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WP eStore Amount Based Shipping AddOn

The eStore Amount Based Shipping addon allows you to automatically apply a shipping amount to the cart based on a price range.

You can pre-configure how much shipping amount to apply for what price range.

Installing the eStore Amount Based Shipping Addon

You can install this addon the same way you install any WordPress plugin:

  • Go to the “Add New” plugins screen in your WordPress admin area
  • Click the “upload” tab
  • Browse for the addon file (eStore-amount-based-shipping.zip)
  • Click “Install Now” and then activate the plugin

Using this Addon

When this addon is active, You can easily configure some conditions that will be used to automatically apply the shipping amount to the shopping cart.

To configure a new shipping condition click on the “Amount based shipping” sub-menu under the WP eStore plugin menu.

screenshot showing the amount based shipping menu in the estore plugin

To add a new condition you need to enter the following information:

  • From (Amount): The minimum price amount required to apply this shipping amount. For example: 5.00
  • To (Amount): The maximum price amount required in the shopping cart to apply this shipping amount. For example: 7.00
  • Shipping Amount: The shipping amount that will be applied to the cart when the above condition is fulfilled. For example: 1.50

Click the “Save” button which will add the new shipping condition.

You can add as many conditions as you want.

screenshot showing the amount based shipping settings in the estore plugin

How Does the Amount Based Shipping Condition Work

Lets say, you configured one shipping condition and a user just came to your site to do a shopping cart checkout. If the total price amount (of physical products) in the shopping cart is between $5.00 and $7.00, a $1.50 shipping will be automatically applied to the cart.

In order for a product to be eligible for amount based shipping,

a) Digital Product URL field needs to be empty

b) Downloadable option needs to be disabled

screenshot showing the digital content details section of estore plugin

Otherwise the addon will consider it as a digital item and no shipping will apply.

AddOn Price

The eStore Amount Based Shipping Addon is FREE for all customers who purchased WP eStore plugin from us.

Download the Addon (v1.0.1)

You can download this addon from the addon download area of our customer only support forum.

General Note

Please note that some of these free eStore addons are developed by our users in the community. So they do not have any advanced customization option. The description above explains exactly what this addon does.

WP eStore Table Rate Tax by Item Types AddOn

The eStore Table Rate Tax by Item Types addon allows you to charge tax in the shopping cart based on the user’s country and type of items.

Installing the eStore Table Rate Tax by Item Types Addon

You can install this addon the same way you install any WordPress plugin:

  • Go to the “Add New” plugins screen in your WordPress admin area
  • Click the “upload” tab
  • Browse for the addon file (estore-table-rate-tax-by-item-types.zip)
  • Click “Install Now” and then activate the plugin

Using this Addon

When this addon is active, You can easily configure rates that will be used to apply tax in the shopping cart based on the customer’s country.

To access the addon settings click on the “Table Rate Tax” sub-menu under the WP eStore plugin menu.

screenshot showing how to access the estore table rate tax addon by item types menu

To add a new tax zone you need to select a country, type of product and specify a tax rate for it (For example: 20).

Click the “Save” button which will add the zone.

If you do not wish to configure a rate for every country you can specify a flat rate (For example: 15). By default it is set to 0.

screenshot showing the settings of table rate tax by item types addon

screenshot showing the default options of table rate tax by item types addon

screenshot showing the countries configured in the table rate tax by item types addon

 

How Does It Work

Lets say, a customer is browsing your website from Denmark. When that user adds a digital product to the shopping cart a 25% tax/VAT will be automatically applied.

screenshot showing the eStore table rate tax addon by item types country dropdown in the shopping cart

The location of the user is determined based on the IP address. But they can also manually select their country (the addon will calculate the tax accordingly).

If the user is from a zone that you haven’t configured (Example: USA) a 15% tax will be automatically applied.

Tax will be applied the same way for physical products.

AddOn Price

The eStore Table Rate Tax by Item Types Addon is FREE for all customers who purchased WP eStore plugin from us.

Download the Addon (v1.0.1)

You can download this addon from the addon download area of our customer only support forum.

General Note

Please note that some of these free eStore addons are developed by our users in the community. So they do not have any advanced customization option. The description above explains exactly what this addon does.

