Installation - mairabay/wc-shippo GitHub Wiki

Pre-Installation

Before installing the plugin, make sure you:

  1. Sign up for Shippo.
  2. If you (or, for WCMp stores, your vendors) will ship from outside the USA, you also need to sign up for a shipping carrier (UPS, DHL, Fedex, etc)
    • Make sure the carrier is supported by Shippo.
    • We recommend UPS as they operate globally and have the most user-friendly sign-up process and website.

Installation Instructions

After installing and activating the plugin, you need to add the following configuration to make it work:

  1. General plugin setup
  2. General WooCommerce setup
  3. Setup for regular stores (non-WCMp)
  4. Setup for WCMp stores

General plugin setup:

  1. Go into your WP-Admin and click WooCommerce/Settings in the left menu
  2. Click on the Shipping tab
  3. Click on the WC-Shippo link (it will be between Shipping classes and WooCommerce Services ).
  4. Shipping Method Title: If you would like to see a different name for this plugin in your WooCommerce shipping settings page, you can change it in the Shipping Method Title box. If you have WCMp, this can be used to change the name of the shipping method that the vendors see in the shipping settings of the Vendor Dashboard.
  5. Shippo API Token: In order to use this plugin, you need to get an API token from Shippo. Find out how to get one here.
  6. License Key: In order to use this plugin, you also need to get a License Key from us. You can get one by signing up for our one of plans here.
    • Note: even if you want to use the free version, you still need a License Key.
  7. Exchange Rate Buffer: Enter the percentage of buffer you want added to the exchange rate calculation, if applicable to your store. Read more details here.
  8. Use Store Address if Vendor Missing: Should be checked in most cases. Unchecking can help debugging. See details here.

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Exchange Rate Buffer:

If the currency of your checkout can be (at any time):

  1. different than that of your store (or, if you have WCMp, different than that of your sellers' countries currencies)
  2. AND different than that of your buyers' countries currencies
    • you can add a buffer (in %) to make sure you will not lose money in the exchange rate.

This is useful in case the exchange rate goes against you between the time you charge the buyer for shipping and the time you (or the sellers) buy the Shippo label.

  • For example: your store is in CAD and you charge the buyer in USD.
    • The exchange rate when the buyer made the purchase was 1 USD = 1.20 CAD.
    • The shipping cost 30 USD = 36 CAD.
    • The next day, you get all the products in the order, put them in a box and go buy your Shippo label. But now the exchange rate is 1 USD = 1.30 CAD.
    • This means you will now pay 30 USD = 39 CAD for the Shippo label (+ the Shippo label cost, if applicable).
    • In this case, you are losing 3 CAD in the shipping (+ the Shippo label cost, if applicable). This might not seem much, but over time (or if you have a high volume store) this expense can add up.
    • If you had added an exchange rate buffer of 10%, you would have charged the buyer 33 USD = 39.60 CAD and therefore would not have lost any money on this transaction.

Note: Even if this field is enabled, the buffer will only be applied if you have purchased the Exchange Rate Buffer add-on.

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Use Store Address if Vendor Missing

For stores with WCMp:

  • Checked: If the Vendor does not have an address, or if the product is sold by the admin, the plugin will use your WooCommerce store address.
  • Unchecked:
    • If the Vendor does not have an address, or if the product is sold by the admin, the plugin will not be able to calculate the shipping (because there is no From address to use).
    • Buyers might see No shipping options available in cart and checkout, and won't be able to check out
    • This can be useful for debugging purposes.

For simple (non-WCMp) stores:

  • Checked: The store's address will be used as the From address when calculating shipping.
  • Unchecked:
    • This setting can be useful for debugging.
    • If used on your live site, buyers might see No shipping options available message in cart and checkout, and won't be able to check out.

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General WooCommerce setup

Here is what you need to setup in WooCommerce:

  1. Setup store address
  2. Setup product data

Setup store address:

To setup the store's adddress:

  1. Go into your WP-Admin and click WooCommerce/Settings in the left menu.
  2. The General tab is the one that appears by default, but if it doesn't, click on it.
  3. Scroll to Store Address
    • For regular (non-WCMp) stores:
      • Enter here the address from where you will be shipping your products.
    • For WCMp stores:
      • If you also sell products in your marketplace without a vendor account, please enter here the address from where you will be shipping your products.
      • If you won't be selling any products, or will have your own vendor account to sell, it is still advised to enter an address here. If you leave this address blank, and one of your vendors does not have an address, your buyers might not be able to checkout. See Use Store Address if Vendor Missing for more information.

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Setup product data

In order for this plugin to work, you need to make sure that all the products you will be shipping have weight and dimensions setup.

  • Every time you add a product to your store, you will need to add its weight and dimensions.
  • You will also need to do this for all your existing products.
  • Important:
    • If you (or your vendors, for WCMp stores) don't add weight and dimensions to a product, it will not be considered when calculating shipping.
      • This means the shipping cost shown to the buyer at checkout might be less than what you (or your vendors, for WCMp stores) will end up paying to ship the package to the buyer.
    • If none the products in the buyer's cart have weight and dimensions setup, the following will happen:
      • If you only have WC_Shippo as the shipping method for the buyer's shipping zone, they will see a message saying No shipping methods found and won't be able to checkout.
      • If you have other shipping methods setup for the buyer's shipping zone, they simply won't see the WC_Shippo quote for shipping.

Where to set this up:

  • For regular (non_WCMp) stores:
  • For WCMp stores:
    • The product shipping information can be setup:
      • By the admin, as explained in the bullet point above for regular stores
      • By each vendor.
        • See here for where the vendors will add this. The Shipping tab does not appear in the WCMp animated gif because they are adding a downloadable product. It will appear if the vendor does not select downloadable, and it will be very similar to the one seen by the admin (as shown here (scroll to the Shipping section) ).

Add the weight and dimensions (width, height and length) of your product as they will look like when shipping.

  • For example, for a T-Shirt, add the dimensions it will have when folded into the shipping package.
  • If your products are shipped in any wrapping (like plastic wrap, see examples here, please include the weight of the wrapping material when adding the product weight in the weight field. It is not necessary to include the weight of bubble wrap and other package fillers as the plugin already takes that into account (if you have purchased the corresponding add-on).

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Setup for regular stores

For regular (non-WCMp) stores, you need to also do the following setup:

  1. Go into your WP-Admin and click WooCommerce/Settings in the left menu.
  2. Click on the Shipping tab.
  3. Add the WC_Shippo Shipping Method for each Shipping Zone where you want to use it.

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Setup for WCMp stores

For WCMp, you need to:

  1. Make sure that all your vendors have an address.
    • Please ask your vendors to add their full address, as explained here.
      • You can check if a vendor has setup their address by going here.
      • Important: If a vendor does not have their address setup your buyers might not be able to checkout. See Use Store Address if Vendor Missing for more information.
    • If you also sell products in your marketplace as the admin (ie, without a vendor account), make sure you add your store's address as explained in Setup store address.
  2. Make sure your vendors add WC_Shippo as one of their shipping methods to the zones where they want to use this shipping method.
    • They can do this by following the instructions in here.

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