The best example for this is probably a multi-vendor marketplace, where other users are also selling items in your shop. It might be necessary to allow these other users to manage shipping costs for their own products. By default, only accounts with shop owner permissions can modify shipping in WooCommerce. This Table Rate method takes it a step further and gives permission to users of your choosing to edit one, none, or all shipping methods, whichever you like.
Splitting the Cart
Before proceeding, first we like to recommend the option of splitting the cart into packages. In order to give multiple users the ability to modify their own shipping, you will need multiple Table Rate methods. This ensures the user can only edit their own rates and not someone else’s. WooCommerce requires one shipping method for each package, and by default there is only one package in the cart. This becomes a problem when the customer purchases items from more than one vendor. Splitting the items into groups creates multiple shipping lines so each package/line can have its own method.
Not only does this allow multiple tables to be used in one order, it also clearly indicates the shipping cost for each shop. Each ‘Shipping’ line above represents one package. The items in the package are listing in small font below the shipping cost. This feature is built in to WooCommerce but requires code to activate it. WooCommerce does not offer any dashboard settings to control this, but Bolder Elements offers a free plugin that can help with this.
Multiple Packages for WooCommerce
Setting Up the Methods
Before you can allow your user to modify their shipping rates, you must first setup the shipping method. After you have setup your shipping zones, you will be able to add a new ‘Table Rate’ method to each zone. The Table Rate settings page is organized into sections. The second section, titled User Permissions, controls who can see and modify the selected shipping method.
To select a specific user, change the option for Setting can be modified by to ‘Specific Users’. Changing this adds a third field titled Users. Start typing the name of the user you want and the box will begin searching. When you find the user you are looking for, click on the name to add it to the box. After saving the method, the account receives new permissions automatically. These permissions grant them access to a new settings page in the dashboard.
The User’s Dashboard
Users with shipping permissions can find a new menu item in their dashboard titled Manage Shipping. This page contains a simple list of shipping methods assigned to the user. The table showcases the title of the method (given by the shop owner), whether or not it is enabled, and a brief description. To view the settings page, click the ‘Manage’ button at the end of the row.
The settings page for users actually looks very similar to the one shop admins use but with one major difference: users can only modify the last section ‘Table of Rates’. All sections above that are visible to the user, but not changeable. These sections directly impact shipping and other user’s methods so only shop owners can modify these.
