WooCommerce shipping labels: Create, customize, & save

Reading Time: 11 minutes

If you sell products online, you’re all too familiar with the time-consuming, costly shipping processes involved with fulfilling purchases. 

Perhaps you’ve gotten used to the idea that it’s always going to be the most expensive, and painful, part of running your online store. “That’s simply the way it is,” you tell yourself.

Well, thankfully for stores built on WooCommerce, that’s not exactly true. There are a number of user-friendly tools that let you create, customize, and print shipping labels efficiently, all while saving you money. 

To help you get started, we’ve put together a setup guide to creating WooCommerce shipping labels from scratch. We’ll show you how to prepare your store for shipping, then walk you through generating, printing, and customizing shipping labels. Finally, we’ll conclude with some bonus tools that can help you save even more time and money.

Setting up WooCommerce for shipping labels

Before turning your focus to building the most efficient shipping process, you’ll first want to make sure you’ve set up your WooCommerce store for success. This foundation is necessary for everything that follows.

This includes designing your pages and adding all of your products, of course, but also integrating a payments solution like WooCommerce Payments to allow for seamless transactions and a smoother checkout experience for customers.

You’ll want to have your post-purchase communications ironed out as well. That means configuring WooCommerce confirmation emails so customers automatically receive a message once they place an order. Setting up follow-up emails can also help you improve customer retention and encourage repeat business. 

From there, you can start working on shipping label setup. 

Essential WooCommerce shipping settings

In order to create shipping labels, you need to have all of your shipping functionality in place. This first step is to toggle all of your preferred settings within WooCommerce and enter any necessary information.

First, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping in your WordPress dashboard to enable and configure your shipping options:

The first thing you’ll need to do is set shipping zones. These are geographical areas to which you can apply specific shipping methods. For example, you might offer free shipping to certain states that are closest to your location, and flat rate shipping to other areas (more on shipping methods in a minute).

Click the Add Zones button to create a new shipping zone. Then, add a name for your shipping zone. In the Zone Regions area, you can select the areas that fall into this zone, even narrowing them down to specific zip codes:

WooCommerce offers several shipping methods by default, such as flat rate, free shipping, and local pickup. To create these methods and apply them to your zones, click the Add shipping method button. Then, select the type of shipping you want to add:

Then you can set the requirements and details for each shipping method. For example, you might require a certain cart total to access free shipping, or you could set a specific price for flat rate shipping:

After you’re done, click Create and Save. Then, continue to create shipping methods and zones until you have your store configured appropriately.

Now, we’ll look at shipping classes. If your products vary in size, weight, or other factors that affect shipping, you can use shipping classes to group similar products and manage these differences efficiently. Otherwise, you won’t need to take this step.

Go back to WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping and select the Classes tab. Click Add shipping class and fill out information such as the name, slug, and description. Then, click Create:

If you’re using shipping classes, you’ll need to assign them to each product. You can do this in the Product Data tab of the individual product page. There, click on Shipping and select a shipping class from the appropriate dropdown. Finally, save your product:

Before you can set up shipping labels, you also need to configure your tax settings. To do this, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Tax. 

Here, you can set your shipping costs to be calculated with or without taxes according to your store’s requirements and local tax regulations:

Before going live, conduct thorough testing to ensure that all settings are correct and that the shipping options displayed are accurate for various locations and scenarios. 

Plugins for WooCommerce shipping labels 

In most cases, you’ll want to use a WooCommerce plugin to generate and print shipping labels. Otherwise, you would need to individually purchase and print labels for each order through your shipping carrier, like USPS or FedEx. While this is possible, it’s likely not the best use of your time.

When selecting a plugin for managing WooCommerce shipping labels, you need to consider features, usability, and cost. Here are a few options for creating, managing, and printing shipping labels: 

WooCommerce Shipping

WooCommerce Shipping is a free tool that allows you to directly print USPS and DHL labels from your WordPress dashboard. It offers automated order tracking, bulk label creation, and significant discounts off the fees to generate each shipping label.

ShipStation for WooCommerce

Another great option is the ShipStation for WooCommerce plugin. This tool offers a comprehensive shipping solution with support for most major carriers worldwide. 

