WooCommerce 2.6 Introduces Shipping Zones and a New Design for Account Pages

After five months in development and 1700 commits from 25 contributors, WooCommerce 2.6 “Zipping Zebra” is now available.

This release introduces a new feature called Shipping Zones, which allows store owners to have more flexibility in pricing shipping based on location. It is now possible to create zones that group continents, countries, states, and zip codes. Each zone can be assigned its own available shipping method(s).

The most visible update in WooCommerce 2.6 is the new design for account pages. Previously, the account page packed a ton of information in a somewhat disorganized fashion. The new design organizes account sections into tabs.

WooCommerce has updated its REST API to use the WP REST API scaffolding so that it will be ready for when the API lands in core. The new WooCommerce REST API follows the same standards as the WP REST API project and can be extended in similar ways to add new endpoints and authentication methods. The current iteration supports a limited set of endpoints (orders, customers, products, coupons, taxes, reports, and webhooks) but more are coming in WooCommerce 2.7.

Overall, the experience of managing a WooCommerce-powered store is much more streamlined with many of the admin screens getting refreshed to be more simplified, from general settings to shipping options. WooCommerce users will want to get the latest as soon as possible, as this release includes major improvements for store owners, customers, and developers.

According to WordPress.org, the plugin is currently active on more than a million websites. It can be updated with one click, but users will want to review the upgrade instructions and create a backup before proceeding. Certain extensions and themes will need to be updated alongside this release and additional steps are required for those using Simplify Commerce and/or WooThemes’ table rate shipping or flat rate box shipping.

Category: E-Commerce

Tags: woocommerce

8 responses to “WooCommerce 2.6 Introduces Shipping Zones and a New Design for Account Pages”

M says:

June 15, 2016 at 10:33 AM

Great job from the Woo team.
The new account page looks very sleek and professional.
Adding Shipping zones to WC core was much needed and is much appreciated.

As for the REST API, the version 3 was already a good iteration but this new version scaffolding on the WP REST API is a smart move.

As always, security audits and security hardening must stay a top priority.

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Robert says:

June 16, 2016 at 4:58 AM

I’m glad I can finally get rid of a complex table rate shipping plugin I was using in a couple of sites thanks to the new shipping zones feature.
Thanks Woo Team!

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Michael says:

June 27, 2016 at 7:45 PM

I’m finding it impossible to use the new shipping zones feature with the woothemes USPS plugin. For example, in addition to a flat rate for US shipping, I also want to show shipping upgrades like priority mail flat rate box options. Do you know how to make this work?

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nrht says:

July 18, 2016 at 7:26 PM

By making the shipping options cater to the lowest common denominator, it has seriously hosed up those of us that use UPS, FedEx, or USPS plugins. Now my customers are offered the most expensive shipping rate by default (and I’m getting annoyed calls) and there is no way for us to now reorder the shipping methods.

Either they didn’t think this one through, or they haven’t provided the proper training for the rest of us that don’t use one fixed priced shipping method for every product like Woocommerce assumes.

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- Mike says:
  
  July 20, 2016 at 2:24 PM
  
  nrht, I agree with you.. The shipping zones feature should include all the major shipping providers like USPS, FedEx and UPS. Zones are fine, but don’t restrict us to the built in stuff.
  
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qerwaf says:

July 31, 2016 at 3:24 PM

To reorder your shipping methods in 2.6, you can use this snippet:

http://support.wooforce.com/hc/en-us/articles/208717129-Code-Snippet-to-rearrange-shipping-methods-in-cart-page

To find your various shipping option names that your site uses, look in your database (using phpMyadmin) at:
wp_options > woocommerce_shipping_method_order.

Here you’ll find all your active shipping methods names.

(I recommend using the WordPress plugin called Code Snippets instead of editing your functions.php file all the time. https://wordpress.org/plugins/code-snippets/).

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Pete says:

August 2, 2016 at 12:31 PM

I will agree with the above comments on the revised shipping. It is definitely not an upgrade for anyone dependent on USPS or FedEx plugins. You can’t order the shipping methods (Zone shipping comes before USPS and FedEx). Since Free shipping and Pickup are going to be discontinued unless setup in Zone shipping they will always appear first. I need to talk to my programmer to see what he can do but for my products which often involve truck rates from FedEx. Shipping got more complicated. Guess I have to start shopping for another plugin.

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Michael says:

August 2, 2016 at 2:55 PM

Here’s the one I have to arrange rates in order of lowest to highest price:

/*SORT SHIPPING COSTS LO TO HI*/
add_filter( ‘woocommerce_package_rates’ , ‘businessbloomer_sort_shipping_methods’, 10, 2 );

function businessbloomer_sort_shipping_methods( $rates, $package ) {

if ( !$rates ) return;

$tmp = Array();
foreach( $rates as $ma ) {
$tmp[] = $ma->cost;
}

array_multisort( $tmp, $rates );

return $rates;
}

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