In this article, we will be going over how you can enhance the shipping experience of your WooCommerce store using USPS Shipping plugins and add-ons. We will be using the ELEX EasyPost (FedEx, UPS & USPS) Shipping & Label Printing Plugin for WooCommerce and add-ons for the plugin.

Introduction:

Shipping is an often overlooked area when it comes to improving customer experience. Contrary to this, shipping is extremely important and should be prioritized accordingly. Getting the fulfillment process right ensures your customers get packages safely, and more importantly, on time. Mistakes could mean the loss of that customer’s business. Enhancing customer experience with WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping options and services is also a great way to retain existing customers. After all, retaining existing customers is 5 to 25 times less expensive than acquiring new ones.

Using the ELEX EasyPost (FedEx, UPS & USPS) Shipping & Label Printing Plugin for WooCommerce you can create shipments, generate packages and shipping labels right from your WooCommerce order page. While this in itself is a massive competitive advantage, using add-ons you can improve the printing capabilities even more.

Prerequisites:

We will be using the following to integrate and configure WooCommerce USPS Shipping:

1. ELEX EasyPost (FedEx, UPS & USPS) Shipping & Label Printing Plugin for WooCommerce: to integrate WooCommerce USPS shipping services and products.
2. ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Auto-Generate & Email Labels Add-On: automatically generate shipping labels for you, whenever an order moves to specified order status. You’ll receive a copy of the shipping label via email. You can also choose to send a copy of the shipping label & shipment tracking link to your customer’s and/or custom email address(es). In addition to this, the add-on allows you to send an email notification to shop owners when USPS fails to return real-time rates.
3. ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Bulk Label Printing Add-On: This add on lets you generate WooCommerce USPS Shipping labels in bulk and uses the iLovePDF REST API to merge the PDFs. This helps in saving time and effort immensely.
4. ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Return Label Add-On: This add on lets you generate shipping labels for returns on your WooCommerce store for FedEx, USPS and UPS shipments.
5. ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Generate USPS SCAN Forms Add-On: Adds the functionality to generate and print SCAN Forms for WooCommerce USPS shipments.
6. EasyPost Account: To use the plugin and it’s add ons you need to create an EasyPost account first. To connect your EasyPost account to the plugin all you need to do is paste your API-KEY in the API-KEY field found under the Generic API Settings section of the General settings tab. You can set the plugin to be in Test mode while you try out everything. When you’re ready to print shipping labels or buy postage, you can set the API mode to Live. ELEX EasyPost (FedEx, UPS & USPS) Shipping & Label Printing Plugin for WooCommerce lets you access services from FedEx, UPS, and USPS. Furthermore, the plugin is an EasyPost Approved Integration Partner.

Once you have them downloaded and installed, you can proceed to configure the settings. Here are the ways you can improve the printing capabilities of your WooCommerce store using these add ons.

Automating Shipping Label Creation

Using the ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Auto-Generate & Email Labels Add-On you can configure custom emails to be generated and sent to customers based on the status of the order at that time. What’s more, the email can be sent to your customers, yourself or any other email address of your choosing.

The email notifications contain the shipping label and a convenient tracking URL. Note that the shipping labels are generated by the ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Auto-Generate & Email Labels Add-On

Bulk Printing Shipping Labels:

Bulk printing USPS Shipping labels can improve the efficiency of your fulfillment process immensely. This is where the ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Bulk Label Printing Add-On comes in. Using the plugin, you can generate shipping labels for multiple orders. The add-on pulls all the shipping labels you might have already generated and signals the core plugin to generate shipping labels for those that don’t. The ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Bulk Label Printing Add-On features several intuitive features that will surely make your shipping label generation and printing process a breeze.

Once installed and activated you can easily access the settings from your WordPress DashBoard. The add on features two methods by which you can select the orders that you wish to include in the consolidated file. By Order IDs and By Date Range. 

Setting the Select Method to By Order IDs will prompt you to choose the orders you wish to include in the consolidated shipping label file. 

