How to Use WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping

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One of the most complex parts about writing e-commerce software is creating shipping options that are configurable enough that people can create the shipping costs they want but the functionality isn't too complex that people are confused. That's why with WooCommerce we include Flat Rate Shipping because it's perfect for people just getting started and isn't so complex that you can't launch your store.

If people want even more shipping options after having set up the rest of WooCommerce then it may be time to look at Table Rate Shipping. It is by far one of the most configurable extensions and it allows you create a table of shipping rates in hundreds of different combinations. You can create zones to target your shipping costs for a particular geographic region, you can group products by similar shipping sizes, you can use the product weight to determine costs, and you can create a table of rates where depending on where the order appears in the table determines the rate. Let's jump in.

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Redesigning the Table Rate Shipping User Experience

At WooThemes we have 10,000 tickets a month. That's a lot. Like a lot a lot. When you're talking about numbers this big if we can redesign our products to make them more intuitive and reduce our support load by 5% that's 500 tickets a month! That's an entire ninja!

That's why one of the things I want to start looking into is the user experience of all of our products. If we can do less and make our existing products easier to use that will serve us better than adding yet more products that will increase our support load.

One of our products that I think could use work is Table Rate Shipping. It's one of our most configurable and powerful products. The downside of configuration is that it's also complex. It's not one of our top selling products but it is one of the products that needs the most support. Clear candidate for a redesign.

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