Can’t buy additional labels for same order

Same issue here. This is a significant setback for our workflows with this new plugin. Need a fix ASAP.

Hi Dee @bliteknight,

Thank you for reaching out to WooCommerce Shipping support.

In the past, after I had bought a label I had the ability to buy additional labels if I needed to ship the same item to the same customer as a replacement. I can no longer do this as it just shows my previously purchased label with no ability to buy a new one.

As I understand, this was working for you before but isn’t working now. I’m curious to any changes that may have caused this change. Did this work fine with any previous version of the WooCommerce Shipping plugin, or do you mean way before, with the WooCommerce Shipping and Tax plugin?

Thanks!
-OP

This was the functionality of Shipping & Tax. It was removed in the new Shipping extension, but it is a vital function for many shipping managers.

Hi @bliteknight, I do apologise for the frustration this has caused. I just want to note that WooCommerce Shipping is a brand new plugin written from the ground up and not just an update to WooCommerce Shipping & Tax, so the features will differ. A lot of the decisions around WooCommerce Shipping was made through fulfillment research and interviews with existing merchants.

Just creating a new label is not a general flow for a merchant when fulfilling orders or damaged goods as it has impact on stock levels and accounting.

A more widely accepted approach that I might suggest is creating a new order and just discounting it to 100%, this way your stock levels will stay in sync.

I do want to highlight that on our radar there is a feature to allow creating once off labels that are not tied to orders, unfortunately this is not high on our priority list atm.

I hope this gives you some insight into why things are the way they are and at least give you a way to overcome this hurdle.

Thanks!

Hi @kloon,

I must disagree with you about workflows. There are several scenarios where purchasing a new label for the same order is most helpful, and this was a feature used fairly often in our workflows—mostly for correcting errors and dealing with abnormal circumstances.

In fact, the day we switched to this version, we had a customer contact us to say that an item had been left out of their order—a mistake on our part. In this case, we want to be able to create the new label and have it attached to the same order without affecting inventory.

I do hope the team will respect the fact that not every shop operates in the same ways and give us back this feature that was removed.

Thank you @grangep for the additional feedback.

As mentioned by our devs, the ability to repurchase additional labels is on their radar already, and considering multiple cases such as the ones you posed are helpful to better understand more case uses and find the best ways around this requirement.

In the meantime, rest assured you can continue to use the original WooCommerce Shipping & Tax plugin.

Thanks!
-OP

@kloon I guess I will disable the plugin so I can repurchase the label for the same order.

Another workflow I encounter is when I ship overseas and have the wrong Tariff number or declared value. I refund the label and create a new one – hopefully this will also be considered when deciding if to allow creating a new label when one already exists.

Thanks

• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by Dee Adesanwo.

Hi @bliteknight,

@kloon?I guess I will disable the plugin so I can repurchase the label for the same order.

That’s a nice workaround for the time being!

Another workflow I encounter is when I ship overseas and have the wrong Tariff number or declared value. I refund the label and create a new one – hopefully this will also be considered when deciding if to allow creating a new label when one already exists.

Thank you for sharing other case scenario where the repurchase of labels would be necessary, our devs will take this into consideration and come up with the best solution for it!

As always, thank you for sharing your valuable feedback.

Cheers!
-OP

Just coming here to say SAME…. the functionality to create new labels on orders is key for me and my workflow with a subscription product, not to mention lost orders (yay USPS media mail) and other random occasions of need. I understand the dev thought of inventory and trying to plan for splits and such, but the reality is many small business owners may not function in the same ways as larger corps and get creative with flows and plugins they can afford to make it all work. If the functionality existed before in WooCommerce Shipping and Tax, not sure why it’s an issue to implement in here in WooCommerce Shipping (hello, it’s a shipping function!) as well.

So I reverted back to WooShipping + Tax for now, which regained the new label functionality, though it sadly also wiped all of my shipping history from existing orders. ??

Thanks for listening, Woo devs! ??

• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by lbuzzy.

Hi @lbuzzy

Our development team has been notified about this issue, and it is on their radar. They are currently considering different use cases to find the best solution for this requirement.

In the meantime, as a workaround, you can continue to use the original WooCommerce Shipping & Tax plugin, which still has this feature.

We also appreciate your suggestion about considering scenarios such as shipping overseas with incorrect tariff numbers or declared values. This feedback is very helpful for our team to better understand our users’ needs and improve our plugin accordingly.

Thank you once again for your valuable feedback and for using WooCommerce Shipping Plugin.

We too are having this issue. For me it makes the plug-in unusable, especially when coupled with the various issues in other threads. The ability to reprint shipping labels is crucial and not something we can do without. I have removed the plug-in and things are back to normal. I probably won’t reinstall until all of the issues are fixed, including validation of shipping addresses and overall clunkiness of the plug-in.

I just want to add an umpteenth complaint on this issue, since the developers do not seem to understand the features importance. The new plugin (that replaces shipping & tax) is honestly a downgrade from the previous product, where the product was stripped of most complex functionality to facilitate a seemingly much more basic/simplistic storefront. Because the dev’s cannot seem to come up with examples of when a merchant could possibly need to use “create a new label” on a existing order (since they are “searching for use cases”), here are a few from the top of my head (and over $1m in revenue):

1. Split Ship Items (I.e. ship complete vs ship individually)
2. Ship a Back ordered item(s) once received (While in-stock items can ship immediately)
3. Correct a shipping address once processed and/or shipped (delivery issue due to customer entered address)
4. Ship a replacement/exchange/RMA
5. Ship a Gift / promotion on an existing order
6. Create custom boxed packages/shipping labels outside of the programs capabilities (i.e. custom box packing and/or handling of high # of product orders)
7. Change product shipping speed (I.e. Ground to Next Day Air)

Gerhard’s comment that this is “not high on the priority list” really bothers me as it is totally obvious this is a core feature left out of a “ground up” product. These of course are only a few examples but highlights a true lack of capability of this product to be honest. Most of these are basic merchant/customer service features.

With that said, do I simply need to disable “Woocommerce Shipping” and re-enable “Woocommerce Shipping & Tax” to go back to the old style of order shipping/tracking? Are there any limitations of using the old plugin? Can it still hit UPS?

Hey @darkstarmagick and @plcexchange ,

Thank you both for sharing your feedback. We completely understand how the missing functionality is a critical part of your workflow.

@darkstarmagick , I’m sorry to hear that the current limitations made the plugin unusable for your business. The development team keeps track and is actively considering solutions based on all the feedback, but I understand that waiting for updates can be frustrating, especially when it affects day-to-day operations.

@plcexchange , thank you for detailing those use cases – this really helps in articulating how essential this functionality is. Regarding your question about switching back to the WooCommerce Shipping & Tax plugin: I believe you can disable the WooCommerce Shipping plugin and re-enable WooCommerce Shipping & Tax to regain the missing label functionality. It’s a possible workaround for now, and should still work with UPS and other shipping carriers. However, do note that as WooCommerce Shipping evolves, future features might only be available in the new version, so keeping an eye on updates will be helpful on deciding when it’s right to make the switch again.

Also, it may be a good idea to keep a?backup?of your?full site and database, in case something goes wrong during the switch!

Cheers,