In today’s competitive eCommerce landscape, providing customers with a seamless shopping experience is essential. One often-overlooked area is the checkout process, particularly when it comes to shipping options. As a WooCommerce store owner, you might find the need to hide certain shipping methods under specific conditions. For instance, you might want to offer free shipping for orders over a certain amount or hide premium shipping options for specific user groups.

WooCommerce’s flexibility allows for this level of customization, but it may require some guidance to ensure you implement it correctly. In this blog, we will explore how you can hide shipping methods on your WooCommerce store, tailor your shipping options based on various conditions, and enhance your customer experience.

Why Hide Shipping Methods?

There are several reasons why you may want to hide certain shipping methods in WooCommerce:

  1. Promotions or Discounts: You might want to display a free shipping option only if the customer has met a specific order value, or a discount might apply to particular products.

  2. Location-Based Shipping: You may have shipping rates that are only available in certain regions or countries, and you don’t want customers from other areas to see those options.

  3. User Roles: You might want to limit shipping methods based on the user role. For example, wholesale customers may have access to a more premium delivery option.

  4. Custom Conditions: Certain products, like oversized items or hazardous materials, might require a special shipping method. In such cases, you may want to restrict shipping methods for these products.

How to Hide Shipping Methods in WooCommerce

WooCommerce doesn’t offer a built-in feature for hiding specific shipping methods under certain conditions, but there are various ways to achieve this. Let’s explore the two most common approaches: using plugins or custom code.

1. Using a Plugin to Hide Shipping Methods

One of the easiest ways to hide shipping methods is by using a plugin. Several plugins are available that allow you to hide specific shipping options based on conditions such as cart total, weight, product categories, user roles, and more. Below are some popular plugins that offer this functionality:

a) WooCommerce Conditional Shipping and Payments

The WooCommerce Conditional Shipping and Payments plugin is an excellent tool for controlling which shipping methods and payment gateways are available to customers. It lets you define rules based on various conditions like:

  • Cart total value
  • Shipping destination (country, region, or zip code)
  • Cart contents (specific products, categories, or product tags)
  • User roles (wholesale customers, guests, etc.)
  • Shipping classes

This plugin gives you a comprehensive set of tools to hide shipping methods, making it one of the most popular choices for WooCommerce store owners.

b) WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping

The WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping plugin is another great option for hiding shipping methods based on a wide variety of conditions. It allows you to define multiple shipping methods with different rules for each. You can use the table rate shipping feature to offer conditional shipping methods based on cart weight, total amount, product categories, or even shipping zones.

c) Advanced Shipping Packages

If your store sells products that need to be shipped separately (such as fragile items or heavy products), the Advanced Shipping Packages plugin helps you set up separate shipping methods for different product groups. You can define specific rules and then hide certain methods from showing up for customers.

2. Hiding Shipping Methods with Custom Code

For more advanced users who prefer a tailored solution, you can hide shipping methods using custom code. You can add a custom function to your theme’s functions.php file or in a custom plugin to hide specific shipping methods based on conditions.

a) Hiding Shipping Methods Based on Cart Total

Let’s say you only want to show free shipping when a customer’s cart value exceeds $50. You can add the following code to your functions.php file:

php
function hide_shipping_method_based_on_total( $rates, $package ) { if ( WC()->cart->total < 50 ) { unset( $rates['free_shipping'] ); } return $rates; } add_filter( 'woocommerce_package_rates', 'hide_shipping_method_based_on_total', 10, 2 );

This code checks the cart total, and if the total is less than $50, it removes the free shipping method from the available shipping methods list.

b) Hiding Shipping Methods Based on User Role

You might want to hide premium shipping methods for certain user roles. For example, only logged-in users with a “wholesale” role should see expedited shipping. The following code snippet allows you to do this:

php
function hide_shipping_based_on_user_role( $rates, $package ) { if ( ! current_user_can( 'wholesale_customer' ) ) { unset( $rates['flat_rate'] ); // Hides the flat rate shipping method } return $rates; } add_filter( 'woocommerce_package_rates', 'hide_shipping_based_on_user_role', 10, 2 );

This code checks the user’s role and removes the flat rate shipping method if the user does not have the role wholesale_customer.

c) Hiding Shipping Based on Cart Items

If you want to hide certain shipping methods for particular products (for example, if the cart contains hazardous materials), use the following code:

php
function hide_shipping_for_hazardous_items( $rates, $package ) { $hazardous_item = false; // Loop through cart items foreach ( WC()->cart->get_cart() as $cart_item ) { if ( has_term( 'hazardous-material', 'product_cat', $cart_item['product_id'] ) ) { $hazardous_item = true; break; } } // If hazardous items are in the cart, hide certain shipping methods if ( $hazardous_item ) { unset( $rates['flat_rate'] ); // Hides flat rate shipping } return $rates; } add_filter( 'woocommerce_package_rates', 'hide_shipping_for_hazardous_items', 10, 2 );

This code hides the flat-rate shipping option if the cart contains items from the “hazardous-material” product category.

Best Practices for Hiding Shipping Methods in WooCommerce

While hiding shipping methods can offer better customization, it's important to implement these features thoughtfully. Here are a few best practices to ensure you provide the best customer experience:

  1. Transparency: Make sure your shipping policies are clear to customers. If certain shipping methods are hidden based on conditions, consider informing your customers on the cart or checkout pages why specific options aren’t available.

  2. Test Your Setup: Before making changes live, test all your shipping rules and conditions thoroughly. Make sure that the correct shipping methods are being shown or hidden for the appropriate customers.

  3. Consistency: Avoid creating too many complex rules for shipping options. This could lead to confusion for customers and increase the likelihood of cart abandonment. Keep it simple and intuitive.

  4. Use Coupons Wisely: If you're offering discounts through coupons that impact shipping, ensure that your rules for hiding shipping methods also account for any coupon-based promotions.

  5. Mobile Responsiveness: Ensure that your shipping methods and their conditions work well on mobile devices, as many customers shop using their phones.

Conclusion

Hiding shipping methods in WooCommerce based on different conditions can significantly improve your store’s checkout experience. Whether you’re hiding methods based on cart value, user roles, shipping zones, or product categories, the process allows you to provide more tailored shipping options to your customers.

By using Hide Shipping Method for WooCommerce, you can easily set up and manage these rules without much hassle. Remember to always test your changes to ensure a smooth experience for your users. With the right approach, you can streamline your WooCommerce store and enhance your customer satisfaction while ensuring that only the most relevant shipping methods are displayed.

If you want to offer a more personalized shipping experience and ensure that the shipping methods displayed are relevant to your customers’ needs, then hiding specific shipping methods in WooCommerce is a strategy worth implementing.