Sending rates from ShipStation to WooCommerce for customer checkout

[SarahATX]

Original post from user Shipping Department

Hello. The goal is to offer all domestic UPS Services once the product hits the cart. 

After successfully setting up and configuring SS with WooCommerce has anyone had difficulty actually offering different shipping options once the product hits the cart?  

Seems like it would be intuitive, but quite the contrary. No-one... and I mean no-one, has been able to solve this dilemma. Thank you for the read and any insight to solving this.

-Mike

[SarahATX]

Hi Mike, 

Just to be clear are you looking for solutions to offer live rates on your selling channel? ShipStation is currently working on a feature to accomplish this (we call it "In-cart Delivery Options") and is available for Shopify and BigCommerce stores (with more to come soon).

Until this feature is ready for WC, you might want to use the WC extension with USPS that would allow you to display these live rates.

I also have found that there is a free extension that will give you live rates on WooCommerce for USPS. This is not an official app by either ShipStation or WooCommerce so this is not something that either of us would be able to troubleshoot, but it might be worth a try. 

[Matt_Day1]

SarahATX, is there a status update on this? I am new customer with ShipStation and desperately need the ability to have ShipStation rates be viewable by both customers on frontend of WooCommerce and on backend with WordPress for my sales reps.

[smwaters]

I'm also looking for an update on this. Your UPS rates are significantly better than the rates offered from UPS via our account. Lack of ability to automatically access your rates prevents us from providing UPS as an option to our customers. I don't think either of the plug-ins mentioned are relevant. I can offer my UPS account pricing in WooCommerce, but it's not the same as Shipstation pricing.

[TaylorPilot]

Any word on this?  I just setup a shipstation account, but it is pretty useless if I cannot get live rates for my woocommerce account.  Your rates are much better than my current rates from UPS, and I need them to match so I don't overcharge/lose customers.

[Moderator-Davis]

Hey there @TaylorPilot, 

I know that Checkout Rates are in the works for the WooCommerce integration but I do not have an ETA for roll out at this time. Certainly as soon as I have any updates, I'll update this thread right away 🙂 

[JoshM]

Just checking to see if there's an update on the Checkout Rates for WooCommerce integration since this last post on 4-22-22. Would love to pass on the UPS savings to our customers. Thanks!

[Moderator-Davis]

Hey there JoshM, 

Thank you for making your desire about this feature known! 

At this time, Checkout Rates for Woocommerce has been put on hold but we are absolutely keeping it an option in the future. When I hear of anything more in the future, i'll return here to update! 🙂 

[info584]

Add me to the list of users (im)patiently awaiting Shipstation ship fee integration with Woo, especially UPS.

[Moderator-Davis]

Absolutely @info584, you got it! 

Thank you for your patience 🙂 

[AmirKhan]

Any Update. Almost a Year Later

[helenward]

We also desperately need the "Checkout Rates" feature for WooCommerce. Is there any update on this?

[Moderator-Davis]

Hey there @helenward, 

Thanks for joining us here in the community! We are very glad to have you with us. 

When it comes to the Checkout Rates in WooCommerce, we currently have no new information to share. This integration adjustment has been put on hold, but we are always keeping it in mind as we move forward with WooComm.

[chad7]

2023 - any updates to offering live rates on Woocommerce?

[Moderator-Davis]

Howdy @chad7, 

No updates at this time, but when I learn more, you'll be the first to know here on this post 🙂 

[seansloan]

I would like to add my name to the list of folks anxiously awaiting this. I kind of can't believe that we're in this position. Hard to know what the hell is going on when development was started and then stopped?!? 

[nick12]

Sounds like ShipStation is not too eager to get this implemented, so thankfully there is a worthwhile solution in the meanwhile: Multi-Carrier ShipStation Shipping Rates for WooCommerce

Today I installed the free version and had live ShipStation rates in a couple minutes. After that I upgraded to "Pro", since we have a few specific requirements to work with. All in all it took maybe half an hour to get things the way we need. A few new orders have come in and everything seems to be working well.

For now I am going to keep the WooCommerce USPS Shipping and UPS Shipping plugins installed (each $79/yr), but if all goes well I plan to cancel these and keep just the pro version of Multi-Carrier ShipStation Shipping Rates for WooCommerce (also $79/yr, so the net result will be a 50% savings).

As a side note, we also use WooCommerce Shipment Tracking to take care of syncing the tracking # from ShipStation to include in the customer email notification. Seems to be a good setup.

[chad7]

nick12, I've been using that plugin for a couple years and it constantly stops providing live rates to customers.  I've been back and forth with their support numerous times and everytime they blame UPS.  Either way I've lost numerous sales due to it.  Reason I'm commenting on it is that I just had a customer call in about 5 minutes ago because they weren't being provided any shipping options.  So I had to take the order manually over the phone.  No telling how many others don't bother to call in.

It reminded me that I need to find a better solution and that made me find this old thread to see if there was any movement on a true official plugin....

[onoma]

Anyone aware of a ShipStation alternative that has this functionality in Woocommerce? I'm looking to expand to ship internationally and trying to keep track of all those rates just doesn't make any sense. 

