WooCommerce is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms to launch your online business with a WooCommerce Local Pickup feature.
One of the major parts of running an e-commerce store is shipping. This is an activity that you will constantly be doing once customers place an order for your products. Furthermore, at times shipping products can become quite overwhelming since you need to take care of the following:
- Addresses
- Labeling
- Packaging
- Shipment Carriers
- Logistics
However, what if we told you that there is a way to avoid almost all the headaches related to shipping products to customers? We are pretty sure you will be interested. Right?
As it turns out, there is an option that will allow you to completely bypass shipping products to your customers altogether. Moreover, this is done by allowing your customers to come to you to collect their purchased products.
The feature we are referring to is WooCommerce local pickup, often called regional collection or self-collection.
In this article, we will explain what the self-collection feature is and how to add it to your WooCommerce store.
What is WooCommerce?
Before we jump into the main topic let’s first take a look at what WooCommerce (WC) is. This is for people who are not familiar with the platform.
WooCommerce (WC) is an open-source, free WordPress plugin that turns your WordPress website into an online store by adding various e-commerce features such as creating products, setting prices, product shipping, payment methods, etc.
WC has the largest market share of any online store creator in the world, and this popularity is due to 3 main reasons:
- It is free
- It is also used by the most popular platform to build a website, WordPress.
- It has a huge development community with third-party support
WooCommerce is not an independent e-commerce platform, you will need to have a designed, functioning, and hosted WordPress website to be able to use the functions of WooCommerce. In addition, with WC you have much more control over almost every aspect of your online store, from customizations, software updates, plugin installation, and website security.
WC gives you the freedom to make your online store exactly as you want it without any restrictions. The only drawback in this arrangement is that you need to be fairly competent with technology and software.
Some key features of WooCommerce include:
- Integration with WordPress, which is where the majority of websites are built on
- With the freedom to micromanage all aspects of your online store, you are not restricted in any way
- Selling all kinds of products, such as simple, virtual, variable, etc.
- Extensions and plugins that will add more functionality to your e-commerce store
- An SEO-friendly environment since WC is integrated with WordPress
- Open-source software that users can extensively customize and modify according to their needs
What is WooCommerce Local Pickup?
The WooCommerce local pickup feature is a “delivery” option that allows your customer to pick up or collect their purchased products themselves from one of your designated physical stores.
If you have the in-person pickup option active, then once your customers make a purchase on your online store, they will have the option to come to collect their purchased product from a list of possible pickup points (determined by yourself) from the checkout page.
So, here is a quick summary of how sel-pickup works:
- You may need a sel-collection plugin to enable this feature
- You activate/add the WC self-collection option on your online store
- A customer comes to your online store, selects a product, and proceeds to the checkout page
- On the checkout page, this customer will see an option for self-collection, along with a list of pickup points
- If this customer decides to pick up the product him/herself, he/she just needs to click on the self-collect option and select the pickup location from the list
- Once the self-collect is selected, the customer then proceeds to make the payment for their product
- Once the payment is made, the customer can visit their chosen retrieval location and collect their purchased product
As you can see, it’s a win-win situation for both you and your customer. Let us explain exactly how in the next section.
Benefits of WooCommerce Local Pickup Feature
The self-collection feature is very useful for e-commerce store owners because it eliminates the need to deliver products to your customers at your own time and expense.
Self-collection can benefit businesses that rely heavily on product dispatching. For example, a restaurant with an online menu will benefit greatly from a self-pickup feature. In this scenario, the customer will view a restaurant’s online menu, place an order for carry-out, and then go to the restaurant’s physical location to collect their meal. As a result, the restaurant won’t have to worry about delivering the product, and the customer won’t have to wait a long time for their order to be delivered.
Moreover, buying customers can also derive some benefits from the self-pickup option. For example, people who “fear” that their orders will get misplaced, damaged, or mishandled can get some peace of mind by collecting their purchased products themselves.
The list of benefits for e-commerce store owners and customers is listed below.
1- WooCommerce Local Pickup Benefits for E-commerce Store Owners
- Save time, cost, and energy on delivering products to your customers
- Prevent products from reaching the wrong address, as the customer will be coming to your location for the pickup
- No logistics/planning is required to deliver products
- Eliminates the chance for “mix-ups” in deliveries
- Payment is received in advance
- Provides you with an opportunity to interact with your customer face-to-face to build future relations
- No need to hire third-party delivery companies
- Eliminates liability for products during transit
2- WooCommerce Local Pickup Benefits for Customer
- Customers can choose from a list of collection points (especially if a location is close to them)
- No need to wait for their products to be delivered
- Saves customers from paying delivery fees
- Customers can make sure they are receiving the right product during the time of pickup
- Customers won’t miss product deliveries if they are not available to receive them
Who Uses Local Pickup?
There are a lot of businesses that employ self-collection (or “takeaway”) as a means to get products to customers. Furthermore, businesses with an online component are some of the more prominent users of the “takeaway” feature. For example, Amazon is one such business that has local pickup options available to customers in certain parts of the world.
Another company that comes to mind is Wish. Wish is an online shopping website that turns your store into a self-pickup destination for people who shop on Wish.
