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Hey there, fellow e-commerce enthusiasts!
We’ve all been there, running an online store with WooCommerce, trying to find that perfect strategy to make our products more appealing and draw in more customers.
One of those winning strategies? Apply Free Shipping On Certain Products In WooCommerce, but not just to anyone – specifically, on certain products.
You see, free shipping can be a game-changer, especially for items like promotional badges, goodies, or those special freebies you want to hand out without making your customers reach for their wallets.
The catch is that WooCommerce, by default, doesn’t make it as straightforward as we’d like.
But fret not, my friend. I’m here to guide you through this with simplicity as our number one priority.
In this article, we’re going to break down how you can apply free shipping to specific products in your WooCommerce store.
We’ve got not one, but two methods for you. The first involves using WooCommerce’s built-in features, while the second introduces you to some handy plugins for more customization.
So, whether you’re a tech whiz or just starting your online selling journey, follow along as we unlock the secrets to offering free shipping on certain products and watch your sales soar. Let’s dive in!
If you want to learn more you can read my longer article about Best WooCommerce Subscription plugins
Learn To Apply Free Shipping On Certain Products In WooCommerce
Why Apply Free Shipping On Certain Products On WooCommerce?
Before we jump into the “how,” let’s take a moment to explore the “why.” Why would you want to apply free shipping to specific products in your WooCommerce store?
Well, there are some excellent reasons for doing so:
- Attract More Customers: Free shipping is like a magnet for online shoppers. When customers see that an item comes with free shipping, it can be a powerful incentive to make a purchase. It’s a great way to capture the attention of price-conscious buyers and turn their casual browsing into actual sales.
- Boost Sales: Offering free shipping on select products can be a powerful sales booster. Customers are more likely to add items to their cart when they know that they won’t have to pay extra for shipping. This can lead to larger order values and increased revenue for your online store.
- Competitive Edge: In the world of e-commerce, competition is fierce. By strategically applying free shipping to specific products, you can set yourself apart from the competition. It’s a marketing tactic that shows you’re going the extra mile to make your customers happy.
- Enhance Customer Loyalty: Providing free shipping on certain products is a great way to build customer loyalty. When your customers associate your store with cost savings and a positive shopping experience, they’re more likely to return for future purchases.
- Promotions and Special Offers: Free shipping is often used as part of promotions or special offers. It’s an excellent way to promote specific products or deals. For instance, if you’re running a limited-time promotion on a particular item, throwing in free shipping can sweeten the deal and encourage quicker purchases.
- Cross-Promotion: Offering free shipping on complementary or related products can help cross-promote your products. Customers might buy one product with free shipping and then decide to add other items to their cart, boosting your overall sales.
- Reward Loyal Customers: If you have a group of loyal customers who regularly purchase from your store, you can use free shipping as a way to reward their loyalty. It’s a nice gesture that can turn occasional buyers into long-term customers.
- Clear Marketing Message: When you offer free shipping on specific products, it communicates a clear marketing message to your customers. It says, “These products are special, and we’re taking care of the shipping cost.” This transparency can resonate well with consumers.
In a nutshell, applying free shipping to certain products in WooCommerce is a strategy that can drive more traffic, increase sales, and keep your customers coming back for more.
It’s a win-win for both you and your customers, making it a worthwhile approach for any online store. Now, let’s roll up our sleeves and dive into the methods to make it happen.
Using WooCommerce Shipping Classes
Using WooCommerce Shipping Classes is a clever workaround when you want to apply free shipping to specific products, even though WooCommerce doesn’t offer a direct feature for it.
It might sound a bit technical, but I promise it’s quite manageable. Let’s break it down step by step:
Step 1: Create a Shipping Class for Free Products
- Begin by navigating to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping > Shipping classes. If you’re new to the concept of WooCommerce shipping classes, don’t worry; I’ve got your back. It’s basically a way to categorize your products for shipping purposes.
- Click the “Add shipping class” button to kick things off. Imagine you have two products, a stylish hoodie, and a trendy mug. Your plan is to charge shipping for the hoodie while offering free shipping on the mug. That’s the scenario we’ll use to explain this process. So, for this case, you’ll create two separate shipping classes.
Step 2: Configure Shipping Rates
- Now, it’s time to configure the shipping rates within your chosen shipping zones. Go to your Shipping zones and select the one that suits your needs. For the sake of this demonstration, we’ll stick with the default shipping zone.
- Add the Flat Rate shipping method and click on the “Edit” option, as shown in the screenshot.
Step 3: Customize the Shipping Method Title
- You’ll encounter a pop-up window where you can fine-tune the Flat Rate settings. The first setting allows you to customize the method title. This is the name that customers will see in their cart and during checkout. In our case, when free shipping is applied, the resulting text is simply “Flat rate” with no value, which might seem a bit odd. To make it clearer, you can change the title to something more general, like “Shipping Charge.”
