How does Multi-Carrier Shipping Plugin for WooCommerce work?

Considering you have successfully purchased and activated the Multi-Carrier Shipping Plugin for WooCommerce and registered with FedEx, UPS, USPS, Stamps, and DHL, let’s look at a simple use case to understand how this plugin works.

Consider you have set three shipping zones United States, Canada, and the default Rest of the World as defined below:

Zones

We also create two shipping classes Class A and Class B as defined below. These classes are applied on two products of Category A and Category B respectively.

Shipping class

Get started with configuring Shipping Area Management:

There are four types of area list that can be created – Zone List, Country List, State List, and Postal Code List.  You can create areas for all four as follows:

  • Area List: Let’s create a new zone area and name it as Canada Zone List and select Canada Zone from available shipping zones in the List options.

Area list

  • Country List: Let’s add another area of countries titled List of 3 Asian Countries and select China, India and Japan for our list.

Country list

  •  State List: We also add a state list titled United States to list few states of United States (U.S) and select California, Washington and Texas.

State list

  • Postal Code List:  Let’s add a new area of Postal codes for two areas in New York City titled NewYork Postal Code. Let’s enter two postal codes 10001 and 10002.

ZIP list

Move on to configure the Multi-Carrier Shipping Plugin for WooCommerce Rule Table section.

Case 1: Set FedEx shipping option for Canada region

  • Create a new rule with a method titled MCS Canada (Indicating Multi-Carrier Shipping Canada).
  • Select the Area List option as Canada Zone List from our created list of areas in Shipping Area Management.
  • Select a shipping class Class A and both product categories CategoryA and CategoryB for this case.
  • Select Weight option to calculate shipping rates based on the weight of the products and set minimum and maximum weight as 1 and 10 pounds respectively.
  • Select the Shipping Option as FedEx to get FedEx shipping rates.
  • Select any shipping service provided by FedEx. For our case, let us select INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY service.

FedEx shipping

Below is a screenshot of how FedEx shipping rates are calculated on the Cart page. If the weight of the product is beyond the range, the Fallback rate is applied.

FedEx rates on cart

Case 2: Set UPS shipping option for Asia region

  • Add a new rule with a method titled MCS Asian Countries (Indicating Multi-Carrier Shipping Asian Countries).
  • Select the Area List option as List of 3 Asian Countries.
  • Select the product category CategoryA.
  • Select Item Qty option to calculate shipping rates based on the quantity of the Category A products. Set the range for item quantity as 1 to 3.
  • We also set a flat rate as handling charges of $10.
  • Select the Shipping Option as UPS to get UPS shipping rates.
  • For international shipping service, let’s select UPS Worldwide Express service.

UPS shipping rates

Following screenshot shows you how UPS shipping services are calculated on the Cart page. A flat rate of $10 is added to the shipping cost. Once the quantity of the products increases to four or more, the fallback rate is applied.

UPS rates on the cart

Case 3: Set USPS shipping option for the United States region

  • Add a new rule with a method titled MCS United States (Indicating Multi-Carrier Shipping United States).
  • Select the Area List option as the United States.
  • Select a shipping class Class B and product category CategoryB for this use case.
  • Select the Price option to calculate shipping rates based on the price of the products. Set the price range of $100 to $400.
  • Select the Shipping Option as USPS to get USPS shipping rates.
  • For shipping the United States, let’s select Standard Post service.USPS rates

Following screenshot shows how USPS shipping rates are calculated in the Cart page. If the price of the product is beyond the defined range, the fallback rate is applied.

USPS rates on the cart

Case 4: Set Stamps USPS shipping option for Asia region

  • Add a new rule with a method titled MCS Asian Countries 2 (Indicating Multi-Carrier Shipping Asian Countries 2).
  • Select the Area List option as List of 3 Asian Countries.
  • Select the product category CategoryB.
  • Select Item Qty option to calculate shipping rates based on the quantity of the CategoryB products. Set the range for item quantity as 2 to 5.
  • Select the Shipping Option as Stamps USPS to get Stamps USPS shipping rates.
  • For international shipping service, let’s select Priority Mail: Package service.

Stamps rates

Below is a screenshot of how Stamps USPS shipping rates are calculated on the Cart page. If the quantity of the product is beyond the range, Fallback rate is applied.

Stamps rates on the cart

Case 5: Set DHL Express shipping option for United States region

  • Add a new rule with a method titled MCS United States 2 (Indicating Multi-Carrier Shipping United States 2).
  • Select the Area List option as United States.
  • Select a shipping class Class A for this use case.
  • Select Price option to calculate shipping rates based on price of the products. Set the price range as $50 to $300.
  • Select the Shipping Option as DHL Express to get DHL Express shipping rates.
  • For shipping United States, let’s select Express Worldwide service.DHL rates

Following screenshot shows how DHL Express shipping rates are calculated in the Cart page. If the price of the product is beyond the defined range, the fallback rate is applied.

DHL rates on the cart

Case 6: Set Flat Rate shipping option for few postal codes region of New York.

  • Add a new rule with a method titled MCS New York (Indicating Multi-Carrier Shipping New York).
  • Select the Area List option as New York Postal Codes.
  • Select a shipping class as Any Shipping Class. This will disable the Product Category, Based on and Min-Max attribute, as the flat rate will be now be applied to all the products which are shipped to specific postal codes.
  • Set cost for the flat rate option as $20.
  • Select the Shipping Option as Flat Rate.

Flat rate

Following is a screenshot of how Flat rate is calculated for products that are shipped to New York City. As the quantity of products increase, the shipping cost gets multiplied.

Flat rates on cart

We have now set the rule matrix. Further, we can set a Fallback Rate if some shipping service or rule metric is not applicable in a region.

Fall back rates

The following is a screenshot of how Fallback Rate is affected on the Cart page.

Fall back rates on the cart

How does Method Group work?

Method Groups option allows you to group methods to display multiple shipping methods, one for each group, on the cart and checkout page.
Method Groups

Once you enable this option, a new column appears in the rule table as shown below:

Add groups

Let us consider the following two cases to understand how Method Groups work:

Case 1: Consider there are three method rules – Rule1, Rule2 & Rule3, with three different shipping options FedEx, UPS & DHL Express.
Rule1 and Rule2 and grouped together using the method group name Group1 and Rule3 belongs to the method group Group2 as defined in the screenshot below. 

Shipping rules in plugin settings

Once a product belonging to a particular product category (in this case, Toys or any product category) or shipping class (in this case, Small Items) is added to the cart, the shipping methods appear in the cart as shown below:

Multiple rules on cart

The shipping method Multi Carrier Shipping(Group1) represents the first rule, Rule1 of Group1, whereas Rule3  represents the third rule in the rule table which belongs to Group2.
An important factor to notice here is that, all the rules of a particular group are not listed in the cart. In this case, Rule2 of Group1 is not listed. This is because, the first applicable rule of a group will only be displayed on the cart/checkout page.

Case 2: Consider the same method rules (Rule1, Rule2 and Rule3) with the same shipping options (FedEx, UPS DHL Express).
In this case, Rule1 is grouped under Group1, Rule2 is grouped under Group2 and Rule3 belongs to the method group Group3 as defined in the screenshot below:

Multiple rules

Once a product belonging to a particular product category (in this case, Toys or any product category) or shipping class (in this case, Small Items) is added to the cart, the shipping methods appear in the cart as shown below:

Multiple rates on cart

Since each rule belongs to unique method groups, all the rules are displayed on the cart page.

 

Check out the features of Multi-Carrier Shipping Plugin for WooCommerce here.