How do I Add Local Pickup to WooCommerce?
In this section, we will explain step-by-step how you can add the WooCommerce local pickup feature to your WooCommerce store.
Step 1: Create a Shipping Zone with a Self-Pickup Feature
To use the WooCommerce local pickup feature, the first thing you need to do is to create a shipping zone that will use “self-pickup” as the shipping method.
A shipping zone is a kind of “guide” you create for shipping products. Moreover, a shipping zone consists of a region and a shipping method. For more information on shipping zones, please refer to the following guide.
To create a shipping zone on WooCommerce, please follow the below steps.
- Go to the WooCommerce plugin, and navigate to the “Settings” section
- Go to the “Shipping” tab located at the top
- Click on “Add shipping zone” to create a new shipping zone
- On the next screen, fill in the “Zone name” and “Zone regions”
- Next, click on “Add shipping method” in the “Shipping methods” section
- Select “Local pickup” from the drop-down menu, and click on “Add shipping method”
- Once you are done, click on “Save changes”
The first step is done, and you have successfully created a shipping zone with self-collection as the delivery method. But don’t celebrate too much just yet, we still have a long way to go. Not really, but you get my point.
Step 2: Install Multi Store Addons for WooCommerce
Now that you have created a shipping zone with the option for customers to collect their products themselves, to use the self-collection feature on your store you will need to install Multi Store Addons for WooCommerce, which is a plugin that is used to manage multiple stores.
Step 3: Activate the Local Pickup Shipping Zone
Only two steps remain between you and the bliss of not worrying about delivering products to your customer.
Now you just need to activate the local pickup feature so that it appears on the checkout page for your customers to select. But, before you do this, you will first need to activate the shipping zone with in-person pickup that you created in Step 1.
To activate shipping zones, please follow the below steps:
- Go to the “Shipping Zones” tab in the Agile Store Addons for the WooCommerce plugin
- Look for the shipping zone that you created in Step 1
- Click on “Assign store”, and assign stores to the shipping zone by turning it “on” from the left-hand column
- Click on “Save Settings”
Now, the self-collection shipping zone has successfully assigned stores as pickup locations.
Step 4: Activate the Local Pickup Option on Your Store
Now that everything is in place, it’s time for the main event. The final step is activating the local pickup option so that it appears in your store.
To activate the feature, please follow the below steps:
- Go to the “Global” tab on Agile Stores Addons for WooCommerce
- Navigate to the “Widget Selection” option
- Choose “Local Pickup”
- Next, go to the recently-appeared “Local Pickup Store” option in the “Global” Tab
- Select either “Product Store” or “All Stores” depending on where you want the local pickup option to appear
Once you have completed the above steps, a self-pickup option will now be available on the checkout page for customers to select if they want to pick up their selected products themselves.
Congratulations! You have successfully added the option for in-person collection to your store. As a result, your customer will now have the option to come to your physical location to collect their products. In addition, you won’t have to worry about delivering products yourself, and you can use this saved time, money, and energy on other areas of your business.
How to Disable Local Pickup on WooCommerce?
The local pickup feature is a very useful feature that a lot of businesses may want to keep active forever. However, there might be some businesses that might want to go back to exclusively delivering products. For example, there could be a business that is in a very remote area, that a lot of people may not easily reach. In this case, local pick-up may not be a viable option.
These businesses will need to deactivate or disable in-person collection to prevent customers from coming to their physical locations.
Similar to how easy it is to add self-collection to your store, it is also easy to disable this feature. There are two methods through which you can disable the sel-collection feature on WooCommerce
Method 1
To disable the self-collection feature from the “Global” tab, please follow the below steps:
- Go to the “Global” tab on WooCommerce,
- Navigate to the widget selection option
- Deselect “Local Pickup”
Once you deselect “Local Pickup”, this option will no longer appear on the checkout page
Method 2
To disable the in-person collection feature from the “Shipping Zone” tab, please follow the below steps:
- Go to the “Shipping Zones” tab on Agile Stores Addons for WooCommerce
- Go to the shipping with local pickup as the delivery method
- Click on “Assign Stores”
- Turn all stores “off” from the left-hand column
Once you remove all the stores from the shipping zone, this shipping zone will no longer be active. As a result, self-collection will be removed as a delivery option.
If you have chosen to remove local pickup from your store, then you will need to set up a local delivery system for your online store
How to Set Local Delivery in WooCommerce?
To set local delivery in WC, please follow the below steps:
- Go to “settings” on WooCommerce
- Head over to the “Shipping” tab
- Click on “Add shipping zone”
- Add a “Zone name” and “Zone region”
- Click on “Add shipping method”
- Select either “Flat rate” or “Free Shipping” as the shipping method
- Click on “Save changes”
Once this is done, you will have successfully set local delivery for a particular region. Repeat the above steps to set local delivery in other regions.
Conclusion
That concludes this article on the in-person product collection feature.
Hopefully, you now have a good idea of what is the WooCommerce local pickup feature, how to enable/disable it, and how it is beneficial to online store owners.
We hope that this article has been a useful read for you and that you derived some benefit from it.