Features include batch label printing, automated tracking updates, and options for branded packing slips and custom shipping rules.

Pricing starts at $9 per month for a Starter plan. Each plan includes a certain number of shipments per month and additional charges for overages. 

Shippo

You could also opt for Shippo, which connects with a wide range of carriers globally. This makes for simpler shipping rate comparisons so you can get the best deals. It also provides automated tracking, discounted shipping rates, and easy returns management.

You can get started with Shippo for free for up to 30 shipments per month. The Professional plan starts at $19 per month once you exceed 30 packages.

Generating shipping labels

For this tutorial, we’ll be using the WooCommerce Shipping extension to illustrate the process of generating shipping labels. If you decide to use another tool, review its documentation before getting started.

To begin, you’ll need to install and activate the extension. Go to WooCommerce → Extensions and search for “WooCommerce Shipping.” Select it, then click Add to store on the next page. 

You’ll be prompted to purchase the extension, but don’t worry — it’s free. 

Then, you’ll be redirected back to your WordPress dashboard. Connect the extension to your store. 

Now, when you go back to WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping, you should see a new WooCommerce Shipping tab:

Before you buy shipping labels, you need to add a payment method to your WooCommerce Shipping account. To do this, click the WooCommerce Shipping tab and locate where it says Payment: 

Here, you can add the payment card you’d like to use to buy shipping labels. If you don’t do this, purchasing postage from carriers like USPS and DHL Express directly through WooCommerce won’t be possible.

In this same settings area, you can make some decisions about the types of labels you’d like to use. You can select the paper size, whether or not you’d like to receive label purchase receipts by email, and the type of package(s) you’d like to use for your orders:

To make your first label, go to the Orders page in your WooCommerce dashboard and select an order.

Click on Create shipping label:

Verify the origin and destination addresses to ensure accuracy:

Choose the package type and weight:

Once the extension verifies that the address and package selection is correct, the shipping rate options will load:

Confirm the details and purchase the label. Once purchased, you can print the label directly from the dashboard or save it for batch printing later.

As you can see, this process greatly simplifies the handling of shipping labels. With everything automated in WooCommerce, you save a lot of time on order management. It’s just a matter of setting up the right automation tools, so you don’t have to manually handle all the details. 

Printing shipping labels

Now it’s time to actually print shipping labels and apply them to your packages. The label that’s generated is simply an image or PDF file, so you can connect to any physical printer and ask it to print the image. 

On a traditional printer, however, this presents several problems. First, it will likely print on a standard 8.5×11 inch piece of paper. Not only will these appear quite large on most packages, but they’re highly susceptible to weather conditions, ripping and tearing, etc. Plus, you’d also need to find a way to adhere this label to the package itself. Do you tape it? Glue it?

The result is a lot of material waste for a less-than-reliable and unattractive label. For this reason, it’s usually best to look for a dedicated label printer. This is a small machine that typically prints each label on an individual sticker (often 4” x 6”) using either real ink or thermal printing technology. 

Designed for efficiency and volume, you’ll often attach a roll of at least 100 stickers to the printer, and it will simply pull stickers, print shipping labels automatically, and dispense them one at a time or in batches if you’ve set up your system to do so.

These printers are highly cost-effective, produce less waste, and work very quickly.

Customizing shipping labels

With the basic process of generating shipping labels in WooCommerce sorted out, you can turn your attention towards customizing them. Sure, you can just print labels as you always have before, but taking the time to customize them creates a more professional look. 

It can also increase your brand visibility, improve package tracking, and ensure that all necessary information is accurately displayed on your shipments going forward.

What’s customizable on a shipping label? 

You can customize several elements of your shipping labels. They’ll need to have the essentials, of course, like the sender and recipient’s address, and the carrier’s barcode info, but outside of that, you can do a lot to make your labels cohesive with your brand. 

