One of the biggest shortcomings when it comes to WooCommerce is the inability to duplicate shipping methods and moving them between shipping zones. In this article, I will show you how to duplicate shipping methods and how to easily move them between shipping zones.
Duplicating shipping methods and moving them between zones is a pretty common problem that WooCommerce store owners have to face. We love WooCommerce, but we have to admit that it hasn’t been solved in the most intuitive way. However, copying shipping methods in WooCommerce is not impossible. Most importantly – it’s not difficult either.
There are several solutions, to be honest. You can add each method anew and configure each one individually – unfortunately, this is how most WooCommerce store owners work. However, you have to admit that this is not the most convenient solution. Especially when the shipping methods are a bit more elaborate or have integrations with external couriers. You can do this also by exporting tables from your database, but let’s be honest – database operations, are difficult and stressful, especially for inexperienced users.
That’s why I prepared a complete guide on how to duplicate shipping methods in WooCommerce with the simple solution – the right plugin. In this case, it will be Flexible Shipping Import and Export WooCommerce plugin. This is a very simple solution for duplicating and moving shipping methods in WooCommerce. The plugin allows you to easily import and export shipping methods created with the Flexible Shipping plugin. It also works with the Flexible Shipping PRO plugin and the Flexible Shipping Locations Add-on.
Don’t worry though, it can be used with the free version of the plugin. If you have any doubts, check the reviews and trust over 100,000 stores using this plugin on a daily basis. In addition to the import and export option itself, you can create your own shipping calculator based on weight and cart value.
Have I convinced you? Let’s get down to specifics!
First, install and activate the Flexible Shipping Import/Export plugin. Then go to the shipping zone in your WooCommerce store. Under the list of all shipping methods, you will find the Flexible Shipping Import/Export button. Use it to open the import/export window.
To duplicate WooCommerce shipping methods, select Export.
After selecting the export option, you will see all the shipping methods that are available to export. You can choose to export all shipping methods or select specific ones. If you simply want to duplicate one shipping method, select it from the list. Then click the Proceed & export button. The plugin will create a CSV file and download it. If you export multiple shipping methods, they will all be in one CSV file.
Please have in mind that the Flexible Shipping Import/Export plugin only exports shipping methods created with the Flexible Shipping plugin. If the plugin doesn’t detect any methods to export, it will display the error message:
In this case, create new Flexible Shipping methods that can then be exported to a CSV file. You can use the Add your first Flexible Shipping method button to do it.
After these steps, you basically have a duplicate shipping method. However, it is not yet implemented in WooCommerce. To do so, use the import shipping methods option.
To import a shipping method, you will need a CSV file with the shipping methods that you just exported. When you’ll have your CSV file, go to the shipping zones where you want to import shipping methods. Under the list of all methods, you will find the Flexible Shipping Import/Export button. Use it to open the import/export window.
To import a shipping method, you will need to upload a CSV file. You can click the centre of the box in the window to select the file you want to upload, or simply drag and drop it into this location. The plugin only accepts CSV files with a correctly configured data structure.
Once the file is loaded, the plugin will display all the shipping methods available to import. For each method there are three possible actions:
Here, you can also enable imported shipping methods. If you are not updating any shipping methods, select Create New Shipping Method and then Import Methods.
If the import was successful, you will receive a confirmation message.
You can now refresh the page or use the Refresh and go to the shipping zone button.
If you ship your products to several countries, you certainly spend a lot of time setting up your shipping methods. Shipping rates of courier companies are usually based on weight and differ for most countries. Setting one shipping method with weight based shipping can take some time to configure. When you multiply that by the number of shipping zones, the entire shipping setup can take several hours. With the Flexible Shipping Import/Export plugin you’ll have to configure only one shipping method, and then import it for each shipping zone.
To do this, the action is the same as for duplicate shipping methods. Simply import the exported shipping method in a different shipping zone. In this way, you will transfer the WooCommerce shipping method between shipping zones in a very easy way.
In this article, I showed you how to duplicate/clone shipping methods in WooCommerce and move them between shipping zones. Using the Flexible Shipping Import/Export plugin you can in a similar way export shipping methods to different WooCommerce stores or update prices of multiple shipping methods at the same time.
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