WP eStore Table Rate Tax AddOn

The eStore Table Rate Tax addon allows you to charge tax in the shopping cart based on the user’s country.

Installing the eStore Table Rate Tax Addon

You can install this addon the same way you install any WordPress plugin:

  • Go to the “Add New” plugins screen in your WordPress admin area
  • Click the “upload” tab
  • Browse for the addon file (estore-table-rate-tax.zip)
  • Click “Install Now” and then activate the plugin

Using this Addon

When this addon is active, You can easily configure rates that will be used to apply tax in the shopping cart based on the customer’s country.

To access the addon settings click on the “Table Rate Tax” sub-menu under the WP eStore plugin menu.

screenshot showing how to access the estore table rate tax addon menu

To add a new tax zone you need to select a country and specify a tax rate for it (For example: 20).

Click the “Save” button which will add the zone.

If you do not wish to configure a rate for every country you can specify a flat rate in the “Tax Rate For Other Zones” field (For example: 15). By default it is set to 0.

screenshot showing how to configure a table rate tax

How Does It Work

Lets say, a customer is browsing your website from Denmark. When that user adds a product to the shopping cart a 25% tax/VAT will be automatically applied.

screenshot showing the eStore table rate tax addon country dropdown

The location of the user is determined based on the IP address. But they can also manually select their country (the addon will calculate the tax accordingly).

If the user is from a zone that you haven’t configured (Example: USA) a 15% tax will be automatically applied.

AddOn Price

The eStore Table Rate Tax Addon is FREE for all customers who purchased WP eStore plugin from us.

Download the Addon (v1.0.1)

You can download this addon from the addon download area of our customer only support forum.

General Note

Please note that some of these free eStore addons are developed by our users in the community. So they do not have any advanced customization option. The description above explains exactly what this addon does.

WP eStore Bulk Quantity Shipping AddOn

The eStore Bulk Quantity Shipping addon allows the shopping cart to automatically apply a shipping amount based on the number of items a user is purchasing.

You can pre-configure how much shipping to apply for which item quantity range.

How Does the Bulk Shipping Condition Work

Lets say, you configured one shipping condition and a user just came to your site to do a shopping cart checkout. If the user adds 7-9 items to the shopping cart, a $20 shipping will be automatically applied to the cart.

Installing the eStore Bulk Quantity Shipping Addon

You can install this addon the same way you install any WordPress plugin:

  • Go to the “Add New” plugins screen in your WordPress admin area
  • Click the “upload” tab
  • Browse for the addon file (eStore-bulk-qty-shipping.zip)
  • Click “Install Now” and then activate the plugin

Using this Addon

When this addon is active, You can easily configure some conditions that will be used to automatically apply the shipping amount on the shopping cart.

To configure a new shipping condition click on the “eStore bulk shipping” sub-menu under the WP eStore plugin menu.

screenshot showing how to access the estore bulk quantity shipping addon menu

To add a new condition you need to enter the following information:

  • From (Quantity): The minimum number of items required to apply this shipping amount. For example: 7
  • To (Quantity): The maximum number of items required in the shopping cart to apply this shipping amount. For example: 9
  • Shipping Amount: The shipping amount that will be applied to the cart when the above condition is fulfilled. For example: 20

Click the “Save” button which will add the new shipping condition.

You can add as many conditions as you want.

screenshot showing how to configure a bulk quantity shipping condition

Marking a Product to be a Physical Item

The bulk quantity shipping addon can override and apply the bulk shipping amount to the cart, if the product in question is a physical item. The way to mark a product to be a physical item is to add a shipping amount of 0.01 to the shipping cost of the item. So edit the WP eStore product in question and enter a value of 0.01 to the Item Shipping Cost field.

AddOn Price

The eStore Bulk Quantity Shipping Addon is FREE for all customers who purchased WP eStore plugin from us.

Download the Addon

You can download this addon from the addon download area of our customer only support forum.

General Note

Please note that some of these free eStore addons are developed by our users in the community. So they do not have any advanced customization option. The description above explains exactly what this addon does.

WP eStore Shipping Variation

This post explains how you can configure a shipping variation for your products when using the WP eStore plugin.

