WooCommerce TMS shipping integration

WooCommerce TMS integration features

Developer: Websystems.

In our experience, the best shipping setup for most eCommerce businesses is integrating their WooCommerce store with their ERP software, and then integrating the ERP with a multi-carrier shipping software.

This plugin is not meant for:

• companies whose only sales channel is their WooCommerce store, and
• are shipping small quantities (less than a pallet), and
• don't want to negotiate their own prices due to their company size, or
• are using only a few large carriers.

If these apply to your business, we recommend checking out other WooCommerce shipping plugins from the WooCommerce Extensions Store.

However, if you need to:

• ship pallets or larger packages,
• sell from multiple channels like a physical store in addition to your WooCommerce store,
• use niche, smaller or just many different carriers, or
• want to use your personally negotiated prices,

we recommend you keep reading.

Display available shipping options

After your customer has filled their shopping cart and are ready to order, most online merchants want to offer them a variety of shipping options.

Depending on the store and the products, the options can include parcel lockers, pickup points, home delivery by courier or pallet/freight transport for larger goods.

Option 1: carrier shipping plugins

You can install many different shipping modules by different carriers from the WooCommerce store, but you might run into a few problems with this approach:

• You can't ship pallets or large quantities which the nature of your goods might require.
• Some of your carriers don't have their own WooCommerce shipping plugin.
• You're using multiple different shipping plugins so the customer experience is different and your data is not together in one place.

Option 2: 4PL shipping plugins

To solve these problems, you might have tried using some type of a multiple-carrier shipping module by a 4PL provider.

They normally work well but can sometimes create other issues for you:

• Most likely, you still can't ship pallets or large quantities.
• You'll be forced to use their shipping rates, and not your own negotiated rates.

  Note: this might actually save some money for small companies without lots of negotiation leverage. However, larger companies usually want to negotiate their own rates.

• Your shipping options will still be limited by the carriers the 4PL provider cooperates with.

Option 3: Cargoson WooCommerce shipping plugin

The Cargoson multi-carrier shipping plugin for WooCommerce will give you the best of both worlds:

• Ship goods of any size: packages, pallets, part loads, FTLs. Heck, you can even display ocean container shipping options in your store if you wish!
• You and only you will be the one selecting the carriers you want to use.
• With Cargoson, you can even display shipping options from niche carriers in your WooCommerce store.
• Display a list of parcel lockers, pickup points or other service options from different carriers.
• The shipping rates are your own.
• The contracts and other agreements with your carriers are your own — Cargoson is just a useful tool, not a middleman.
• All shipment data will be centralized in your transport management software.
• The customer experience will be the same, regardless of which carrier is used.

Transport orders

After a customer places an order in your WooCommerce store and selects a shipping option, the shipment will be created in Cargoson automatically.

Some merchants choose to offer their customers free delivery without displaying a choice of shipping options. This is fine too — you can let your logistician make the decision or automate the transport option selection process.

Whichever process you choose, the shipment will end up in Cargoson. After confirming the shipments (and fixing some issues with incorrect data, if needed), you can print the shipping labels, auto-notify the customer and provide tracking using Cargoson.

Packaging labels

After a customer has placed an order, the package labels can be printed by the administrator while on the WooCommerce order or in Cargoson.

Notifications

Your customer will be notified automatically about shipments, and provided with information about tracking statuses, updated ETAs, delays, truck licence plate numbers, cancellations etc.

Tracking

The shipment's tracking link will be sent to your customer automatically. It will also be accessible on the WooCommerce order.