Step 4: Set Shipping Costs for Shipping Classes
- In the Shipping class cost section, you’ll specify the costs. Enter a value of 0 for the “Free-products-class” (the mug) and a value of, say, $10 for the “Hoodie-class” (the hoodie). This ensures that the mug gets free shipping while the hoodie incurs a $10 shipping cost, as displayed in the screenshot.
Step 5: Assign Shipping Classes to Relevant Products
- Finally, you’ll need to assign the appropriate shipping classes to the products in question. In our example, you’d assign the “Hoodie-class” to the product “Woo Hoodie” and the “Free-products-class” to the product “Woo Mug.”
Now, here’s how it all comes together on your WooCommerce cart page:
- When a customer adds the free product, “Woo Mug,” to their cart, the flat rate shows an empty value in the cart, indicating free shipping, as seen in the screenshot.
- But, when a shippable product, “Woo Hoodie,” is added to the cart alongside the mug, the Flat Rate now shows $10, as configured in the “Hoodie-class shipping class cost” setting of the Flat Rate shipping method. This ensures that only the shippable products will be charged for shipping.
Pro Tip: If you’d like to maintain the Flat Rate title but still offer free shipping, you can opt for an alternative solution.
Create two different Flat Rate shipping methods—one for shippable products with the standard title and another with a modified title (perhaps “Free Shipping”) and free shipping settings.
This way, you cater to both scenarios effortlessly.
Check out my other articles for How To Woocommerce Disable Quantity Change In Cart
Using WooCommerce Free Shipping Plugins For More Customization
If you’re looking for a more tailored approach to offering free shipping on specific products, plugins come to the rescue.
These handy tools can empower you with greater control and flexibility. Let’s delve into four of the top WooCommerce plugins designed for this purpose:
1. ELEX Hide WooCommerce Shipping Methods Plugin
The ELEX Hide WooCommerce Shipping Methods Plugin is your gateway to fine-tuned control over your shipping methods.
It allows you to conditionally hide shipping options based on various parameters within your store. This plugin is particularly valuable when you want to provide free shipping for select products.
Imagine a scenario where you’d like to hide the default WooCommerce shipping methods for certain items and offer a single shipping method for others.
This plugin offers an intuitive interface that lets you selectively hide shipping methods based on product categories, shipping classes, order weight, shipping destinations, and more.
It even allows you to hide specific services from a particular carrier if you’ve integrated one into your store.
2. WooCommerce Advanced Free Shipping
For those seeking an ideal solution for offering free shipping on specific products, the WooCommerce Advanced Free Shipping plugin steps in as a robust choice.
This plugin is purpose-built for scenarios involving free shipping.
With it, you can configure free shipping when the customer’s cart contains specific products, falls within particular categories, shipping classes, or when certain coupons are applied.
The flexibility goes further: you can base free shipping on user details like their role, country, state, city, postcode, and even product attributes like dimensions, stock, and stock status.
In addition, this plugin allows you to combine multiple shipping methods and offers a handy feature to hide other shipping options when free shipping becomes available.
You can access the free version of this plugin here. And if you find yourself craving more customization options, there’s also a premium version to explore.
The plugin’s author, Jeroen Sormani, suggests that the Advanced Free Shipping plugin works best when the entire order should be eligible for free shipping.
If not, it’s advisable to split the cart into separate packages and set up shipping rates accordingly.
This can be achieved using the WooCommerce Advanced Shipping Packages plugin or a custom code snippet.
3. Advanced Flat Rate Shipping Method WooCommerce
Another commendable alternative to consider is the Advanced Flat Rate Shipping Method WooCommerce plugin.
It equips you with the ability to create an unlimited array of shipping methods, all tailored to your specific needs.
These methods can be customized for particular products, categories, countries, and cart subtotal.
But it doesn’t stop there – you can also configure custom shipping rates by leveraging WooCommerce’s shipping classes.
What’s more, this plugin provides you with the freedom to decide how your shipping methods should be displayed.
You can choose between radio buttons or a dropdown menu, ensuring a seamless shopping experience for your customers.
The basic version of this plugin is available for download here.
If you find yourself yearning for even more customization, such as involving shipping zones, states, postcodes, user roles, product SKUs, tags, coupons, and more, the premium version is worth exploring.
4. WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro Plugin
If you’re on the hunt for a robust shipping rule setup, the WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro Plugin has your back.
What sets this plugin apart from others is its ability to define ranges for weight, price, and product quantity.
This comes in handy when you’re offering free shipping based on specific criteria like weight, price, product quantity, product categories, and even shipping destinations, including shipping zones, countries, states, and postal codes.
