Shipping

Shipping is one of the more complicated aspects of any online store but the WordPress e-Commerce plugin makes it easy.

General Shipping Settings

Use Shipping: If you are only selling digital downloads, you can set this to “no”. Otherwise, leave it set to “yes”.

Zip Code: If you are based in America then you need to set your own Zipcode for UPS and USPS to work. This should be the Zipcode for your Base of Operations.

Shipwire Settings: This feature integrates with Shipwire, an order fulfillment company for online vendors.

Shipping Options

Flat Rate Shipping

The Flat Rate Shipping option has essentially encapsulated the Base Shipping Rates functionality available on older versions of WP e-Commerce.

When you enter product information, on the Products screen, there is also a place to input per-item shipping fees. That number will be added to the base shipping rate. So if the base local shipping rate is $5.00, and the customer orders an item with a local shipping fee of $3.00, the total shipping cost for the order will be $8.00. If they add another item, with a local shipping fee of $4.00, the order’s shipping total will be $12.00 (base shipping rate + item #1 local shipping fee + item #2 local shipping fee).

The Base Local and International shipping rates set a per-order shipping charge, which is applied once, no matter how many items the customer orders. The base local rate will be applied within the store’s base country, and the international rates will be applied everywhere else as demonstrated in the following image.


Weight Rate Shipping

Weight Based Shipping requires you to associate a weight with each of your products. If you do not do this then this functionality will not work.

In the following example products that weigh between 0 and 4 pounds cost $10 to ship. And products that weight 5 pounds and above cost $14 to ship. There are no limits to the amount of Rates you can add.


Table Rate Shipping

Table Rate Shipping lets you specify shipping rates based on the value of the “Total Order” at checkout stage.

In the following example customer purchases valued at $1.00 and above are charged a shipping rate of $14.00 however if another customer orders something greater then $23.00 then that customer is charged only $10.00.

The shipping prices will change depending on how you want to charge your customers for shipping.


UPS Shipping Calculator

UPS allows you to use an external UPS shipping calculator to calculate the shipping price based on the weight of your products, the location of your physical store and the location of the customer.

Because UPS calculates shipping price based on weight, each product must have a weight assigned to it in the Products Details Page.

[IMAGE HERE] Activate by checking the UPS Calculator Checkbox on the Shipping Settings page. Edit the UPS settings and simply enter your UPS account details into the forms. Once this has been done UPS will be available to your customers Checkout process.

Limiting UPS shipping options:
For now, to limit or add more shipping options from UPS go to the file "wp-e-commerce/shipping/ups.php" on about line 90 you will see a list of different shiping options, to remove an option from the list comment it out (add // to the start of the line you wish to remove) to add an option simply remove the "//" from the start of that line. An option for this will be available in the admin shipping options in the next big release (should be in 3.7)

Known Issues: UPS will not calculate shipments over 150 lbs

USPS Shipping Calculator

USPS allows you to use the external USPS Web Tools shipping calculator to calculate the shipping price based the location of your physical store and the location of the customer.

Even though weight-based shipping is not yet supported with USPS shipping, it’s a good idea to identify a weight with each of your products.

You’ll need a “USPS Web Tools” account for each domain on which you have a shopping cart.  But just having a username and password from USPS Web tools isn’t enough, it must be activated by contacting them directly.

Setting up USPS on WP-Ecommerce

Steps to obtain and activate a USPS Web Tools ID

  • A username and password for USPS Web Tools can be obtained at https://secure.shippingapis.com/registration/
  • Though USPS will e-mail you a username and password with instructions on using the testing server, your account must be activated to access the production server.  To activate it, send an e-mail to the ICCC at icustomercare@usps.com or call 1-800-344-7779.  Provide your username and tell them you are using 3rd party software called WP-Ecommerce; this allows you the skip the process of testing your access on the testing server.

Note: WP e-Commerce does not yet support weight-based shipping.

Related Files

  • wp-e-commerce/shopping_cart.php
  • wp-e-commerce/shipwire_functions.php
  • wp-e-commerce/submit_check_function.php
  • wp-e-commerce/processing_functions.php
  • wp-e-commerce/google_shipping_country.php
  • wp-e-commerce/display-shipping.php
  • wp-e-commerce/shipping/flatrate.php
  • wp-e-commerce/shipping/tablerate.php
  • wp-e-commerce/shipping/ups.php
  • wp-e-commerce/shipping/usps.php
  • wp-e-commerce/shipping/weightrate.php

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