Are you selling physical products online? Do you deliver goods across different destinations? Shipping will then be an important component of your business. When customers shop online, the first thing on their mind is affordability and the next in line would be receiving the products as quickly as possible. Therefore, as a seller, you need to get the shipping strategies right.
If it is your first stint with an e-commerce store, here is how you need to put up a constructive strategy in place:
- Create a backup of your store
When taking the first step towards upgrading the shipping strategy in the website, ask a WooCommerce development service to create a backup of your store. If you are yet to test different options and choose the right fit, consulting with experts is the right choice to make. Once you create the backup and update your theme, the existing plugins need to be compatible with the new extensions you add during the process.
- Choosing the locations
No shipping strategy for the e-commerce store is complete without setting up a zone. That is why you need to select a delivery method that pertains to the specific zone and the shipping option. You can also personalize the strategy with various other options, including classes of shipping. Make sure you choose the zones carefully and search for specific areas.
- Aligning WooCommerce settings
Are you planning to offer free shipping or flat rates shipping? The WooCommerce development company you hire can build everything into the site without extensions and plugins. That way you can create a shipping zone to cater to the tastes and temperaments of customers based in different locations. Furthermore, you can find out rates based on different classes of shipping. Typically, shipping needs to have a mixed bag of effort. For instance, if you are selling gift items, you can charge for each item individually and offer free shipping for larger supplies. Similarly, if you own a restaurant, you might offer a free shipping option for the packaged food and charge for local pickup.
- Free shipping with conditions
For sellers of e-commerce stores, free shipping is one of the most viable options to attract customers. It also helps in enhancing the profitability of your business and is one of the commonest approaches of WooCommerce stores. Shoppers expect all kinds of benefits from e-commerce stores. Moreover, it is one of the smartest ways to enhance the order value of customers. One of the best ways to streamline the shipping process is through conditional shipping. Typically, it is about setting specific conditions for discounts. You can create more than one temporary offer with a conditional shipping facility to attract your customers.
- Offering live shipping rates
Offer your customers transparency and you are good to go and close to accomplishing the end goals. You can meet your needs easily by displaying live shipping rates during checkout. Shipping costs play a significant role for customers engaged in online shopping.
Unfortunately, research shows that higher or varying shipping rates are one of the primary reasons for customers to abandon their carts. With real-time shipping, buyers feel assured that they are getting good value for money. You can also offer comparative costs from multiple buyers to assure your customers about the value they are going to get. Hire an offshore web development company to decide how to incorporate the shipping rates into your website.
- Show the weight and dimensions
Your e-commerce store needs to have a separate page to tell people about how you are planning to measure the products. When mentioning the product weight, be sure to offer different versions like pounds, kilograms, or ounces if you are catering to customers worldwide. Similarly, for product dimensions, you can select inches, yards, millimeters, or centimeters.
Shipping extensions of WooCommerce
When you access the shipping extensions of WooCommerce, you will be connected to carriers around the globe. Apart from this, you may prefer integrating shipping with special offerings like gifts. There are a few extensions to implement when including a shipping strategy in your WooCommerce website designs:
- Per product shipping to create costs based on different products
- Order delivery that allows customers to choose a delivery date during checkout
- Local Pickup Plus choosing a date of pickup and letting customers arrive at the location for picking up the products
- WooCommerce shipping allows you to print labels from the dashboard of WooCommerce.
There is a lot you can do and try when creating a convenient shipping strategy for your products. The best part is that WooCommerce has various tools to help you ship your products affordably. You just need a web development expert to help you create a set of happy customers you need to cater to regularly.
