Blog > Last mile delivery

8 WooCommerce plugins to optimise your deliveries

Published on 9 August 2023 • Reading time: 7 min read

Internet users are more and more demanding from online shops, especially when it comes to shipping their purchases. From shorter and shorter delivery times, to free or cheap delivery, to the choice of time slot, nothing is too good for consumers, who now expect a 5-star delivery experience.

If you manage your website with WooCommerce, you may have noticed that the native delivery features are regularly enhanced. Depending on your business model, some extensions remain essential to prevent disputes and keep your profitability.
These 8 plugins can help you optimise your logistics processes and satisfy your customers.

1. WooCommerce Advanced Shipping
2. Iconic Delivery Slots for WooCommerce
3. WooCommerce Local Delivery Date Picker, Time Slots & Route Optimization by AntsRoute
4. Order Delivery Date Pro for WooCommerce
5. WooCommerce Delivery & Pickup Date Time
6. Order Delivery for WooCommerce
7. Estimated Delivery Date Per Product for WooCommerce
8. Advanced Shipment Tracking for WooCommerce

WooCommerce plugins are essential for optimising delivery processes. For transport companies and online retailers, this is the guarantee of optimising their logistics processes and satisfying consumer expectations.

WooCommerce Advanced Shipping

WC Advanced Shipping is a safe bet in the WooCommerce environment. The plugin works according to a conditional logic. In other words, you can fine-tune your shipping rates based on 3 types of information:

• Conditions relating to the buyer’s address: postal code, country, state, customised delivery areas, etc.
• Conditions relating to the product: weight, volume, category, stock, etc.
• Conditions relating to the basket: subtotal before or after tax, number of products, discount, total weight of the package, etc.

This plugin would be very useful if your shop sells heavy or bulky products, or if you combine several shipping methods like:

• Pick-up at a pick-up point or home delivery in some areas.
• Optional express shipping.
• Free delivery over a certain amount, on the whole shop or on certain products only.
• Shipping costs that vary according to several criteria (weight, volume, shipping method, etc.).

Good to know: the developer of this extension, Jeroen Sormani, offers a free version on WordPress.org, WooCommerce Advanced Free Shipping, or a premium version, for sale for example on Envato Market.

Iconic Delivery Slots for WooCommerce

This plugin is aimed at online shops, but also at businesses that make local deliveries such as restaurants. Designed for demanding users looking for a high-performance solution and support, this paid plugin is sold from $129 per year per website.

Depending on your business, you can offer your customers to book a time slot before or after the payment stage. For example, if you prepare different menus every day, the customer will only be able to order the dishes available on the pre-selected date.
The delivery or pick-up booking board is fully customisable:

• Impossible to schedule a shipment on a closed day, or after a given time if you offer same-day or next-day delivery.
• Limiting the number of orders per day or period to avoid work overload.
• Flexible delivery charges according to time slots.
• Special rates for same-day or next-day delivery, or during peak seasons (Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas, etc.).
• Customisation according to the design of your website, etc.

To facilitate the organisation of your teams, the extension also includes a summary table of shipments to be prepared, which can be sorted according to different criteria.

Good to know: using this extension, you can combine the usual WooCommerce delivery system and deliveries or pickups at your local shop.

WooCommerce Local Delivery Date Picker, Time Slots & Route Optimization by AntsRoute

This plugin, which is quite different from the previous solutions, is aimed either at retailers who manage all or part of their deliveries in-house, or at local carriers who make deliveries for online sales sites. It works together with AntsRoute, a route optimization solution that saves you time and limits the number of kilometres driven.

The objective of the extension is to make the exchange of information between the e-commerce site and AntsRoute as smooth as possible, so that all the benefits of the software can be enjoyed effortlessly:

• Automated scheduling of complex routes in just a few minutes.
• All-in-one solution including your favourite navigation application (Waze or Google Maps).
• The end customer can choose a delivery time slot online, and even reschedule his appointment on his own.
• Automated confirmation emails or SMS messages, including the estimated time of arrival of the delivery driver, if desired.
• Geolocation of the delivery driver in real time.
• Complete and customisable delivery reports including photos, comments, electronic signature, etc.

With AntsRoute, you can schedule pick-up or delivery routes in Europe, Africa, North and South America. The solution is currently available in 4 languages: French, German, English and Spanish.