The shipping variation can be very useful if you want to charge different shipping amount to your customers based on their selection.

The “Shipping Variation Option” field located in the settings menu of eStore can be used when you need to adjust the shipping price based on a selection the customer makes. Say for example, you have configured all the products with shipping price that covers domestic shipping. Now, you want to charge $10 extra for shipping items to Canada and $15 extra for shipping items to any other country. Enter the following text in the “Shipping Variation Option” field and save the settings.

Country|USA|Canada:10|Other:15

This will give the customers an option in the shopping cart that will let them select the destination. If they are located in the US (domestic shipping) then no extra shipping will be charged but if they are from Canada or other county then the appropriate amount will be added to the shipping cost:

Shopping Cart with Shipping Variation Option

What to do if I do not want to charge an individual shipping for an item but want to use the shipping variation?

Simply enter “0.001” in the shipping field of the individual item. The value “0.001” is very small so it will not add any individual item shipping but will trigger the display of the shipping variation as the shopping cart will treat this item as a physical product.

When to use the “Always Display Shipping Variation” field?

By default the shipping variation is only displayed if any of the items in the shopping cart has a shipping value specified. This is so the shipping variation does not get displayed to customers buying digital products only.

If you are only selling physical products then you can check this option and the shipping variation will be displayed to the customer all the time even though you haven’t specified a shipping value in the items.

WP eStore Tax Calculation

Charging sales tax for your products when using WP eStore plugin to sell your product(s) is very easy. There are a few ways you can use the tax feature of eStore:

  • Use the built-in tax feature of eStore.
  • Use the PayPal’s profile based tax feature.
  • Use the table rate tax addon.
  • Use the TaxCloud integration.

Using the Built-in Tax Feature of eStore

Simply enable the tax calculation option from the settings menu and specify the tax rate for your store and that’s it.

WP eStore Tax Settings

Sometimes you maybe selling product(s) where sales tax is not applicable or you may want to charge a different tax rate for a particular item. With eStore you can achieve that by overriding the tax rate for a particular product from the individual product’s tax option:

Overriding Sales Tax for an Individual Product

The sales tax is displayed in the shopping cart when the tax feature is enabled (the following is an example screenshot of the shopping cart with tax feature enabled)

WP eStore Cart Screenshot

Using the PayPal Profile Based Tax Feature

Please see the how to use regional or international sales tax when selling via PayPal post for this option.

WP eStore Table Rate Tax

Table rate tax allows you to charge tax in the shopping cart based on the customer’s country. See the table rate tax addon page for details.

Table Rate Tax by Item Type

The Table Rate Tax by Item Types addon allows you to charge tax in the shopping cart based on the user’s country and type of items they are purchasing.

Using TaxCloud Integration

WP eStore has an integration with TaxCloud, a free sales tax management service, to automatically calculate tax for every address in the United States.

View the eStore TaxCloud addon page to get more details on this integration.

Simple WP Shopping Cart – How the Shipping Cost Calculation Works

The following video explains how the shipping cost calculation works in the WordPress Shopping Cart plugin.

Table of Contents

Shipping Settings Menu

The shipping-related settings can be found under the plugin’s Shipping Settings tab.

Option 1) Flat Shipping Charge Per Item

If you just want to use flat shipping cost for each item then just put 0 in the “Base Shipping Cost” option and specify the individual shipping cost in the trigger text (shortcode) for each product and you are done. For example, the following shortcode will place a button for a product that charges $2.00 for shipping.

[wp_cart_button name="Test Product" price="10.00" shipping="2.00"]

Option 2) Flat/Fixed Shipping Charge Per Checkout (no matter how many items in the cart)

If you just want to use a fixed shipping cost for the cart no matter how many items are in the cart then you can achieve this by specifying this fixed amount in the base shipping cost. Remember, the base shipping cost is only added to the cart if a product in the cart has individual shipping value specified (this way if a customer buys digital product he doesn’t get charged any shipping). Use an individual shipping value of 0.001 for your physical items which won’t increase the shipping cost but will trigger the base shipping cost to be added as a fixed shipping rate. For example, use the following shortcode:

[wp_cart_button name="Test Product" price="10.00" shipping="0.001"]

Option 3) Giving Shipping Discounts on Flat Shipping Charge Per Checkout

Would you like a more nuanced approach to your shipping cost calculations? By combining a “Base Shipping Cost” with individual product shipping costs, you can offer your customers a more attractive shipping rate.

