Understanding WooCommerce Shipping Classes: Ultimate Guide

Do you want to know about WooCommerce Shipping Classes in your Online Store? WooCommerce Shipping Classes allow you to categorize and customize the WooCommerce shipping settings for different products in your online store.

By assigning specific WooCommerce shipping classes, you can effectively manage and control the shipping options and costs associated with each product. It’s all about giving your customers a smooth shipping experience, whether they’re ordering bulky stuff, fragile items, or anything in between.

This guide will describe you:

• Understanding WooCommerce Shipping Classes
• Importance of Shipping Classes
• Creating WooCommerce Shipping Classes
• Adding Shipping Cost on Shipping Classes
• Assign Shipping Class to Single Product
• Assign Shipping Class to Multiple Products

Understanding WooCommerce Shipping Classes

WooCommerce Shipping Classes are like labels you can assign to your products to control how they’re shipped. They help you set specific shipping conditions for different types of products so that you can adjust the shipping cost accordingly.

Whether you’re selling something heavy or delicate, these classes let you set specific shipping rules for each type of item. This way, you ensure a fair and accurate shipping fee for your customers, depending on what they’re buying.

Example

Let’s say you run an online store selling furniture. You have some items like chairs and small tables that are easy to ship and don’t cost much to ship. Then, you also have oversized items like sofas and dining tables that need special handling and cost more to ship. With WooCommerce Shipping Classes, you can create two classes: “Standard” for the small stuff and “Oversized” for the big stuff.

When a customer buys a chair, WooCommerce knows it’s a “Standard” item and charges a regular shipping fee. But when someone orders a sofa, WooCommerce recognizes it as an “Oversized” item and calculates the shipping cost accordingly.

Importance of Adding Shipping Classes

Assigning shipping classes to products in WooCommerce is essential for managing your shipping rates efficiently. These classes help you customize how shipping costs are calculated based on the specific characteristics of your products. For instance, you might have different shipping needs for small, bulky, or delicate items.

Imagine you have an online store selling clothes of all sizes, from small accessories like socks to big items like coats. Without shipping classes, you’d have to charge everyone the same shipping fee, whether they buy a pair of socks or a heavy coat.

But, with shipping classes, you can set different shipping fees for different types of clothes. So, buying a pair of socks would cost less to ship than buying a coat. This helps make sure customers pay a fair amount for shipping, depending on what they’re buying.

Creating WooCommerce Shipping Classes

• To create a shipping class, navigate to the WooCommerce ➝ Settings ➝ Shipping tab, then click on the Classes option. From there, click on the “Add shipping class” button.

Here, you need to add details about three attributes:

• Shipping Class: As the name says, this lets you give a name to your shipping class.
• Slug: By default, WooCommerce uses the name of your shipping class as its slug. However, you can also set a different name for it here.
• Description: A brief explanation of why shipping class is created.

Once you’ve included these details, go ahead and click on the “Create” button.

Configuring Shipping Rate for WooCommerce Shipping Classes

After you’ve created the shipping class, you need to set the shipping cost rate for each WooCommerce Shipping Class.

• To do this, navigate to the “Shipping Zones” option and click on the “Add Zone” button.

• Choose a specific zone you want to set up, and then select a certain area or region.

• Next, click on Add Shipping Method and choose “Flat Rate.” After that, just click continue to move forward.

• Next, you’ll come across a part where you set the costs for different shipping classes. Here, you’ll add the prices for Standard shipping classes and then decide on a cost for no shipping class.

• Under the Calculation type, when you select the ‘Per order’ option, your cart will charge based on the highest shipping cost among all items. But if you choose ‘Per Class,’ shipping costs will be calculated separately for each shipping class.

• Once you’re done with the shipping cost configuration, click on the “Create and Save” button.

Before assigning shipping classes to products in WooCommerce, ensure you’ve already added products to your online store. If you haven’t done that yet, you can find step-by-step instructions in our Adding Products in WooCommerce article.

Adding WooCommerce Shipping Class to a Single Product

Next, we’ll talk about adding shipping class to a single product. But before we start, make sure you’ve already created your shipping class in your WooCommerce store.

• To assign a shipping class to an individual product, Go to Products➝All Products on your dashboard.
• Select the product for which you wish to assign a shipping class, and then click on the Edit button that appears directly below the product name.

• Navigate to Shipping Options and choose the shipping class under which you would like to add this product in the Shipping Class section.
• Finally, click on the Update button to save your changes.

Adding WooCommerce Shipping Class to Multiple Products

• Navigate to Products➝All Products on your dashboard.
• Select the products you wish you assign a class by simply checking on the box beside the product.
• Locate the Bulk Options menu above the product list, select the Edit option, and then click on the Apply button.

• After clicking on the button, a new window will open up, and you will have to navigate to the Shipping option and select the desired class you want to add.
• Finally, click on the update button below to save the changes.

You can also assign WooCommerce Shipping class to Products directly from Frontend using our Frontend Product Editor Plugin.

Testing Shipping Classes on the Frontend

We need to do testing to ensure that the shipping class is working. Go to the shop page of your WooCommerce store and add two products to the cart: one with a shipping class applied and another without any shipping class added.

On the checkout page, you will see that both shipping charges have been applied.

Conclusion

In conclusion, assigning shipping classes to products in WooCommerce is a straightforward process that allows you to organize and manage your shipping options efficiently. By categorizing your products into different classes based on their shipping characteristics, you gain better control over shipping costs, delivery methods, and overall logistics.