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How Does WooCommerce Shipping Class Work?

Last updated on October 1, 2022 @ 10:49 pm

WooCommerce shipping classes can be a bit confusing to understand, but once you get the hang of them, they can be a very powerful tool for managing your shipping. Here’s a quick rundown of how they work.

When you create a new shipping class in WooCommerce, you’ll need to specify three things: the class name, a description, and the shipping zone(s) that the class applies to.

The class name is just for your own reference; it’s what you’ll see in the back end when you’re setting up shipping rates. The description is optional, but it can be helpful to include so that you (or anyone else who manages your WooCommerce store) knows what the shipping class is for.

The shipping zone(s) is/are important because that’s how WooCommerce will know which shipping rates to apply to products in that class. You can select one or more shipping zones; if you select multiple zones, WooCommerce will use the first matching shipping rate it finds.

PRO TIP: Please be aware that the WooCommerce Shipping Class feature is currently in beta and may not work as expected. Use at your own risk.

Once you’ve created your shipping class, you can add products to it by editing the product and selecting the shipping class from the drop-down menu. You can also bulk edit products to assign them to a shipping class using the WooCommerce Bulk Edit tool.

Now that you have products in your shipping class, you can set up shipping rates for them. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping and select the Shipping Zones tab.

From there, you can add or edit shipping methods and rates for each zone. When adding or editing rates, you’ll see an option to specify which shipping classes the rate applies to; simply check the box next to each applicable class.

And that’s all there is to it! Using WooCommerce shipping classes is a great way to keep your shipping organised and streamlined, and it gives you a lot of flexibility in how you set up your rates.

Kathy McFarland

Kathy McFarland

Devops woman in trade, tech explorer and problem navigator.