Splitting up shipping in Woo shipping

Sometimes what happens is a customer orders two books.  Let’s suppose it is the Paris book and the PCT Forms book.  And maybe you have one of the books in stock but you do not have the other book in stock.  And another co-worker does not have the first book in stock but yes the co-worker has the second book in stock. 

So if you go to the “purchase a label” screen, of course the Woo system will decide the two books should go into a single medium flat rate box.  This would be a really good choice if somebody has both books, but it is no help if nobody has both books. 

So what do you do?

The answer is to break up the order into two shipments and send one of the shipping labels to your co-worker.  Here is how to do it.

  • Click create shipping label
  • See “Packaging” and click the downarrow to expand that section.
  • See the two items to fulfill and see that each item has a “Move” link.
  • Click “Move” for the Paris book.  See a new window that asks where would you like to move it.  Click on “Add to a New Package”.  Click “Submit”.  
  • You can now click around on Package 1 and Package 2 and you will see that Package 1 is going to contain the Paris book and Package 2 is going to contain the PCT Forms book.
  • Click on Package 1, then click on “please select a package” and choose “padded flat rate envelope”.
  • Click on Package 2, then click on “please select a package” and choose “padded flat rate envelope”.
  • A red button will appear that says “use these packages”.  Click on that red button.
  • Now you have an opportunity to “choose rate:  envelope 1:  Padded flat rate envelope”.  Pick the first choice which is “USPS – Priority Mail”.
  • Next you can “choose rate:  envelope 2:  Padded flat rate envelope”.  Pick the first choice which is “USPS – Priority Mail”.
  • Now a red button will appear that allows you to “Buy shipping la…”.  Click that button.
  • Now you will probably want to print the two shipping labels to PDF. 
  • Now you will want to open the PDF and print one of the labels.  Keep very close track of which label you are going to use.  Send the PDF to the other person.  Coordinate closely with the other person so that you do not screw up and accidentally both use the same label.  They need to use the label that you are not using.
  • As usual, make sure that you are using the padded envelope for priority mail (red) but not the padded envelope for priority mail express (blue).
  • Eventually when you are very sure that both packages have been shipped and scanned by the USPS, then go back into the shopping cart and mark the order as “completed”.

See other procedures for the OPLF shopping cart.