Here’s how it works: The base shipping cost gets added to the total individual product shipping costs. Let’s say you have two products, each priced at $50, and you wish to charge $10 shipping for each. If someone purchases both products, they’d pay $100 for the products and $20 for shipping, totaling $120. However, this might not be the most cost-effective shipping option since both products are going to the same address in a single package, likely costing around $15 for shipping rather than $20.

So, how can you better manage this?

Implement a base shipping cost of $5 and an individual product shipping cost of $5.

For a customer purchasing both products:

  • Individual shipping: $5 (product1) + $5 (product2) = $10
  • Total shipping: $10 (from individual products) + $5 (base cost) = $15

For a single product purchase:

  • Individual shipping: $5 (product1) = $5
  • Total shipping: $5 (from individual product) + $5 (base cost) = $10 (the desired shipping rate for a single product)

By strategically using both the base shipping cost and individual product shipping costs, you can dynamically calculate the optimal shipping price for each transaction.

Option 4) Region Based Shipping Additions

Beyond the basic shipping setup, you also have the option to implement region-based shipping charges. This feature allows you to specify regions you ship to and assign additional shipping costs for each. The specified amount will be added to the total shipping cost. Customers can then select their region from a list, and the corresponding extra charge will be added to the total shipping amount.

When this option is enabled, the customers will be required to select a region in the cart for total shipping amount calculation.

Option 5) Use PayPal’s Profile Based Shipping

Note: This option is offered by PayPal for the standard PayPal checkout option only.

You can also configure the shipping in your PayPal merchant account profile then tell the shopping cart to use your profile based shipping.

Step 1: Check the “Use PayPal Profile Based Shipping” field in the settings menu of this plugin.

Step 2: Configure your PayPal profile based shipping in your PayPal account.

Visit the WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin’s documentation page.

How Shipping Address is Collected from the Customer

As the shop admin, you will need the shipping address of the customer to ship physical products but know that you don’t have to do anything special. PayPal handles the shipping address collection and will email you with postage information after a payment so you can ship the product.

Triggering Shipping Address Collection for Digital Items

If you are selling physical products (with a shipping fee) then it will trigger a shipping address collection during the checkout process.

By default, WP eStore plugin doesn’t trigger the shipping address collection for digital products as it’s an unnecessary step that we can skip to speed up the checkout process. If you have a product that is not really a physical product but you still want to collect shipping/mailing address, do the following to trigger address collection during checkout.

Step 1) Edit the product in question and uncheck the “Downloadable” checkbox.

Step 2) Add a value of 0.001 in the “Item Shipping Cost” field. This will make it so it doesn’t charge a shipping amount but it will trigger hte address collection.

This is how it works:

  • A customer clicks on the Pay Now/Checkout button and goes to PayPal to pay for the product or service.
  • The customer fills in the credit card details or logs into his/her PayPal account and reviews the order.
  • Now before hitting the “Pay Now” button the customer can use the default shipping address (taken from his/her PayPal account) or specify a different shipping address by clicking on “Change Shipping” that is shown below the default shipping address.
  • After payment, PayPal will send you a payment confirmation email which will have this postal address so you can ship the item.
  • The plugin will also capture the address in the “Cart Orders” menu inside your WordPress admin dashboard.

Shipping Address Collection When Paying from PayPal account

Shipping Address Collection When Paying from PayPal account

Shipping Address Collection When Paying using a Credit Card

Shipping Address Collection When Paying using a Credit Card

Alternative Option

The other option is to drop a shipping address collection form similar to the one shown in the following screenshot on the “Thank You” page. This way when the customers get redirected to the “Thank You” page after paying on PayPal, they can enter their shipping address. The content of the form (the address in this case) is mailed to you when the customer hits the submit button.

shipping-address-form

It is really easy to add a form similar to the one shown above using a WordPress contact form plugin. I use the Contact Form 7 plugin which allows you to add a customized form on any page to collect info from visitors.

