In this article, we will be going over how you can improve the shipping experience of your WooCommerce Store using WooCommerce DHL Shipping. We will be using the ELEX WooCommerce DHL Express / eCommerce / Paket Shipping Plugin with Print Label and add-ons for the plugin.
Introduction:
Shipping is a challenging prospect for everyone involved. Customers have paid for the product at this point and have to trust the store owners. Store owners have no control over the carrier. Despite this, there are some steps you can take to supplement your existing WooCommerce Shipping.
International Shipping carriers like DHL have the technology and expertise to handle shipping needs of any scale. Offering DHL services to your customers lets you use their expertise and products to improve overall customer experience. Moreover, a large percentage of online retail customers are aware of DHL and trust their services. Meaning your customers can pick the WooCommerce DHL Shipping methods with confidence.
We can integrate WooCommece DHL Shipping using the ELEX WooCommerce DHL Express / eCommerce / Paket Shipping Plugin with Print Label.
Apart from being an Official DHL Partner, the plugin lets you
- Access real-time rates from DHL Express, Paket and eCommerce services.
- Print WooCommmerce DHL shipping and return labels.
- Print Commercial invoices and Archive Air Waybills.
- Track shipments, Enable Estimated Shipping Dates,
- Pack items into custom boxes.
- Configure the price of the services using the Price Adjustment fields.
- Enable Shipping Insurance
- Generate bulk shipments and much more!
Prerequisites:
We will be using the following to integrate and configure WooCommerce DHL Shipping:
- ELEX WooCommerce DHL Express / eCommerce / Paket Shipping Plugin with Print Label to integrate WooCommerce DHL shipping services and products.
- ELEX WooCommerce DHL Express 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 DHL fails to return real-time rates.
- ELEX WooCommerce DHL Express Bulk Label Printing Add-On: This add on lets you generate WooCommerce DHL Shipping labels in bulk and uses the iLovePDF REST API to merge the PDFs. This helps in saving time and effort immensely.
Once you have them downloaded and installed, you can proceed to configure the settings. Here are the ways you can improve customer experience with WooCommerce DHL Shipping products and services:
1. Providing multiple Shipping Options
There has been a monumental shift in how businesses interact with buyers. Buyers, today, are more empowered than ever. They have information about the cost, competition and are very likely to go with the business that offers the best deal. This holds true for WooCommerce store owners as well.
No two customers are the same. They have different expectations when it comes to delivery and shipping. According to ComScore, while 40 percent of buyers wouldn’t opt for shipping delivered in more than five days, 23 percent said they are okay with waiting over 8 days. Ensuring you have multiple WooCommerce shipping options available is a good way to appeal to a wider potential customer base.
Using the ELEX WooCommerce DHL Express / eCommerce / Paket Shipping Plugin with Print Label you can integrate and configure shipping options and services from DHL Express, DHL Paket and DHL eCommerce as well. From DHL Express the following shipping options can be enabled:
- DOMESTIC EXPRESS 12:00
- B2C
- JETLINE
- SPRINTLINE
- EXPRESS EASY
- EXPRESS EASY
- EUROPACK
- AUTO REVERSALS
- BREAKBULK EXPRESS
- MEDICAL EXPRESS
- EXPRESS WORLDWIDE
- EXPRESS 9:00
- FREIGHT WORLDWIDE
- DOMESTIC ECONOMY SELECT
- ECONOMY SELECT
- DOMESTIC EXPRESS 9:00
- JUMBO BOX
- EXPRESS 9:00
- EXPRESS 10:30
- DOMESTIC EXPRESS
- DOMESTIC EXPRESS 10:30
- EXPRESS WORLDWIDE
- MEDICAL EXPRESS
- GLOBALMAIL BUSINESS
- SAME DAY
- EXPRESS 12:00
- EXPRESS WORLDWIDE
- EUROPACK
- ECONOMY SELECT
- EXPRESS ENVELOPE
- EXPRESS 12:00
From DHL eCommerce the following shipping options can be enabled:
- DHL GM Business Priority
- DHL GM Business Standard
- DHL Parcel International Standard
- DHL Parcel International Direct
- DHL GM Publication Priority
- DHL GM Publication Standard
- SM Marketing Parcel Ground
- DHL SM Parcel Plus Expedited
- DHL SM Parcel Plus Ground
- DHL SM Parcel Expedited
- DHL SM Parcel Ground
- DHL SM Parcel Return Light
- DHL DHL SM Parcel Return Plus
- DHL DHL SM Parcel Return Ground
- DHL DHL SM Parcel Expedited Max
Among these options, your customers are sure to find a shipping option that will serve their express need. Moreover, all of these shipping options prices can be configured to your liking. Using the price adjustment fields you can increase or decrease the rates of the shipping options. Additionally, this can be achieved by a fixed amount or a percentage. 
