etc. In WooCommerce, there are separate plugins available to integrate these shipping services automatically into your store.
However, it is important to check all available shipping carriers, their services, rates, and estimated delivery dates for a particular shipment. From the available list of services, sellers and individual customers can choose a service that is convenient and feasible for them.
It would be better if you use a shipping calculator plugin for calculating the shipping cost and services from a source address to the destination address.
Shipping Calculator Plugins
As the name suggests, shipping calculator plugins help you to calculate the shipping cost of selected shipping carriers based on the source and destination address.
Some plugins also provide shipping calculations based on other parameters like the weight of the products that need to be shipped.
Let us go through the plugins one by one:
1. ELEX WooCommerce Shipping Calculator, Purchase Shipping Label
This premium WooCommerce plugin allows you to provide an awesome platform for both online sellers as well as individual customers with your EasyPost API. It will be displayed as a portal on a selected page of your website from where the sellers or customers can enter their country and pin code and the receiver’s country and pin code.
After adding these details and generating packages, a list of all available shipping services by FedEx, UPS, USPS, and Canada Post will be displayed with the calculated shipping cost and estimated delivery time. From this list, the customer can choose one and generate the shipping label and tracking link from EasyPost.
The same generated shipping label and tracking link will be sent to the shipper and receiver right after the checkout. You can charge a fixed handling fee from the customers if required.
2. Flat Rate Shipping Method WooCommerce
If you are looking for a fast-paced, dynamic, and economical shipping method, invest in the advanced flat-rate shipping method plugin by DotStore.
Designed specifically to help store managers improve their conversion rate, the PRO version of this plugin has had a tremendous impact on the overall store performance. It offers seamless integration ability and accounts for incredible speed.
No matter whether your store has 500 products or 50,000, the plugin loads within seconds, ensuring that there’s no delay and that your customers are served without fail.
Please note that the free version of the flat rate plugin can be used for adding multiple shipping-related flexibilities and features for small stores. However, if you want to use all its capabilities, you will need an advanced version.
3. Flexible Shipping Pro
This is a premium plugin to calculate shipping rates in WooCommerce stores. This plugin comes with the option to calculate shipping rates based on the weight of products, the total price of the products in the customer’s shopping cart, and the total number of items in the cart.
With this plugin, you can also configure free shipping for the orders that override a certain amount of products in the shopping cart.
You can display only the selected shipping methods on the Checkout page by setting up certain rules. And you can create the rules based on the volume and dimensions of the products.
4. Product Page Shipping Calculator for WooCommerce
This is a free plugin for letting the shoppers calculate the shipping rate from the product page even before adding them to the shopping cart. With this plugin, all available shipping methods and their rates will be displayed in a list on the product page.
Also, this would help customers to know whether the products could be shipped to their address or not. It will display all the available shipping methods based on the shipping zone you have set on your WooCommerce before the customer enters their address.
You can also change the position of the list of shipping methods on the product page.
5. ACS Automatic Shipping Calculation
This premium plugin is a dedicated shipping cost calculator for ACS Courier services on the Checkout page. It calculates the shipping cost based on the weight of the products and the address entered by the customers.
It also checks whether the entered billing address is an inaccessible area and provides an option to proceed with the shipping by adding an extra fee by ACS Courier services.
You can also configure it to round the shipping cost up or down to 1 if there is a decimal point. To use this plugin, you should have the credentials of ACS Courier services.
6. Woocommerce Shipping Calculator On the Product Page
This premium WooCommerce plugin helps your customers by showing the shipping methods and their costs on the product page before they add the products to their shopping cart. You can customize the visibility of the shipping calculator by choosing it to display on any webpage of your site using a shortcode.
Also, you can configure a custom message to the customers. You can display the available shipping methods using a radio button or a drop-down list with this plugin.
If you want to hide the shipping calculator option for specific products, you can hide them individually. Also, you can hide it for all products using bulk editing methods.
7. WooCommerce Royal Mail Shipping Calculator Pro
This dedicated shipping calculator plugin calculates shipping rates and delivery times of Royal Mail shipping services for WooCommerce stores. It supports domestic and international shipping services and calculates their costs. It comes up with an option to add a handling fee from customers and an option to reduce the shipping cost of your customers by adding discounts.
By default, this plugin displays the cheapest shipping rates available for the customers to make it easy to check out rather than too much time choosing a shipping service.
It considers the weight and dimensions of the products while calculating the shipping costs. You can set a default weight and dimensions for the products that miss them in their product dashboard.
8. WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro
This WooCommerce plugin will help you calculate shipping rates based on a combination of conditions based on the rules you have set. If the customer’s shopping cart matches the conditions in the rules you have set, that specific rule will be applied to the products by applying the corresponding cost.
This plugin supports table rate and flat rate shipping methods based on the weight, quantity, total price, product categories, etc, of the products the customers choose.
In addition to these features, you can easily import or export the shipping rules in a CSV file.
Well, let us wrap up!
Final Words!
eCommerce business is incomplete without proper shipping solutions. Each service charges different costs in your area or based on the product’s nature chosen by the customers. Thus, it is important to let them calculate shipping costs and choose the most convenient for them to proceed with the shipment.
FAQs
How do I automatically calculate shipping in WooCommerce?
To automatically calculate shipping in WooCommerce, you need to set up Shipping methods and Shipping Zones in WooCommerce settings. Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping. Add shipping zones and in each zone, you can add various shipping methods like Flat Rate, Free Shipping, or Local Pickup.
Does WooCommerce have a shipping calculator?
Yes, WooCommerce does have a shipping calculator. It’s an in-built feature in WooCommerce Cart page where customers can see estimated shipping costs before going into the checkout process.
How do I add a shipping calculator to WordPress?
You can add a shipping calculator to WordPress by enabling the feature in the WooCommerce plugin. To do this, go to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping > Shipping options. Check the option ‘Enable the shipping calculator on the cart page’ and save changes.
How do I calculate shipping by zip code in WooCommerce?
To calculate shipping by zip code in WooCommerce, you’ll need to use WooCommerce’s Shipping Zones feature. You can assign different shipping methods and rates to specific zip codes. If you want more complex rules or to integrate with specific shipping carriers, you might want to consider an additional plugin such as Flat Rate Shipping Method WooCommerce by DotStore.
How do I set shipping rates in WooCommerce?
Setting shipping rates in WooCommerce involves creating Shipping Zones and assigning shipping methods within those zones. Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping. Add a Shipping Zone and within that, add a Shipping Method. You can specify a Flat Rate, Free Shipping or other methods, along with the specific cost.
Does WooCommerce have automatic shipping prices?
For automatic shipping prices, WooCommerce would need to be connected to a shipping carrier’s API via a plugin. This setup would provide real-time, dynamic shipping costs based on the details of the customer’s order and their shipping address.
