Force user to select shipping method before checkout

  • Resolved madamadari

    (@madamadari)


    4 years, 7 months ago

    Hello,

    I have a client with a toy store running WooCommerce, with who is having issues with multiple customers not noticing that the shipping method has a default selection, and then checking out without noticing the default selection or changing to the selection they want.

    The shipping options they have available are Free Delivery (for orders over ￡40), Collect from shop (free local pickup) and Flat Rate (￡3.99).

    I have the choice of shipping options prominently displayed on both the cart and checkout page, but despite that, customers are repeatedly checking out without noticing those options or making a selection.

    As the standard WooCommerce behaviour is to default to the first method available, this means that if we have ‘Collect from shop’ listed as the first method (after free delivery), people who wanted Flat Rate are checking out with the wrong option selected, as they don’t notice the new shipping method available .

    If we try it the other way (Flat Rate above Collect from Shop), people who wanted to collect from store end up checking out without noticing they are being charged for delivery.

    I have added a lot of visual cues and have a calculate shipping buttons in the shipping section on both the cart and repeated it on the checkout page, but unfortunately people are still skipping straight over the options and pressing checkout.

    Not sure why so many people are failing to notice the options, but in order to prevent this from happening my client has asked if we can clear the default selections, for both new and returning customers, and essentially force them to make a shipping method selection manually each time they place an order, before they are allowed to make a payment (in this case via the Proceed to Paypal button).

    I have looked into the options, and as far as I can tell this isn’t possible, as the default shipping method selection is a key part of the standard WooCommerce functionality, but my client is getting understandably frustrated with this happening on multiple orders, so I’d love to be able to figure out a workaround that would achieve what he is after (e.g. forcing clients to select a shipping method each time they order), without having a negative impact on WooCommerce.

    Thanks

    Mari

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Support wpnomad a11n

    (@wpnomad)

    Hi @madamadari ,

    in order to prevent this from happening my client has asked if we can clear the default selections, for both new and returning customers, and essentially force them to make a shipping method selection manually each time they place an order, before they are allowed to make a payment (in this case via the Proceed to Paypal button).

    You can add the following to your site, and this will clear the default shipping method from being pre-selected. So essentially, the customers would need to select the shipping method when they check out: 

    
add_filter( 'woocommerce_shipping_chosen_method', '__return_false', 99);

    If your site uses a child theme, then you can add that code to the functions.php file of the child theme, else you can add that code using a plugin like Code Snippets.

    Do make sure to take a backup of the site before you add the code. I hope this helps!

    Hello @madamadari,

    Since we haven’t heard from you in a while, we’re hoping that means you were able to get this resolved. I’m going to close this thread out now.

    If you’re still having trouble, please open up a new topic and we’ll be happy to help out.

    Cheers!

    Thread Starter madamadari

    (@madamadari)

    Thanks Ashish and Three Sons,

    Thought I would update in case anyone else encounters the same issue.

    I had tried that filter already without the results I was aiming for, however it turns out that this was because local pickup was enabled in two zones.

    They had local pickup enabled in their main zone (limited to UK Region) and also within the ‘Locations not covered by your other zones’ shipping zone, based on the logic that users may want to use this option even if they don’t have a valid UK address (e.g. tourists).

    As local pickup was always available in this zone, the system was defaulting to that option, despite the filter above, and then when the customer inputted an address and more methods became available, it was still not clearing that default selection.

    I removed the ‘local pickup’ method from ‘Locations not covered by your other zones’, and now the filter is working as expected (and the customer is reminded to choose a shipping method on checkout).

    While this does have some drawbacks, as it means customers always have to have a valid UK address to checkout (even if they are selecting local pickup), this scenario isn’t likely to occur frequently, whereas customers checking out with the wrong shipping selected was becoming a frequent problem.

    Thanks

    Mari

    Hey Mari,

    Thanks for letting us know what happened and how you were able to resolve it! What a fascinating situation.

    If there’s ever anything else we can help out with, please just let us know.

    Thanks!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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