Brexit, Northern Ireland and WooCommerce Shipping Zones

Resources

This use-case will focus on the recent changes (as at January 2021) related to Brexit, specifically in terms of configuring different shipping zones in WooCommerce for Nothern Ireland. These shipping zones will focus on Nothern Ireland’s counties, rather than using wildcard shipping zones.

For more in-depth information on how Brexit affects WooCommerce stores, please review the following guides first:

• The WooCommerce Store Owners Guide
• The Developers guide to Changes in the Core WooCommerce Code

Scenario

John, a shop owner based in London sells custom motorbikes to the Republic of Ireland. Due to the recent changes in duties & tarrifs in Brexit, John needs to configure a separate shipping zone for Northern Ireland due to the following reasons:

1. Not all of his regular shipping providers currently cover Northern Ireland;
2. The costs associated with shipping to Northern Ireland are significantly different that the rest of the United Kingdom

Requirements

For this use-case, the following extensions are needed:

• Shipping Locations Pro – Used for adding the states/locations for the whole of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland.

Configuration

Creating a New Shipping Zone for Northern Ireland

1. Log in to the WordPress admin area
2. Ensure that Shipping Locations Pro is installed & active
3. Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping
4. Select Add shipping zone
5. In the Zone name field, enter “Northern Ireland”
6. In the Zone regionsfield, select the following states:
   1. County Antrim
   2. County Armagh
   3. County Down
   4. County Londonderry
   5. County Fermanagh
   6. County Tyrone
7. Select Save changes

Adding a New Shipping Method for Northern Ireland

1. Using the same shipping zone that was just created, select Add shipping method
2. In the lightbox popup area, select Flat rate
3. Once added, hover over the new shipping method and select Edit
4. Change the Method title to Regular Shipping
5. Add a Cost of £5
6. Repeat steps #1 – #5, adding as many applicable shipping methods for Northern Ireland as you see fit.

The shipping methods listed above are for illustrative purposes only. For actual shipping rates based on the number, size and weight of the products in the cart, please use a shipping rate calculator extension like Royal Mail.

Result

When configured correctly, the results are illustrated below:

Regular Shipping