Configuring your table rate shipping options will be possible once you have created your shipping zones. This means that you must be running WooCommerce 2.6 or newer in order to have this feature. After your zone is created, click the Add shipping method button and find the Table Rate option. Once added, you will be able to edit its settings. The following page should look like this, with the settings nicely organized into expandable sections:
You may add as many table rate methods as needed. This includes multiple instances in the same zone, or several methods across various zones.
General Settings
Method Title
This field is purely for your own reference. In your shipping settings this method will be listed by its ‘Method Title’, however it does not appear on the frontend of your shop. Customers will not see this text as they will be shown the title you specify in the table of rates.
Tax Status
This select box lets WooCommerce know whether or not you would like to tax this shipping method. When set to Taxable, the shop will tax the method according to your already defined tax settings. When Disabled, you will be able to leave ‘Shipping’ enabled on the tax page, but WooCommerce will not tax any shipping costs coming from this method.
Base Table Rates
How the conditions and costs apply to the customer’s cart is determined by this option.
- Per Order bases the conditions on the entire order as a whole. For example, if you require a certain product category for one of your shipping options, it will only care the one or more items in the cart belong to that category. If you charge $5 shipping multiplied by quantity, then it will multiply the cost by the total number of items in the cart.
- Per Item will cycle through the customer’s cart line by line and find a shipping cost for each item separately. It will then combine the costs for each item in to one shipping option for the customer. For example, if one of your requirements is that price is greater than $10, the purchase price of the item would need to be more than $10.
- Per Line Item is very similar to the previous option ‘Per Item’, but it bases the conditions on the total amount purchased. For example, if one of your requirements is that price is greater than $10, then the customer would need to be purchasing at least $10 worth of the item.
- Per Class utilizes an optional shipping feature of WooCommerce. Shipping classes are like product categories, except they categorize the shipping properties of an item. If you opt to use shipping classes and the ‘Per Class’ option here, the plugin will group the cart items based on shipping class. It will then calculate a cost for each group and combine them into one option for the customer.
You can learn more about WooCommerce shipping classes here.
User Permissions
Shipping options appear for
By default shipping options defined here will appear for everyone. If you would like to setup different rates for different user roles, this option will be able to help. After selecting the Specific Roles option, another option will appear: Ship to Roles. This will allow you to select one or more roles that can receive these shipping options.
Settings can be modified by
By default only admins and users with shop manager positions will be able to modify shipping. Sometime in the near future this will be expanded upon to include users, user roles, and more.
Volumetric Settings
Also popularly known as ‘Dimensional Shipping’, volumetric shipping is a provider’s way of calculating weight values based on dimensions. If your prefered shipping carrier uses this type of calculationto adjust weight based rules, these settings will help make it easier to follow their lead.
Volumetric Number
Every provider using dimensional shipping will have a “magic number” they use to calculate the volumetric weight of an item. Entering that number here will enable this feature. When enabled, a volumetric weight will be calculated for each item in the cart. It is then compared to the physical weight of the product. The larger of the two numbers will become the product’s true weight. For more information, see: Volumetric Shipping.
Operand
There are two common equations for calculating volumetric weight. Each involves the volume of the item and volumetric number supplied above. One will divide the volume by the volumetric number, and the other will multiply it. This option will determine which the plugin uses.
Additional Options
Include Tax
WooCommerce considers the subtotal to be the item price before any taxes or discounts are applied. Enabling this option will have the plugin compare prices including their tax value.
Include Coupons
As described above, WooCommerce considers the subtotal to be the item price before any taxes or discounts are applied. Enabling this option will have the plugin compare prices including their discounted value after coupons. If calculating per item or per class, and a cart based coupon is applied such as a $10 discount, the price for each item will include a prorated amount of the discount given.
Single Class Only
Only available when the Condition field is set to ‘Per Class’, this option allows you to only return the cost of one shipping class, instead of all of them combined. All items in the cart will still need to qualify for shipping in the same option, but only one price will be shown to the customer. There are two options: highest priority and highest cost. Setting up class priorities will be discussed later in the documentation.
Round Weight
Round weights up to the next whole number to ensure that weight based shipping costs are returned at full value. For example, an order weighing 4.6kg would go through the plugin as 5kg. Orders that weight 11.3 pounds would be used in the plugin as 12 pounds. This will alter how the conditional statements see the weight, as well as the weight based cost calculations.
Hide This Method
If you are using the Free Shipping method that comes with WooCommerce, enabling this option will remove any table rate options returned when the Free Shipping method returns an option as well.
Table of Rates
The table of rates has been condensed to three columns, with additional options in a box to the right. When you first setup this shipping method, it will ask you how many options you wish to give your customers. After selecting a number, a separate section will appear for each option with the headline “Shipping Option #” followed by the shipping option’s ID number.
Below you will find the Shipping Option Title field. This is the text that the customer will see next to their shipping cost during checkout. It is a required field in order for the rest of your settings to save.
The table below the option title field is where your shipping costs will be configured. Each table can have a unlimited number of rows, but you only need one row for each different price point or criteria that must be met. The rows must also be placed in order by their priority. When calculating shipping, the plugin will start at the top of the list and provide the shipping cost of the last qualifying row. To add a new row to the table, click the ‘Add Shipping Cost’ link to the left, beneath the table. If you wish to delete rows that you have already setup, mark the checkbox in the left most column of the rows you wish to remove. Click the ‘Delete Selected Costs’ link also on the left beneath the table to remove them from the table. You will need to click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom of the page anytime rows are added, removed, or modified. This will ensure these changes stay.
There are three columns in this table:
- Conditions – These are the criteria the customer’s order must meet to qualify for the cost. You may setup multiple conditions here based on price, quantity, dimensions, weight, shipping class, products, categories, and dates.
- Costs – All shippng prices associated with the given conditions are listed. You may setup multiple costs for advanced pricing if desired. You can list prices as a flat rate, percentage of the subtotal, multipled by any of the numerical criteria, or multipled by every ‘x’ number of items, dimensions, weight or price.
- Description – This is optional text that appears beneath the shipping title. Every option can have no more than one title, but this allows you to add subtext that changes on a per row basis.
To the right you will find the Additional Settings column containing simple on/off sliders for added funtionality.
- Default Selection – This option is useful when you are giving multiple options to your customers. Your customers will see a list of available options in the order that they appear on this settings page. The first option is usually selected by default. If you would prefer a different option be selected by default, enabling this option will do just that.
- Hide Other Options – Also useful for methods with multiple options, enabling this will hide all other shipping options setup on this page when a shipping rate from this table is returned.