In this tutorial we will see what the shipping classes are in WooCommerce, and how to relate them to the shipping options (which is not the same thing).
Shipping classes
There is some confusion regarding WooCommerce shipping classes, how to use them correctly, and how they differ from WooCommerce shipping options.
To sum it up simply, we can say that shipping options are “methods” (single price, free shipping, International flat rate, local shipping or local pickup) while shipping classes are a classification of the product, as well as the categories and tags.
The interesting thing is that certain shipping methods (store level) can take shipping classes into account (at product level).
To establish these classes of shipments we must go to “Products/Types of shipments”, and we will see the following interface:
To begin with, we can already see that the translation is not very coherent, because sometimes he calls them “types” and sometimes “classes”. As in English they are always called “class”, we will refer to them in the same way.
As you can see, the interface is like the categories and tags. Creating a shipping class is as easy as indicating the following fields:
- Name: Shipping class name, for example “Dangerous Goods”
- Slug: The identifier, only for programming issues and for the URL.
- Higher: Like the categories, the shipping classes can be hierarchical, so we can create the “Radioactive Material” sub-category within the “Dangerous Goods” category.
- Description: Internal description to know in which cases we are going to assign this class of shipment to a product.
Once these four parameters have been indicated, we click on the “Add a new shipping class” button and that’s it, we’ll have it created. Easy huh? And if you still have any questions, take a look at the videos of the seventh class of the basic WooCommerce course.
Assign shipping classes to certain products
Ok, so we’ve already created the shipping class. Time now to assign it to a product. How do we do it? Easy and simple! In the product edition tab. We open any one and go to the “Shipping” tab in the “Product Information” section:
And there we have them, our shipping classes. By default there is none selected, but by selecting the dropdown we can choose the one we want.
From now on, this product will be tied to that shipping class, regardless of the shipping options and methods available to us. So, if we sell plutonium, we will classify it as “Radioactive Material”, and it will need certain control measures in the shipment, regardless of whether it is local, national, international, etc. The class will always be the same: Radioactive material.
This is all very well, but what does it mean? What is the use of assigning that class, if at the moment it has no practical use? Well, that brings us to the final point. How to use shipping classes.
Use shipping classes
Well, we already know what the shipping classes are and we have created the ones that interest us based on our case. But how do we use them? So far they have not had any effect on the shipping price. Where do we tell you that a shipping class should have a special, higher, or lower price?
Ok, so once again, this is set to the . Each of those options will state what exactly to do with each shipping class. Not all shipping methods support shipping classesonly two of them allow it:
- Only price: That allows you to establish a fixed cost for each national shipment.
- International flat rate: That allows you to establish a fixed cost for each international shipment
The operation is easy and simple. Once we enter any of these two methods, we will see that we already have the text boxes there to indicate the cost of each shipping class:
We only have to fill in the price of the shipping on each occasion, and that’s it. Now, when someone buys us a product with one of these classes, we will see how the shipping price is calculated automatically:
We also have the possibility of charging these postage both by class and by order.
- Per class: Charge shipping costs for each class we have in the cart. If, for example, we buy products of the “radioactive material” class as well as “killer animals”, apart from having a very suspicious cart, we would be charged €7 + €3.
- By order: Charge the shipping costs of the highest shipping class we have in the cart. Following the example, if we have those products of “radioactive material” and “killer animals”, we would be charged only €7 for “radioactive material”, since it is the highest amount.
It is important to note that if we work with shipping classes and on occasion add new shipping methods through plugins, we must make sure that these are compatible with the classes.
For example, the postage to be collected plugin according to shipping forms and zones, which allows us great versatility, is also 100% compatible with shipping classes, among other things, such as price, weight, or even zone.
As you can see, we have our shipping classes in the dropdown in the first column, with which we see that it is compatible without problems.
Summary and conclusion
WooCommerce allows us to set shipping classes at the product level, which will be complemented by the Shipping options.
WooCommerce has 5 shipping options, but only two of them support those classes. The same goes for plugins, only some of them are compatible, so we have to make sure.
If you want to know more about shipping and WooCommerce in general, take a quick look at . More than 6045 video tutorials step by step, in real time.
Facebook Comments
Disqus