Flat rate discount
If you want to apply shipping discounts or just partially override the shipping cost when the customer is using a specific coupon in WooCommerce you can do so with Advanced Coupons and the shipping overrides feature.
Let’s give an example, let’s say you have a Shipping Zone for the United States (US) region and a Flat rate that cost of $20. And, you want to give them a discount of $10 when the coupon is used.
On the coupon settings, you can find the Shipping Overrides feature at the bottom-most part.
Tick Enable Shipping Overrides before you set anything else up. Its description reads “When checked, shipping costs will be overridden based on the settings below when this coupon is applied.” Until you tick it, the zone and method table is greyed out and you cannot use it.
First, select the Shipping Zone (United States), then the Shipping Method (Flat rate). Then choose the type of discount you want to apply to the coupon.
You can choose any type of discount that you prefer, just make sure that the value of the discount is correct.
You can also click Add Shipping Override to cover more shipping zones and methods on the same coupon. Each row you add is discounted when the customer selects that method.
Please note that you can only apply this feature on shipping methods that have cost.
And that’s it! When your customer uses the coupon, the Flat rate shipping (United States) should apply the appropriate discount to their cart!
Shipping class support
Since Advanced Coupon for WooCommerce 2.4, we now support shipping classes for the shipping overrides coupon. If you’ve added a shipping class to your shipping setup, now it’ll be available in the shipping override coupon.
So for example, if you’ve set a Flat rate cost for $20 and a shipping class cost for a Bulky for $30. Then you created a shipping override coupon for the Bulky class for 20%.
So when a customer add product with Bulky shipping class to the cart, the shipping cost would be $50 and the shipping discount for them is $15. It’s because it adds the total discount for the Flat rate (10%) and Bulky shipping class (20%), so $50 * 30% = $15.
Choose how the shipping discount is applied
By default the discount comes off the shipping cost itself, so the customer sees a reduced shipping line. Advanced Coupons Premium can instead leave the shipping cost as quoted and put the discount on the coupon line. A site-wide setting controls this. For the full rundown of the setting and how it works across features, see How to set the discount application mode.
- Go to Coupons → Settings.
- Click the General tab.
- Pick an option under Shipping Overrides discount application mode.
The setting saves as soon as you pick an option, so there is no separate save button. It only appears while the Shipping Overrides module is enabled.
There are two options:
- Price modification reduces the shipping cost directly. This is the default, and it is how Shipping Overrides has always behaved. The cart shows the discounted shipping amount on the shipping line.
- Coupon amount keeps the shipping cost exactly as the shipping method quoted it, and applies the discount to the coupon total instead. The discount then shows on the coupon line and is included in coupon reporting.
In Coupon amount mode the coupon row on the cart and checkout gains a breakdown line reading Shipping discount (Flat rate): with the discounted amount, using the name of the shipping method the customer selected. That breakdown appears on the classic cart and checkout pages and on the Cart and Checkout blocks. Only the shipping method the customer has actually chosen is counted.
Shipping tax is reduced by the same proportion as the discount in both modes, so the customer pays the same shipping tax either way. Only where the discount is displayed and recorded changes.
Switching modes clears WooCommerce’s cached shipping rates, so existing carts re-quote shipping on the next page load rather than showing stale amounts.
This setting needs Advanced Coupons Premium 4.0.9 together with Advanced Coupons for WooCommerce Free 4.7.5. If Premium is running alongside an older free version, Shipping Overrides falls back to Price modification.
Need help?
If you have a question or run into any issues, we’re here to help.
- Premium users: Open a support ticket
- Free users: Visit our community forum on WordPress.org