One of the standout features of this plugin is the Method Group column, which allows you to combine multiple shipping methods for added flexibility.
In the case of free shipping, you can employ this plugin to create shipping scenarios based on shipping classes or product categories.
By using one of these WooCommerce plugins, you can take your online store’s shipping strategy to the next level and offer free shipping on specific products with precision and ease.
Check out my other articles for Learn To In Woocommerce Restrict Shipping By State
Setting Free Shipping In WooCommerce Programmatically
While using plugins and WooCommerce’s built-in features can be effective, there might be scenarios where you want to take matters into your own hands and set up free shipping programmatically.
This approach gives you complete control and is particularly useful for developers or those comfortable with coding. Here’s how you can achieve it:
- Custom Code Snippets: WooCommerce allows you to add custom code snippets to your theme’s functions.php file or via a custom plugin. These snippets can be used to set free shipping under specific conditions.
- Basic Example: Suppose you want to offer free shipping when the customer’s cart total reaches a certain amount. You can use the following code snippet as a starting point:
This code checks the cart’s total value and, if it exceeds $50, sets the cost of the free shipping method to $0, making it free for the customer.
- Advanced Customization: You can get more advanced with your code snippets by targeting specific products, categories, user roles, or any other condition you can think of. WooCommerce offers a flexible platform for this kind of customization.
- Testing: Always test your code snippets thoroughly to ensure they work as expected. Make sure to back up your site before making any changes to avoid potential issues.
By setting free shipping programmatically in WooCommerce, you have the freedom to implement your own rules and conditions, making it a powerful tool for tailoring your e-commerce store to your exact needs.
If you’re not comfortable with coding, you might want to consider seeking help from a developer or using plugins to achieve the same result.
Using The WooCommerce Free Shipping Over Amount Plugin
For those who prefer an easy and user-friendly approach to implement free shipping based on order totals, the WooCommerce Free Shipping Over Amount Plugin can be your best friend.
This plugin simplifies the process and provides a hassle-free way to set up free shipping based on a minimum order amount. Here’s how you can utilize it:
- Plugin Installation: Start by installing the WooCommerce Free Shipping Over Amount Plugin. You can find this plugin in the WordPress Plugin Repository or from the WooCommerce website.
- Activation and Configuration: Once installed, activate the plugin. Then, go to your WooCommerce settings by navigating to WooCommerce > Settings in your WordPress dashboard.
- General Settings: In the settings menu, click on the “Shipping” tab. Here, you’ll find the “Free shipping over amount” option that the plugin adds.
- Enabling Free Shipping: To enable free shipping based on a minimum order amount, check the box next to “Enable free shipping over amount.” This will activate the feature.
- Minimum Amount: Now, specify the minimum order amount that customers must reach to qualify for free shipping. For instance, if you set the minimum amount to $50, any order totaling $50 or more will be eligible for free shipping.
- Customizable Message: You can also customize the message that customers see during the checkout process to inform them that they’re eligible for free shipping based on the minimum order amount.
- Additional Options: Depending on the plugin, you might have additional options, such as excluding certain products or categories from the free shipping offer, or setting specific shipping zones for the free shipping method.
- Save Changes: Don’t forget to save your settings after configuring the plugin according to your preferences.
- Testing: To ensure everything is working as expected, conduct some test orders to verify that the free shipping feature activates when the order total meets or exceeds the specified amount.
The WooCommerce Free Shipping Over Amount Plugin provides a quick and straightforward way to offer free shipping once customers reach a minimum order amount.
This hands-off approach saves you the trouble of coding or manually managing free shipping rules, making it an excellent option for those who value convenience in their e-commerce endeavors.
Advantages Of Applying Free Shipping On Certain Products In WooCommerce
Offering free shipping on specific products in your WooCommerce store can bring about several compelling advantages for both you and your customers.
Let’s explore the benefits of applying this strategy:
- Customer Attraction: Free shipping is a powerful magnet for online shoppers. When customers see that certain products come with free shipping, it piques their interest and encourages them to make a purchase. It’s an effective way to grab the attention of price-conscious consumers and turn their browsing into buying.
- Sales Boost: Providing free shipping on select products can significantly increase your sales. Customers are more likely to add items to their cart when they know they won’t have to pay extra for shipping. This often leads to higher order values and increased revenue for your online store.
- Competitive Edge: In the highly competitive world of e-commerce, setting yourself apart is vital. By strategically offering free shipping on specific products, you demonstrate that you’re going the extra mile to make your customers happy. This can distinguish your store from the competition.
- Enhanced Customer Loyalty: Free shipping for certain products can be a fantastic way to build customer loyalty. When your customers associate your store with cost savings and a positive shopping experience, they’re more likely to return for future purchases.
