How to Set Up WooCommerce Royal Mail Shipping Plugin?

In this article, we will show you how you can set up the PH Royal Mail Shipping with Tracking for WooCommerce to get real-time Royal Mail shipping rates on your website and to track your shipments directly from your store. This tutorial will give you an excellent launch pad to kick-start the usage of this plugin on your WooCommerce site.

Real-time Rate Settings

After a successful installation, you will find the following setting section in the top part of the plugin settings page.

1. Enable Rates: Select the Enable check box to enable rates using the Royal Mail Shipping Plugin. This is the most important part of the setup, and you have to enable this option to show the shipping rates on the Cart/Checkout page.

Note: Unchecking this feature only disables rates on the Cart/Checkout page. Shipment Tracking functionality will still be available to you.

2. Method Title: The method Title is visible on the Cart/Checkout page under Shipping options. Specify the Method Title as required (defined by you).
   
3. Method Available to: This field allows you to select countries for shipping. The available options are as follows:

• All Countries: This option provides the availability of the Royal Mail Shipping plugin to the customer in all countries. It is set as a default option.
• Specific Countries: This option allows you to add a list of countries. Royal Mail Shipping Method is available only in the listed countries.
  

4. Debug Mode: If you are not getting proper rates (lesser or higher than expected), not getting all the available shipping options, or not getting rates at all, then you need to enable the Debug option to find the error(s). You can also see the warning(s) given by the Royal Mail Shipping plugin. By enabling debug mode, you can trace issues using the log. You can see information about debugging at the top of the Cart and Checkout page. After enabling the debug mode, add a product to the cart. Go to the Cart or Checkout page to see the debugging information.

Packaging Settings

The plugin provides you with three options to pack a parcel(s), and they are listed below:

• Pack items individually: By choosing this option, each item in the cart is packed separately. The total Shipping cost is calculated by adding the shipping cost of each item.

For example, the shipping cost of item A is £10. If the customer adds two quantities of Item A to the cart, the total shipping cost will be calculated as £10×2, which is £20.

• Pack into boxes with weight and dimensions: If packing items individually does not suit your business, then you can define the required box sizes under Box Sizes. All the cart items are packed into custom boxes defined in the Box Sizes settings. The best-fit box is auto-chosen from the defined boxes.

These box dimensions and weight settings are applicable only when “packed into boxes with weight and dimension” is selected. Here, you can define the dimensions of the boxes.

• Recommended: Weight based, calculate shipping based on weight: In some business cases, you may wish to pack items according to their weight. If you are using this option, make sure that you have set accurate weights for your products. If you need to do this now, go to your Products page and click on each product in turn to set the weight.

Max Package Weight: Enter the highest limit of the weight for a single box.

Packing Process: You can pack the items based on weight in three ways as given below:

• Pack heavier items first
• Pack lighter items first
• Pack purely divided by the weight

Services

The PH Royal Mail Shipping with Tracking for WooCommerce plugin comes with all the shipping services available. You can find the list of services in this section of the plugin settings page. You can select the required services by enabling each service. The non-selected services will not be shown to the customers even if the services are valid in their region. You can adjust the shipping price by adding/subtracting the required amount to/from the actual shipping cost. Use the minus sign (–) for subtracting the amount. You can mention the amount in % and £ for each service.

The services available in the plugin are listed below:

1. UK Tracked Services

2. UK Standard & Signed Services

3. UK Special Delivery Services

4. International Services

5. Parcelforce Services

Price Adjustment Examples

For example, consider that the shipping cost of Royal Mail 1st Class is £5.

Price Adjustment (£): If you enter 5 in the £ adjustment field, the total shipping cost displayed on the Cart/Checkout page would be £10 (5+5).

Price Adjustment (%): If you enter 10 in the % adjustment field, the total shipping cost would be £5.50 (10% of 5 is added to 5).

Both Price Adjustment (£) and (%): If you enter 5 in the £ field and 10 in the % field, the total shipping cost would be £10.50 (10% of 5 is added to 5+5).

Other Options

After the services section, you would find the following settings on the plugin settings page.

• Conversion Rate: Enter the conversion amount if you are using a currency different from the one that you set up in the WooCommerce base location. This amount gets multiplied by the shipping rates.
• Tracking Pin: Enable this option to attach the tracking information to the order completion email.
• Custom Shipment Message: This plugin provides flexibility to customize shipment tracking messages according to need. The message appears in the email, Admin Order Page, and Order page of the Customer (under My Account) after completing the order. Here, Admin can use placeholders to fill in the details of the shipment automatically. You can frame a message by including tags like [DATE], [SERVICE], and [ID].

• Exclude Tax: Tick this check box to exclude tax from the product price.
• Additional Options: This option will affect the shipping rates. Under this option, you can choose to provide Insurance for the orders.

• Minimum Order Amount: With this field, you can set a minimum order amount for your customers to avail of the Royal Mail shipping method. If the order is below the amount specified here, Royal Mail shipping options will not be visible to your customers.

Cart/Checkout Page

If the product enters the Cart, then the shipping rates will appear when the correct address is mentioned in the Calculate Shipping option. Only then will the Royal Mail Shipping services be displayed on the Cart and Checkout page. The shipping rates will be mentioned next to their respective shipping service.

Royal Mail Shipment Tracking

You will find the Royal Mail Shipment Tracking section on the Edit Order page. You can go to the order page and then find the following section:

You can add the shipment or order tracking ID in the Royal Mail Shipment Tracking box. You can further choose the shipment date. After doing that, you will see the message indicated by the top red arrow.

If you mark the order as completed, the plugin will attach the shipment tracking information to the order completion email. The email will contain the following part:

This way, the customers can directly click on the link (highlighted as underlined-purple) and go directly to the Royal Mail website, where they can see the live tracking data.

If you have any queries regarding the setting up of this plugin, then kindly comment down below. If you need any further help, kindly contact our customer support. We would be more than happy to help you with anything.