In this article, we will be going over how you can improve the shipping experience of your WooCommerce Store using WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping. We will be using the ELEX WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping Plugin with Print Label & Tracking as well as 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.
What You’ll Need:
- ELEX WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping Plugin with Print Label & Tracking to integrate Australia Post shipping services and products into WooCommerce.
- ELEX WooCommerce Australia Post Bulk Label Printing Add-On: lets you conveniently print shipping labels in bulk. The add-on generates shipping labels for each order and consolidates them into a single PDF using the iLovePDF REST API This helps in saving time and effort immensely.
- ELEX WooCommerce Australia Post Auto Generate & Emails Add-On: automatically generates shipping labels for orders when they reach a certain stage in the fulfillment process.
Steps to enhance customer experience
Here are 5 steps to improve the overall customer shipping experience on your WooCommerce site:
1. Offering multiple shipping options:
Using the ELEX WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping Plugin with Print Label & Tracking, you can offer your customers a wider range of shipping options. The plugin allows seamless integration of Australia Post Domestic Services, Australia Post International Services, and StarTrack services These WooCommerce Australia Post shipping options are:
Australia Post Domestic Services –
- Regular / Parcel Post
- Express Post
- Courier-Post
- EXPRESS POST
- PARCEL POST W/SIGNATURE
- EXPRESS POST W/SIGNATURE
- PARCEL POST + SIGNATURE
- EXPRESS POST + SIGNATURE
- EXPRESS POST SATCHELS
- PARCEL POST + SIGNATURE
- EXPRESS POST + SIGNATURE
- NATIONAL FULL RATE
- EXPRESS NATIONAL FULL RATE
Australia Post International Services
- International Letter Courier
- International Letter Express
- PACK & TRACK INT’L 8
- International Post Economy Air
- International Post Courier
- REGISTERED POST INT’L 8
- International Letter Economy Air
- International Post Express
- EXPRESS COURIER INT’L MERCH 8Z
- International Post Standard
- INTERNATIONAL AIRMAIL 8Z
- EXPRESS COURIER INT’L DOC 8
- International Letter Registered Post DL
- International Letter Registered Post B4
Australia Post StartTrack Services
- PREMIUM
- 1,3 & 5KG FIXED PRICE PREMIUM
- EXPRESS
Furthermore, you can use the plugin’s Rate Adjustment fields to configure the price of the services that you wish to enable or disable on your WooCommerce site. Incrementing as well as decrementing the price either by a fixed amount or a percentage is possible. This allows WooCommerce owners to account for unforeseen expenses or to set up a promotional discount. 
2. WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping Live Rates:
Customers, today, are more informed about price, competition, and brands than ever before. After all, the information they need is only a Google search away. Showing live shipping rates for WooCommerce Australia Post services lets your customers choose the shipping option based on the price. Letting customers choose the option has two benefits: the first being, an element of transparency wherein there are no hidden charges. The second benefit is that your funnel is now streamlined. Customers who wish to use the services for international shipping or special fulfillment don’t have to visit a shipping rate calculator as it’s already present on the order/cart pages. 
3. Order Tracking
Three-quarters of online shoppers said that order-tracking information was an important service. Shipment tracking is an extremely nice feature to have if you’re an online retail store. Your customers can track their packages by themselves. The plugin also lets you enable or disable Australia Post shipment tracking.
The tracking number returned from AusPost while generating the label would be added to order notes and will be sent as part of the order completion email. A visual representation of tracking status can be seen in Order edit page by Admin and in Order’s section of customer’s My-Account page. The tracking information shows the current status of the shipment in transit. 
When a customer places an order and successfully pays for it, a tracking number is generated and included in the Order details page. They can track their shipments using services on the Australia Post website. Moreover, the plugin makes the tracking details available in the Admin section of your Orders page for convenient tracking. 
4. Improve Packaging
streamlining the packaging and handling on your end is a good starting ground for improving the customer experience of your store. The customer’s ‘journey’ doesn’t end with a transaction but with them receiving the package. Any problems with the packaging can result in a return. Moreover, good packaging can help promote your business by word of mouth.
ELEX WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping Plugin with Print Label & Tracking even lets you configure how your parcels are packaged. It comes with three options for this: 
- Pack items individually: This is the default method packs every item in the order into its own box. Moreover, you can pick the type of Australia Post box used to package the item.
- Pack into boxes with weights and dimensions: This packages all items in an order based on the item weights and dimensions. You need to provide the dimensions of the box that include the outer and inner height, length and width. What’s more, you can give the max weight of the box and set the package type as well.
- Weight-based: Using this option you can set heavier items to packaged first, or lighter items to be packaged first or pack purely divided by weight. This requires the Maximum Packing weight of the box to be entered.
Furthermore, the plugin also features configurable packaging box dimensions. You can even define your own boxes, give the dimensions and use it along with the box packaging algorithms for efficient packaging.
The plugin also lets you print shipping labels for customer orders from the Admin section of your WooCommerce itself. 
If your ship out more products than normal, generating and printing out shipping labels for each order individually can be tiring. The ELEX WooCommerce Australia Post Bulk Label Printing Add-On generates a single PDF that contains shipping labels from multiple orders. What’s more, the add-on’s features intuitive order selection options. You can either choose to include all orders in a certain date range.
Or you can select the orders that you wish to include in the consolidated PDF using the Select By Order ID option. 
5. Improve Communication
Buyers nowadays expect to be in the know, every step of the way. When they place an order they want confirmation that the order has been placed, When it’s being shipped, they want an alert that the status has changed, and so on. delivering transactional messages geared towards customers’ preferences is a key driver in attracting, retaining, and converting customers for your WooCommerce site.
The ELEX WooCommerce Australia Post Auto Generate & Emails Add-On creates shipping labels when an order reaches a specified status. This shipping label is sent to you via email. This add on also lets you send shipping labels as well as tracking details to customers inside a configurable email. This mail would contain a downloadable shipping label and a tracking URL that customers can visit to check the status of their orders.
Conclusion:
Improving customer experience is vital for the success of any WooCommerce business. Integrating WooCommerce Australia Post shipping services and products will surely improve the customer experience thereby increasing revenue. ELEX WooCommerce Australia Post Shipping Plugin with Print Label & Tracking is a complete solution to integrate and configure WooCommerce Australia Post shipping options and services. The free version of this plugin can be downloaded from here.