Good to know: we provide the AntsRoute plugin for WooCommerce for free to companies that subscribe to our route optimisation software.
To make sure that AntsRoute meets your needs and start a trial, contact us.

Order Delivery Date Pro for WooCommerce

This extension, available in a premium version from $149 per year per website, helps you reduce shopping cart abandonment rates by providing your customers with a reliable and accurate delivery time. To provide your customers with an exact time slot without disrupting your team, you can set up custom rules based on the:

• Products or product categories.
• Pick-up or storage sites.
• Carriers (Colissimo, DHL, UPS, etc.).
• Package preparation and dispatch times, which may differ from the opening days of your shop.

This plugin also allows you to set up local pick-up points and send automated reminder emails to your customers, to reduce the first visit failure rate.

Good to know: Order Delivery Date for WooCommerce is available in a free version if you want to test it for free. But you will need to subscribe to the paid version to benefit from advanced features such as locking holiday periods and bank holidays, or bidirectional synchronisation with Google Calendar.

WooCommerce Delivery & Pickup Date Time

Delivery & Pickup Date Time is a very popular plugin in the WooCommerce environment, as it currently has over 7000 active installations.
If you choose the free version, your customers can access your delivery or pick-up schedule on the payment page and leave special instructions. You will also be able to set up nearby pick-up points and keep your customers updated of any schedule changes.

However, the pro version offers many additional features. You will be able to:

• Define delivery rules based on product category, quantity or basket amount.
• Limit the number of operations per day.
• Give your customers the choice between home delivery and in-store pick-up.
• Customise your delivery or pick-up slots.
• Download your delivery reports in Excel format.
• Synchronise your order data with Google Calendar, etc.

Good to know: in its pro version, this plugin offers you an excellent features/price ratio, as it is sold for $50 per year for 1 website.

Order Delivery for WooCommerce

This extension was developed by Themesquad, the team behind AWeber, another popular automation tool in the WordPress universe.
Available for $129 per year, Order Delivery for WooCommerce allows your customers to choose a delivery date and time slot in a very intuitive way, while respecting the criteria set up beforehand by each retailer such as:

• The maximum number of orders your team can handle each day or over a given period.
• Shipping or delivery options.
• Public holidays in each geographical area, etc.

Thanks to this plugin, you can also easily apply additional fees on certain options such as evening or weekend delivery, and send automated messages by email to your customers.

Good to know: This plugin benefits from extensive integration with WooCommerce Subscriptions, a very useful extension if you sell recurring products like boxes or subscriptions.

Estimated Delivery Date Per Product for WooCommerce

The name of this plugin leaves no doubt about its purpose and the promise is kept, as it allows you to communicate the delivery date of products all over your site, and in multiple ways.

Using Estimated delivery date per product, you can display an estimated delivery time or date:

• On the product page.
• In the shopping cart.
• On the checkout page.
• In the order confirmation email.
• In the order summary available in the customer account, etc.

You can also configure the dynamic calculation of the delivery time or date at different levels: by product, by category, with a specific date for products being restocked, or with a single date for the entire shopping basket.
The publisher offers multiple options for customising the delivery time display:

• Matching colours and fonts of your WordPress theme.
• Customisation of the dispatch message.
• Display of the estimated deadline in different ways: in 3 days, between 5 and 7 days, on 12 April, between 3 and 7 September, etc.

Good to know: you can import and export specific delivery dates in bulk using the corresponding WooCommerce feature.

Advanced Shipment Tracking for WooCommerce

This package tracking plugin will be useful for you to easily send your customers accurate and up-to-date information about the progress of their order. After downloading and setting up Advanced Shipment Tracking for WooCommerce, you will be able to:

• Send your customers personalised emails, including all shipping information and a link to the carrier’s tracking page.
• Easily integrate all the information your customers need into the customer account: name of the carrier, tracking number, date and time of shipment, etc.
• Automatically update the labels indicating the status of the order in the customer account: “completed”, “shipped” or “partially shipped” if the order is divided into several shipments.
• Export the shipment tracking data directly to Paypal, in order to quickly release the payment.

The extension includes more than 300 carriers and dispatchers, including DHL, UPS, Colissimo, DPD, etc.

Good to know: The free version of this extension already provides very good services. However, a paid version exists for the most demanding professionals, at a price of $129 per year.