Description

WooCommerce New Zealand Post Shipping

Obtain rates via the NZ Post API
The New Zealand Post Group offers services to help New Zealand run, connecting people, businesses and communities. This plugin lets you offer New Zealand Post rates to your customers which are pulled directly from their API.

The extension requires that your store uses NZ Dollars currency and New Zealand as the base country. It primarily works with mm and kg, but other units can be converted automatically.

NZ Post can calculate rates worldwide, or domestic:
Other features:
Enable/disable, edit the names of, and add costs to services.
Pack items individually or using the built in box packer.

Installation
Upload the plugin folder to the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory.
Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
Thats it – you can now configure the plugin.
Configuration ↑ Back to Top
Once the plugin has been activated, go to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping Methods. The method will be listed at the top of the screen, underneath the tabs. Click on ‘New Zealand Post’.

WooCommerce New Zealand Shipping – Settings

You can now configure the method:

Enable/Disable – Choose whether to enable the shipping method of not.
Method Title – Name the shipping method. This will be visibile by customers.
Origin Postcode – This should be set to the postcode from which you will ship. It is sent to the NZ Post API.
Method Availability – This setting lets you narrow down the countries which can get quotes. Leave set to All Countries to have it available for all customers.
API Settings –
API Key – NZ Post will provide you with an API key after you signup for their API services. Enter this here – it is required.
Debug Mode – Enable debug mode to show debugging information on your cart/checkout.
Rates and Services – These settings control the services and rates you offer customers.
Parcel Packing Method – See below.
Offer Rates – Choose to return all rates (user will get the choice) or just return a single rate.
Services – Here you can rename, and re-order, NZ Post shipping rates.
WooCommerce New Zealand Shipping – All Settings
New Zealand Post Settings

Parcel Packing Method
There are 2 packing methods with NZ Post; each affects the parcels you send to the API.

Pack items individually (Default)

Each item in your cart (non virtual) will be sent to the NZ Post API. Quotes for all items will be combined for the final cost.

Pack into boxes with weights and dimensions (Recommended)

Items will be packed into pre-defined boxes and sent to the API. We recommend this option. See box-packing below for more information on this.

Box-Packing
The box packer included with this shipping method lets you group items into packages of which you define the height, width, length, weight and max-weight. The packing is mainly volume based, but does also consider item sizes too.

The box packer is volume based. This will in most cases provide good results, but will never be as accurate as a real person packing a box (see BIN Packing Problem) therefore it is important you understand that packing results are as accurate as they can be and any anomalies should be accepted.
Setting up box sizes

Within the settings, look for the boxes setting. Click ‘add box’ to set up the boxes dimensions:

Outer dimensions are used for parcel dimensions and are passed to the API.
Inner dimensions are used for packing, and items will be fit within these.
Box weight is the weight of the actual box, and will be added to the weight of the contents.
Max weight is the maximum weight your box can hold. This includes contents weight and box weight.
Box Settings
Box Settings
How the calculation works

The packer does the following:

Finds boxes which fit the items being packed (uses H x W x D).
Packs all fitting items into boxes (using volume).
The largest box which fits 100% of items is used *or* use the highest % packed box, and then pass unpacked items back (and repeat the process)
Unpackable items are packed alone, using the item dimensions.
All packed boxes are returned.

Customer Usage
Customers will get quotes (after inputting their address) from two places;

The cart page – by using the shipping calculator
The checkout page – by filling in the shipping and billing forms
Rates can be selected by customers as normal.

Troubleshooting
No rates returned/no rates available

Enable debug mode to see debugging information on the cart page. This will often reveal the problem.
Check your products have sizes and weights set – without this the calculation cannot be performed.
Check your store’s base country is New Zealand and that your using NZ Dollars (from WooCommerce > Settings > General).
The plugin needs to be able to talk to NZ Post API. For this it uses wp_remote_post which makes use of fsockopen/CURL.