Here are a few aspects you can customize, depending on the tools you’re working with:

• Brand identity: Incorporate your company’s logo, brand name, and color scheme to make each shipping label distinctly yours
• Contact information: Including your business’s contact information, such as a return address, phone number, or customer service email ensures that both customers and carriers can easily get in touch if there are delivery issues
• Order details: You can also add the order number, purchase date, or customer name to your labels to streamline package handling and help with order fulfillment
• Custom messages: Some businesses opt to include custom messages or instructions on their labels, which can be useful to provide special instructions or thank the customer
• Promotional offers: You can even use the shipping label as a marketing tool, such as by including a discount code or advertising upcoming sales 

Plugins that provide customized WooCommerce Shipping labels

The WooCommerce Shipping extension is one option that lets you customize the basic elements of your shipping labels — things like the paper or label size and included information. However, you’ll need to use another tool if you want more customized labels.

Here are some plugins that enable label customization:

ELEX EasyPost

ELEX EasyPost integrates with carriers like USPS, FedEx, and UPS to provide real-time shipping rates and advanced label customization. This tool allows you to include custom insurance values, delivery instructions, and carrier-specific options on the labels. It also provides additional features like third-party billing, estimated delivery days, and packaging options. 

ShipStation 

We’ve already mentioned ShipStation, but it gets a second mention because it’s a full-fledged shipping solution that simplifies the process of creating custom shipping labels. 

With ShipStation, you can customize labels to include your logo, colors, and other unique design elements that reinforce your brand identity with every shipment. You can also add custom messages to each label, some of which can be dynamically generated based on order information:

Once you add this extension to your store, you can then set up and save label layouts that meet the specific requirements of different carriers and package types. The platform supports integration with many carriers, allowing you to compare rates and choose the best shipping option for each order. You can also set rules for how labels are generated based on criteria like order weight, destination, and customer preference. 

Advanced features and third-party integrations

Looking for even more advanced shipping tools? Here are some ways you can go beyond the standard shipping setup:

Set advanced shipping rules and conditions

Calculate rates based on product weight, number of items, shipping destination, and other attributes:

Plugins like WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping and Conditional Shipping and Payments allow you to set shipping rates based on very specific factors. 

For example, you might set pricing based on the customer’s location, their cart total, and the weight of the products they’re purchasing. Or you could allow free shipping based on a specific customer role. 

You can also set a maximum shipping cost so fees don’t get out of hand for those making large purchases. There’s a lot you can do to create shipping rates that are truly unique to your customers.

Generate real-time shipping rates

Integrating real-time shipping rate calculators is a great way to ensure you pass on the exact cost of shipping to customers — not a bit more or less. This feature fetches costs directly from carriers like USPS, FedEx, UPS, and DHL based on the package’s size and the delivery location. 

An extension already discussed here, ELEX EasyPost, has this capability. But you can also use extensions for specific carriers like USPS Shipping Method and FedEx Shipping Method.

Use multi-carrier shipping solutions

Some tools, like ShipStation, allow you to ship internationally or with multiple providers all from one central location. Create labels, conduct cost comparisons, and provide shipment tracking across various carriers at once. 

Integrate with automation and ERP tools

If you run a larger ecommerce store — one at the enterprise level — automation is even more important. Integrating WooCommerce with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system like SAP, Oracle, or Microsoft Dynamics can synchronize inventory, orders, and customer data. 

Doing this can help automate the shipping process, with the system automatically updating stock levels, generating shipping labels, and tracking shipments in real-time. Tools like WooCommerce Zoho CRM Integration and other ERP connectors are specifically designed for these purposes. With proper configuration, you can make large parts of your store’s shipping process hands-off. 

Create custom solutions and API integrations

If your business needs aren’t met by plugins or extensions, the WooCommerce REST API allows for custom development. This enables you to create custom integrations with third-party logistics providers, fulfillment services, and other shipping tools.

Bring the power of Omnisend to WooCommerce

Successfully managing your WooCommerce shipping processes makes your store more efficient. And if you’re looking to grow sales without sacrificing profitability, efficiency is the key to victory for store owners.

Of course, an efficient shipping operation is just one aspect of a successful online store. Another? Marketing automation. 

Omnisend enables smart marketing communications with your most valuable subscribers. Automatically send an email to people who abandon their cart. Nudge first-time customers to complete their next purchase. Engage visitors and capture more subscribers with captivating popups. Stay top of mind with email newsletters.

And with pre-built templates and an intuitive drag-and-drop builder, your marketing team can create all of this with incredible efficiency — even if you are the team.