[JoshM]

Is there any update on this? Are there ANY plans on making ShipStation's UPS/USPS live Checkout rates available to WooCommerce stores? Its been discussed on this forum for quite some time without any progress.

And we just received an email from ShipStation that they will begin charging $20 a month to continue using carriers that aren't offered through ShipStation (Fedex). If there are no plans to provide WooCommerce stores with a UPS checkout rate option, we may need to consider alternate shipping platforms. 

[Kalm]

I agree.  We've been using ShipStation for years, but it's getting to the point where disjointed integrations aren't cutting it anymore.  We like ShipStation, but it's not something we'll continue to use long-term if this isn't addressed.

[WeirCrafts]

I just spoke with SS today. There are zero plans in the near future to address this live rate issue.  We have used SS for years but I'm looking for alternatives.  SS sinking.

[JoshM]

If you find an alternative to SS, I'd be interested in knowing who you went with.

[AmirKhan]

I have been using Easyship. Direct Integration. 

[onoma]

Just wanted to tack this on here - I was told that ShipStation reviews customer ideas and feedback regularly on their ideas board. There is already an idea posted here: https://community.shipstation.com/t5/Stores-Carriers-and-Other/Live-Shipping-Rates-for-WooCommerce/i... 

I'd suggest liking the idea and adding a comment as a good way of getting their attention.

[kickymike]

101% expect live rates to be available. Shipstation is great but this is a major gap and creates plugin bloat to compensate. It's a real PIA to have to pay ANOTHER subscription for reliable live rates. This just means SS costs much more than than we're paying them directly. Free-ish plugins are limiting and it's fun getting rates to actually match across carriers. For the cost, native WOO plugins may be the better option unfortunately. 

[seansloan]

I have to ask, what "ANOTHER subscription" are you using for live rates? I'd love to check it out, thanks.

[kickymike]

Sorry, should have said. I found it in another similar post. They're called 1Team. If you search the plugin repository, it comes up. Or search "shipstation live rates" for the free version. The pro version has to be bought from their site https://1teamsoftware.com/product/woocommerce-shipstation-shipping-pro/. 

I said f-it and bought it right after. I set it up, so far it looks nice and has a lot of features. Is working well too. I was able to delete:
- Woo shipping/tax plugin (i have taxjar anyway)
- UPS live rates, and a latent USPS plug in
- Jetpack. SUPER STOKED ABOUT THIS. I only had it cuz it was needed to calculate buy USPS through Woo I believe. At least it was at one point for me.

I'm hoping this streamlines everything and speeds up my site a little. Btw, what pushed me here was needing to add FedEx with the pending UPS instability. Also FedEx seems to have taken notice and their service has improved a lot around here. 

Hope this helps.

[seansloan]

Kickymike, I really appreciate your having taken the time to give this very thorough response. I really hope this works for my client. Again, this is what makes the internet a good place, I appreciate you.

[kickymike]

Anytime. I get more help from support forums, etc. than I can count. Least I can do is pass along the good word. Hope it works out.

[chad7]

I ran that plugin for a couple years, but it perpetually (and randomly) fail to provide live rates.  Forcing customers to only see local pickup options.  There's no true fallback option.  I went around and around with their support, but apparently it's something to do with the API reaching a limit.  Nothing they could do to solve it.  Finally gave up and just went to EasyShip, which has live rates integrated into their Woocommerce plugin. 

[SawdustNCoffee]

guess ill just go to easy ship. this multiple plugin situation with innacurate rates and only having basic features when you pay for premium 3rd party plugins just to use SS is silly

[chad7]

I finally made the switch a couple months ago.  A little bit of growing pains getting used to the new interface and it lacks a few features (like drop shipping), but overall it's a better solution for use with Woocommerce.

[mhurrell]

So, a workaround here for Woocommerce and UPS is to do a negative (-) price modification on your own account that will offer your customers shipping rates that are more aligned with shipstation. I was having the same issue where my account is substantially higher than shipstation, but was unable to display them on my site. By doing a negative price modification in the UPS plugin, you can essentially offer a better price to your customers. Just don't go overboard and do some testing so you're not losing money 🙂 

[nick12]

A manual adjustment like that may work well enough, but to get live rates I will again recommend the Multi-Carrier ShipStation Shipping Rates for WooCommerce. It has been working for us now for more than a year.

Still disappointing that the ShipStation plugin can't do this itself. It is a fundamental aspect of shipping, not an obscure customization.

[boblillypromo]

does anyone know how to get a commercial account with ShipStation to send those rates to WooCommerce Multi Currency ShipStation Pro? the only options it allows for is UPS retail rates which are way too high, or the default ShipStation rates are way too high. ShipStation only supports Shopify, Wix, Big Commerce, and Magento. 

[nick12]

By default, ShipStation provides discounted UPS rates (not retail price) — they say "Up to 78% off UPS® Ground".

If you have a better rate than that, you can set up your own carrier account in ShipStation. Then just disable ShipStation's UPS carrier services. Any services you have active in ShipStation should be accessible from the Multi-Carrier ShipStation Shipping Rates for WooCommerce plugin. You can set up the shipping services you want to offer from within the plugin settings.