How to Set Up WooCommerce Royal Mail Shipping Plugin?
In this article, we will show you how you can set up WooCommerce Royal Mail Shipping plugin 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.
- 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. - Method Title: The method Title is visible on the Cart/Checkout page under Shipping options. Specify the Method Title as required (defined by you).
- Method Available to: This field allows you to select countries for shipping. The available options are as given below:
- 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 the list of countries. Royal Mail Shipping Method is available only in the listed countries.
- 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 Box Sizes settings. The best-fit box is auto-chosen from the defined boxes. By selecting this option, the Box Size settings appear as shown below:
- 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.
If you select weight based option, then the settings appear as shown below:
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 WooCommerce Royal Mail Shipping Plugin comes with all the shipping services available. You can find the list of services in this section of the plugin settings page. The section looks like the following screenshot:
In the above figure, all the services are displayed. You can select the required services by enabling each service. The non-selected services, however, 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.
For example, consider that the shipping cost of Royal Mail 1st Class is £5.
The Price Adjustment(£) for this service can be seen below:
Then the total shipping cost displayed on the Cart/Checkout page would be £10 (5+5).
The Price Adjustment(%) for this service can be seen below:
When you choose both Price Adjustment(£) and Price Adjustment(%) for this service, then it will look something like the following: