Can you add the option to display rates by weight only or the option to enter default dimensions and default weight if they are not listed on a product? Hardly any of our products have dimensions entered which makes this plugin so close for us, but still not usable.
Unfortunately, all the ShipStation carriers expect dimensions to return accurate rates.
Discussing this with the team, we feel that adding default, fallback, or global dimensions for products could cause more confusion than it helps and falls out of the scope of what we want this plugin to do.
That being said, WooCommerce does have a Product Export and Import feature where you could bulk update product dimensions fairly quickly. For more information on how you could utilize this, please refer to the WooCommerce documentation linked below:
Alternatively, if you are development savvy, WooCommerce does have the necessary filter hooks to dynamically set the dimensions as needed. See WC_Product::get_prop() You could use the fitler hook supplied there on length, width, height, and weight to set default values for all your store products.
Hopefully you’re able to use one of the solutions above to resolve your usecase. If you have any further questions, comments, concerns, please reply back to this thead and we can assist further. Have a wonderful rest of your week!
I’d like to respectfully clarify the statement regarding ShipStation carriers requiring dimensions for accurate rates. In our experience with over 15,000 shipments last year and still growing, they are processed successfully without dimensions entered, and we consistently receive accurate shipping rates from both USPS and UPS through ShipStation. I’ve attached screenshots demonstrating this functionality.
Regarding your comment about adding default, fallback, or global dimensions potentially causing confusion and falling outside the plugin’s scope, I’d appreciate some additional clarification on the intended goals of this plugin.
My understanding was that the plugin’s primary purpose is to enable users to leverage their ShipStation account to display discounted shipping rates on their website, eliminating the need for separate plugins for USPS, UPS, and other carriers. The standalone carrier plugins we’re currently using all include the functionality to calculate rates either by dimensions or by weight, and they offer default dimension and weight options as a safeguard when product data may be incomplete. I’ve attached screenshots showing examples from the USPS and UPS plugins.
Currently, the plugin requires dimensions for all products to return shipping rates. Since ShipStation itself can calculate rates without dimensions (as demonstrated), I’d recommend investigating whether this requirement could be made more flexible. If dimensions remain mandatory without a fallback option, this could create checkout issues when a product inadvertently lacks dimensional data—customers would be unable to complete their purchase due to no shipping options being available.
I’d welcome the opportunity to discuss potential solutions that balance data accuracy with practical usability.
Hello @robersw – You are absolutely right, after some testing with the API and various shipping calculators, while many online online calculators require dimensions, the ShipStation API doesn’t necessarily seem to. This is something we could certainly accomodate in a future update as previously we were under the assumption that rates required dimensions.
As far as the default weight/dimensions; after discussing with the team this may be something we could add per Shipping Zone. This would ensure that products within the Shipping Zone receive rates based on the default dimensions (or filling in what’s missing).
I think both of these features could be built-in and shipped with the new Custom Boxes layout on Shipping Zones that we have in our queue. While we do not have a timeline for this update, we will reply back to this thread once the update is live. In the meantime, should you have quesitons you may reply back to this thread. Have a wonderful rest of your week!
We just wanted to let you know that an update has been released to address weight-only shipping along with a number of other shipping-based updates. We’ll keep this thread open a bit longer in case you run into any issues or have any questions!
Thank you for the update! We’ve been testing the latest version of the plugin today, but we’re still not seeing any live shipping rates at checkout.
We’d like the rates to be calculated using weight only (no dimensions required). Is there a specific setting we need to enable for weight-based rating to kick in, or are we missing something else that triggers the rates to appear?
When setting up the Shipping Zone, in Product Packing row you may select the “Pack items into one package derived from products” option. This will display a new row underneath where you can select “Total weight”. This will retrieve shipping estimates from ShipStation based on the total cart weight.
Glad you were able to get it working! Thank you again for the suggestion, clarification, and patience. We’ll go ahead and resolve this thread for now. Have a wonderful rest of your week!
