Provide Standard or Priority Shipping with Different Shipping Cost and Delivery Time on your WooCommerce store

Different Shipping Cost and Delivery

In this article, we will check out how you can provide either Standard Shipping – with a low shipping cost and slower delivery time, or Priority Shipping – with a higher shipping cost and faster shipping time, on your WooCommerce store.

We will check out a live business scenario where a store owner is required to set up standard and priority shipping options with different delivery dates using two of the finest WooCommerce shipping plugins.


 

Business Case

Paul is an online store owner who offers a lot of electronic products to his customers in the US. He mainly provides two shipping options in his store. One is the standard delivery and the other one is the priority delivery option for those who want their products shipped early. According to Paul,

My customers pay a premium fee for quick delivery date. I want my customers to see an estimated despatch date with the price for premium delivery on the cart page. I would need the Estimated delivery date to update with the price when selecting the attribute. I also want to limit my shipping options if the quantity is 1,000 for example, whilst useful this is not pre-requisite. My aim would be to let a customer select a premium delivery and have an EDD in the order. Please let me know if this is possible.


 

Solution

Paul can easily set up his requirement using the following plugins:

The Table Rate Shipping plugin is a WooCommerce shipping plugin that allows you to set up your own shipping methods based on factors like the product weight, quantity, price, or the type of products in the cart.

For Paul, he requires mainly two different shipping options with different rates and would require to limit them above the product quantity of 1,000 units. Hence, he can use the plugin to create two shipping options namely, Standard Shipping and Priority Shipping, and limit these options till 1,000 units.

The Estimated Delivery Date plugin is a great plugin and offers a lot of customization when it comes to displaying the delivery date on your WooCommerce website. It allows you to set up an estimated delivery date for your products based on different shipping zones, shipping classes, and even shipping methods.

In Paul’s case, since he requires different estimated delivery dates for both of his shipping options, he can use the plugin to easily set up delivery dates for both shipping options based on his requirements.


 

How to set up Standard and Priority Shipping Methods..?

As discussed in the above section, you can use the WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro plugin to create multiple shipping options and even limit them based on the product quantity. All you need to do is follow the steps below and set up shipping rules in the plugin settings.

  • After successful installation and activation of the plugin, visit the plugin settings page and go to the Settings tab.
  • Enable the Enable/Disable Shipping Method option to get the shipping option on the cart page.
  • Since you need to have shipping options based on the product quantity, select the following under the Matrix Column:
    • Method Title – (examples shown are Standard and Expedited)
    • Method Group – Provide group names for your rules (for example G1, G2)
    • Item – Provide the limit (as shown, the limit is 0-1000)
    • Rate Based on – You’re basing the cost of the shipping method on the Items in the cart.
    • Base Cost – Set your base cost for the shipping method.
      Matrix Columns
  • Now save the settings and create the following shipping rules as shown in the image below.
    Shipping Rules
  • Save the rules and you can now see the rates displayed on the cart page.

 

How to set up different Delivery Dates for Standard Shipping and Priority Shipping..?

Since you have set up the shipping options using the WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro plugin, now all you need to do is set the estimated delivery dates for both of your shipping methods. Just follow the steps below and you will see different delivery dates for each shipping method on the cart page.

  • After the successful installation and activation of the plugin, visit the plugin settings page.
  • Provide the Text Format as Simple Range to provide a range of day, for example, 3-5 days or 5-7 days.
  • Enable the Estimated Delivery Per Package option.
    Delivery Date Per Package
    This option will enable you to specify the delivery dates below the shipping methods on the checkout page as shown in the screenshot below.
    Delivery dates on the cart page
  • Save the settings and now visit the Shipping Method section in the settings page.
  • Here you need to set up different delivery dates for your shipping methods.
  • Save the settings and go to the cart page. You will be able to see the shipping methods along with the estimated delivery dates shown just below the shipping method.

Delivery Dates

 


Final Thoughts…

So, in this article, we covered two aspects of shipping – the shipping cost and the delivery time. Using the two plugins that we discussed, you can easily set up different shipping methods and make sure you provide your customers with cheaper and faster shipping options on your WooCommerce store.

If you have any queries regarding this setup, or you want to discuss your shipping scenario with us, feel free to reach out to our shipping experts.