2. 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 DHL shipment tracking.
The tracking number returned from DHL 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.
3. Live Shipping Rates
Providing accurate and reliable shipping rates for the shipping options is the other side of the coin. A majority of customers decide their shipping based on how much it costs. As a store owner, getting this right is crucial as it can be the difference between a successful conversion and an abandoned cart. 
Enabling Live shipping Rates for WooCommerce using the ELEX WooCommerce DHL Express / eCommerce / Paket Shipping Plugin with Print Label is simple. Simply enable it in the Rates & Services tab of the plugin settings. 
4. Estimated Delivery Dates
Imagine a customer that wishes to purchase a product from your WooCommerce store as a birthday gift. The customer wants the product to arrive on or before the birthday. Any uncertainty in the delivery dates may very well cost you the sale. If the customer had the estimated delivery dates for each shipping method, they could have picked one knowing it will be delivered then.
The plugin lets you choose to enable or disable the displaying of DHL Estimated Delivery dates on the cart page. Depending on the working days and cutoff you have set in the plugin and the destination country, the plugin sends an API request to DHL. The returned delivery date estimates are then shown to the customer under each WooCommerce DHL Shipping Method.
This lets the customer choose which service they want based on when they want the package to reach them.
5. 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 DHL Express / eCommerce / Paket Shipping Plugin with Print Label 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 DHL box used to package the item. Standard DHL Boxes, DHL flyers and an option for choosing our own box are available.
- 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.
Shipping Label printing is a cumbersome process. The ELEX WooCommerce DHL Express Bulk Label Printing Add-On lets you print shipping labels in bulk, very easily.
You can choose to print a single consolidated PDF of shipping labels between a start and an end date. 
Or you can even pick and choose the orders you wish to include in your consolidate Shipping Label PDF. 
Additionally, the plugin also lets you schedule pickups. You can select the date and time for DHL personnel to visit you to pick up your packages for bulk shipping. 
6. Insurance:
Shipping abroad can be really tricky. Pay too much for the service and you risk losing customers. Pay too less, and you risk losing the package itself. The middle ground seems to be enabling shipping insurance.
Thankfully, DHL has an unrivaled network of customs brokerage offices across the globe. Moreover, its efficient brokerage, clearance and compliance service is geared toward making the customs process simple. Additionally, DHL not only moves your goods seamlessly across international borders but also ensures complete security and provides insurance against unforeseen events. 
Using the ELEX WooCommerce DHL Express / eCommerce / Paket Shipping Plugin with Print Label you can even select the countries that you wish to enable shipping insurance for.
7. 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 DHL Express Auto-generate and Email labels Add-On automatically creates shipments, generate shipping labels, compose notification messages and send email notifications with the shipping label, for you and your customers. This saves your time on manually generating shipping labels. 
Using the add-on you can generate and send notifications for your order returns in a similar manner, as well.
Conclusion:
Customer Experience cannot be overlooked if you want to create lasting impressions on customers. This will ultimately result in increased brand loyalty and repeat customers.ELEX WooCommerce DHL Express / eCommerce / Paket Shipping Plugin with Print Label is a complete shipping solution to integrate WooCommerce DHL Shipping and provide services to your customers that help improve their buying experience. You can download the plugin for free, here.