You can also choose which orders’ shipping labels get included in the bulk pdf file. Setting the Select Method to By Date Range will prompt you to set a date range. All orders generated in that period are included in the consolidated PDF

Using these methods of selection, the creation of shipping labels for orders on your WooCommerce store in bulk becomes easy. The add on generates shipments and packages for orders that do not have them generated manually and includes them in the consolidated PDF. For orders that do have them generated, the addon simply pulls the generated labels to be included. For generating shipments automatically, the addon uses the default bulk label service that you can set in the core plugin.

Handling WooCommerce Return Shipments:

Returns are part and parcel of any online store that sells physical goods. No matter the quality of the product, there will be customers who will wish to return their products either for replacements or for refunds. Being able to handle return shipments efficiently will improve the overall shipping experience of your WooCommerce store immensely. ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Return Label Add-On lets you do exactly this by adding functionalities that help handle returns on WooCommerce.

Once installed and activated, you will find the addon settings under a separate Return Label tab under the plugin settings. From this tab, you can enable or disable the return label generation on your WooCommerce store. Furthermore, the plugin lets you choose default shipping services for domestic and international returns. The addon automatically pulls all the activated USPS shipping options enabled on your WooCommerce for you to choose from. Apart from this, you can also choose to give a custom Return Shipment Address instead of using the Origin Address. By setting the field to Add New Address you will be able to provide a different address from the origin address. You can also configure the addon to handle failed return shipments as well. Under the Return Shipment Failed Email Notification Settings, you will find the option to enable Email Notifications. This generates an email notifying you that the return shipment has failed. Moreover, you can specify the Email Subject and the Email Content using the respective fields. 

A sample USPS Shipping return label generated using the addon looks like this:

Generating USPS SCAN forms:

Shipment Confirmation Acceptance Notice (SCAN) Form is a single form containing a master barcode which links all the shipping labels you have printed for the packages, that are ready for drop off or pick up service. For WooCommerce stores that qualify for being a USPS e-VS vendor, the ability to generate and print SCAN forms from WooCommerce itself can be super helpful. The ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Generate USPS SCAN Forms Add-On helps you generate SCAN forms for the USPS e-VS shipping platform. This helps you avoid generating shipments, configure packages and create shipping labels for individual orders and lets you take advantage of the competitive pricing offered by the USPS e-VS shipping platform. A sample SCAN form generated using the addon looks like this:

This addon features multiple options by which selecting orders to include in the SCAN form becomes extremely easy. Setting the Select Method to By Shipment Created Date, lets you choose a From Date and a To Date. All USPS shipments for orders placed in that period get included in the SCAN form.

Additionally, you can set the addon to only include orders that have reached a particular Order Status. You can also choose to set multiple Order Statuses as a filter. So all the orders that have reached the selected statuses will be included in the e-VS shipment and you can generate the SCAN form subsequently. The addon also features the ability to send the generated SCAN Forms to desired users via email. You can specify one or more email IDs as the recipients. The email is identified with SCAN Form ID and contains Order ID, Tracking number, in addition to the link for SCAN Form(s).

Conclusion:

Improving the shipping experience of your WooCommerce store is one of the most important steps in improving business.  ELEX EasyPost (FedEx, UPS & USPS) Shipping & Label Printing Plugin for WooCommerce is a complete shipping solution to integrate WooCommerce USPS, UPS, and FedEx shipping options and products. The ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Auto-Generate & Email Labels Add-On lets you set up USPS shipping labels to be generated automatically depending on the order status. Moreover, you can email this autogenerated label to your customers and automate this process as well. ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Bulk Label Printing Add-On lets you generate one consolidated PDF containing multiple shipping labels. This simplifies the USPS shipping label generation of your all your WooCommerce orders. ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Return Label Add-On lets you handle returns efficiently and  ELEX WooCommerce EasyPost Generate USPS SCAN Forms Add-On lets you generated USPS SCAN forms for e-VS shipments. You can download the plugin for free, here. Here are some frequently asked questions regarding the plugin and its add ons for further reading.