How the Shipping Cost Calculation Works in WordPress eStore

WP eStore’s main strength is selling of digital product so we do not offer complex shipping options in the eStore plugin in an effort to keep the plugin easy to use and lightweight. Please feel free to read the available shipping options in eStore from this page so you can determine if it will meet your shipping needs.

1. Simple Shipping Option

If you just want to use flat shipping cost for each item then just enter “0” in the Base Shipping Cost option in the settings menu and add the individual shipping cost in the “Item Shipping Cost” field when you configure the product.

If you just want to use a fixed shipping cost for the cart no matter how many items are in the cart then you can achieve this by specifying this fixed amount in the base shipping cost. Remember, the base shipping cost is only added to the cart if a product in the cart has individual shipping value specified (this way if a customer buys digital product he doesn’t get charged any shipping). Use an individual shipping value of “0.001” for your physical items which won’t increase the shipping cost but will trigger the base shipping cost to be added as a fixed shipping rate.

2. Using PayPal’s Profile Based Shipping

You can have PayPal calculate shipping charges automatically. PayPal calculates shipping charges based on rates that you specify in your account profile. You can set up shipping rates as follows:

  • Domestic (U.S.-only) shipping rates for regions defined by state or zip code
  • International shipping rates for regions define by country or jurisdiction

You can specify shipping rate based on the weight of the items too. Within shipping regions, you can specify rates for different shipping methods, such as standard and express delivery.

We have a tutorial on how to setup paypal profile based shipping that you can look at if you have never configured profile based shipping before.

To use PayPal’s profile based shipping simply check the “Use PayPal Profile Based Shipping” checkbox in the settings menu of eStore and the shopping cart will use the shipping options you have specified in your PayPal account profile:

PayPal's profile based shipping

PayPal’s profile based shipping

If you use PayPal’s profile based shipping, your customers will be prompted to enter the shipping destination when they go to checkout via PayPal.

Choose destination for shipping calculation

Choose destination for shipping calculation

After the customer enter the destination it will automatically add the shipping amount based on what you have specified in your profile (eg. based on the weight of item and or delivery location).

Shipping is calculated based on the specified criteria in your profile

Shipping is calculated based on the specified criteria in your profile

ecommerce-shipping

3. How to Give Shipping Discount when Someone Buys Multiple Products

What if you want to use the simple shipping option but be a little more intelligent with the shipping cost calculation and want to use Base Shipping Cost in conjunction with the individual product shipping cost to offer your customers a better shipping price? You can do that too.

The base shipping cost is added to the total of the individual products shipping cost (The base shipping cost is only applied to the cart if any of the cart item has an individual shipping amount specified for it). So for example if you had two products that costs $50 each and you want to charge $10 shipping for each item then someone buying both the products would have to pay $100(product cost) + $20(shipping cost) = $120(total). That is not a very realistic shipping price since you are shipping both the products to the same address in one package so it will probably cost you $15 instead of $20.

How do you handle this situation?
You use a base shipping cost of $5 and individual product shipping cost of $5.

Now when someone buys both the products the shipping cost will be calculated as following:
$5(shipping for product1) + $5(shipping for product2) = $10(total individual products shipping cost)
Total shipping cost = $10(total individual products shipping cost) + $5(base shipping cost) = $15!

When someone buys one product the shipping cost will be calculated as following:
$5(shipping for product1) = $5(total individual products shipping cost)
Total shipping cost = $5(total individual products shipping cost) + $5(base shipping cost) = $10! (this is the shipping you wanted to charge for one product)

So, hopefully you can see that using the base shipping cost in conjunction with the individual product shipping cost you can be very dynamic in determining the total shipping cost for a purchase.

4. Using A Shipping Variation Option

You can use the shipping variation option field to add more shipping options for your need. For example, you can add a variation called Shipping with the values “Domestic” and “International” that adds different amount to the cart based on the user selection.

Please refer to the WP eStore Shipping Variation documentation to learn how to use variations.

5. Using Bulk Quantity Shipping Discount

Check the bulk quantity shipping discount addon for details.

6. Using Amount Based Shipping

The Amount Based Shipping addon allows you to automatically apply a shipping amount to the cart based on a price range.