In this article, we will go over the steps involved in enabling WooCommerce USPS Tracking for your site. We will use the ELEX WooCommerce USPS Shipping Plugin with Print Label to integrate USPS products and services including Shipment Tracking into WooCommerce.

Introduction:

Shipment tracking is a crucial part of the fulfillment process of any WooCommerce store. Packages tend to get delivered to the wrong address, delayed or worse, lost. Packages that don’t get delivered means disgruntled customers and in the long run, a hit to your company reputation and revenue. Enabling USPS tracking on your WooCommecre store is a great way to tackle these problems. The ELEX WooCommerce USPS Shipping Plugin with Print Label provides seamless integration of USPS products and services into WooCommerce. Using the plugin you can access real-time shipping rates, USPS tracking, intelligent box packaging and more, right from your WooCommerce admin panel.

Advantages of WooCommerce USPS tracking:

Providing WooCommerce USPS tracking numbers is beneficial to both your customers and yourself. For starters, it can reduce customer anxiety and buyer’s remorse. Customers who can’t track their orders tend to worry about where their packages are and when they’ll get delivered to them. One of the most important advantages of WooCommerce USPS tracking is that it plays a major role in reducing customer anxiety. Moreover, customers who stress over their packages may experience buyer’s remorse and cancel their orders as they’re unsure on the time and date that it will arrive.

Enabling WooCommerce USPS tracking can help alleviate the pressure on your customer support team as well. Customers who have their tracking number won’t contact your support team for details as they can simply enter the details on the USPS site and check the status, themselves. This frees up the support team to tackle more pressing issues instead of taking calls, recording messages and checking the status of packages.

Additionally, providing customers with tracking details after they have placed an order, adds transparency to your business. Customers can check when their purchase is arriving and helps build good relationships that result in loyal customers. Moreover, it can also help in locating lost packages or those delivered to the wrong address. As WooCommerce business owners you can check the various stops along the route to analyze where the package might have been lost or delivered to the wrong address.

Generating WooCommerce USPS Tracking Numbers:

A customer visits your store and places an order choosing one of the enabled WooCommerce USPS Shipping options. To generate the tracking details you will first need to create a shipment for that order. Navigate to the Orders page of your WooCommerce and click on the Order that you wish to generate tracking information for. 

In the Order details page, at the bottom, you will find a Generate Packages button under the USPS Shipment Label (eVS) section.

Clicking it will create a shipment for the items in the order and you will be able to see the package configurations for the packaging. This varies according to how the package settings are configured in the plugin. The ELEX WooCommerce USPS Shipping Plugin with Print Label comes with configurable options for how you wish the items in an order are packaged. You can configure items to be packaged according to weight, weight as well as dimensions, and package items individually. Next, click on the Create Shipment Label button to generate printable labels for the items in your order. For every package that is generated a USPS Tracking Number is generated. The plugin also provides the ability to include the tracking information in the WooCommerce USPS Shipping label as well. A sample Shipping label that includes the tracking information looks like this:
You can also use the USPS Shipment Tracking panel in your WooCommerce order details page to show the tracking information. Clicking on the Save/Show Tracking Info shows the tracking information in a WooCommerce notification. Clicking on the WooCommerce USPS tracking number will redirect you to the USPS Shipment Tracking page. Here you can find the status of the shipment and the estimated shipment date as well.Once you have downloaded, installed and activated the ELEX WooCommerce USPS Shipping Plugin with Print Label, you can find the settings under Dashboard > WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping > USPS (or) Dashboard > Plugins > Installed Plugins > ELEX USPS WooCommerce Shipping > Settings. 

To enable WooCommerce USPS tracking for your customers, simply navigate to the Tracking section of the plugin. Here, set the Shipment Tracking field to Enable. This enables WooCommerce USPS tracking for your customers. Using this field you can also Disable it for Customers meaning only WooCommerce store owners can access the tracking information from the admin panel and your customers can’t.

When you enable Shipment Tracking, a panel is added to the Order page that you can access for tracking items shipped in that order. 

Moreover, You can set the Mode to Enter Tracking ID to either Automatic or Manual. Setting it to Automatic will include the WooCommerce USPS tracking number with the generated shipping label for each item in that order. Similarly setting it to Manual will require entering the tracking numbers into the panel by yourself. Shipping labels generated with the Mode to Enter Tracking ID set to Automatic will contain the tracking number and a barcode.

The plugin also lets you configure custom emails containing USPS tracking information as well. In the Tracking API Settings, you will find a Custom Shipment Message field. Using the [DATE], [SERVICE] and [ID] filters you can create a custom shipment message to your customers.

When you enable Shipment Tracking in the plugin settings, emails with the WooCommerce USPS tracking information are sent for every generated package in the order. To send the tracking information manually, you can use the Order actions panel in the Order page to Email invoice/ order details to the customer. The customer receives an email containing WooCommerce USPS tracking information. The email will contain the USPS Tracking Number and the estimated delivery date as well. 

Other Alternatives:

If you don’t ship regularly in high volume, the e-VS integration provided by ELEX WooCommerce USPS Shipping Plugin with Print Label won’t be of much use to you. This plugin allows high-volume package consolidators and mailers to pay postage, special service feed and supports electronic manifest files and SCAN forms

WooCommerce businesses that don’t ship in a high enough volume to qualify as e-VS vendors can use either the ELEX EasyPost (FedEx, UPS & USPS) Shipping & Label Printing Plugin for WooCommerce or the ELEX Stamps.com Shipping Plugin with USPS Postage for WooCommerce. Both of these plugins can be used to enable WooCommerce USPS tracking for yourself and your customers but do not feature e-VS integration. 

Apart from USPS integration, ELEX EasyPost (FedEx, UPS & USPS) Shipping & Label Printing Plugin for WooCommerce) can be used to enable shipping services from FedEx and UPS as well. So if you’re looking for a plugin that can integrate multiple shipping carriers into WooCommerce and access USPS Live shipping rates, Estimated Delivery Dates, printing USPS Shipping labels and use advanced box packaging algorithms, the ELEX Stamps.com Shipping Plugin with USPS Postage for WooCommerce is for you. 

To use this plugin you will need to have a Stamps.com subscription and this costs a small monthly fee to pay for postage and printing shipping labels. The free version of this plugin can be downloaded here. 

Conclusion:

Enabling WooCommerce USPS tracking on your store is a great way to improve the customer experience of your WooCommerce store. We have gone over the steps involved in integration USPS shipping products and services including USPS tracking on your WooComerce store using the ELEX WooCommerce USPS Shipping Plugin with Print Label. 

Apart from integrating USPS tracking into WooCommerce, the plugin can be used to

• Access real-time shipping rates from USPS
• Print USPS e-VS SCAN forms and labels
• Integrate USPS Shipment Tracking
• Configure USPS Flat Rate services
• Configure Bulk Shipments and much more.

You can try out the demo to get a feel of the plugin’s capabilities or download the free version here. The ELEX WooCommerce USPS Shipping Plugin with Print Label (Free Version) features

• Set a custom method title for USPS shipping method.
• Option to choose between Click-N-Ship rates (Online rates) and Post Office rate (Offline rates).
• Set a fallback rate to process shipments when USPS fails to return any shipping rate.
• Option to shown all returned rates or only the cheapest rates at the Checkout.
• Option to offer USPS shipping service all over the world or to specific countries.
• Option to Restrict media mails.