- Promotions and Special Offers: Free shipping is often used as part of promotions or special offers. It’s an excellent way to highlight specific products or deals. For instance, if you’re running a limited-time promotion on a particular item, adding free shipping can sweeten the deal and encourage quicker purchases.
- Cross-Promotion: Offering free shipping on complementary or related products can help cross-promote your products. Customers might buy one product with free shipping and then decide to add other items to their cart, increasing your overall sales.
- Rewarding Loyal Customers: If you have a group of loyal customers who frequently purchase from your store, using free shipping as a way to reward their loyalty can be a nice gesture. It can turn occasional buyers into long-term customers.
- Clear Marketing Message: Offering free shipping on certain products communicates a clear marketing message to your customers. It says, “These products are special, and we’re taking care of the shipping cost.” This transparency can resonate well with consumers.
How To Set Free Shipping For Certain Products In WooCommerce
Setting up free shipping for specific products in WooCommerce is a smart way to attract customers and boost sales.
To do this, you have two primary methods at your disposal: using WooCommerce Shipping Classes and employing WooCommerce Plugins.
First, with WooCommerce Shipping Classes, create shipping classes (e.g., “Free Shipping” and “Standard Shipping”) and assign products to these classes.
Then, configure your shipping zones and set shipping costs for each class. Products assigned to the “Free Shipping” class will have a shipping cost of $0, offering free shipping to customers.
The second method involves WooCommerce Plugins, providing advanced filtering and customization.
These plugins, like “WooCommerce Advanced Free Shipping” or “Advanced Flat Rate Shipping Method WooCommerce,” allow you to set custom shipping rules, offering free shipping for specific products, categories, or under certain conditions.
Choose the method that aligns with your store’s requirements and enjoy the benefits of providing free shipping on selected products in WooCommerce.
Excluding Certain Products From Free Shipping In WooCommerce
While offering free shipping for specific products is a great strategy, you may also want to exclude certain items from this benefit.
WooCommerce allows you to do this with ease. Here’s how to exclude particular products from free shipping:
Using Shipping Classes:
a. Create Shipping Classes: If you haven’t already, create shipping classes. For example, you may have “Free Shipping” and “Standard Shipping” classes. The “Free Shipping” class applies to products eligible for free shipping.
b. Edit Product Shipping Class:
- In your WooCommerce dashboard, go to “Products” and edit the product you want to exclude from free shipping.
- In the “Product Data” section, under the “Shipping” tab, assign the product to the “Standard Shipping” class.
Using Plugins:
If you’re using a plugin like “WooCommerce Advanced Free Shipping” or “Advanced Flat Rate Shipping Method WooCommerce,” you can set product-specific rules for free shipping and exclusions. Here’s how:
a. Install and Activate the Plugin:
- Install your preferred shipping plugin and activate it.
b. Configure the Plugin:
- Access the plugin’s settings within your WooCommerce dashboard.
c. Create Shipping Rules:
- Create a rule for free shipping and set the criteria for the products eligible for it.
- In the same rule, add conditions to exclude specific products or categories from free shipping.
Custom Code Snippets:
If you prefer a more hands-on approach and are comfortable with coding, you can use custom code snippets to exclude products from free shipping. Here’s a basic example:
a. Open Your Theme’s functions.php File:
In your WordPress dashboard, navigate to “Appearance” > “Theme Editor.”
Find and edit the “functions.php” file.
b. Add the Custom Code Snippet:
- Add code like this to your functions.php file:
- Replace “123” with the ID of the product you want to exclude.
c. Save Changes:
- Save your changes to the functions.php file.
This code snippet will exclude the specified product from free shipping.
Whether you use shipping classes, plugins, or custom code snippets, you have the flexibility to exclude specific products from free shipping in WooCommerce.
This can be a useful strategy when you want to provide free shipping to most products but have exceptions for certain items.
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Apply Free Shipping On Certain Products In WooCommerce for your store is a strategic move that can benefit both you and your customers.
It attracts shoppers, boosts sales, and can set your store apart from the competition. The methods to achieve this are flexible, catering to your specific needs and technical comfort level.
Whether you opt for the simplicity of WooCommerce Shipping Classes, the versatility of plugins, or the hands-on approach of custom code snippets, you can provide free shipping to selected products with ease.
Moreover, excluding specific items from this offer is also straightforward, ensuring you have full control over your shipping strategy.
By implementing free shipping for chosen products, you create a win-win situation, where customers enjoy cost savings, and your business sees increased sales and customer loyalty.
It’s a powerful tool in your e-commerce arsenal that can lead to a more successful and customer-centric WooCommerce store.
So, start applying free shipping to your selected products and watch your online business thrive.
