How To Offer Time Slots Based on the Postcode/Zipcode/Shipping Zone

Your store’s delivery or collection schedule might need to be adapted to suit your needs. For example, if you have hyper-local customers, and some that are further away, you might want to set separate time slots to accommodate them.

Either that or, you might want to offer time slots to customers who live within a certain shipping zone.

With WooCommerce Delivery Slots, you can use your shipping zones within WooCommerce (which include postcodes, zipcodes, and regions), coupled with your time slots to create an entirely customized delivery or collection schedule.

Note: If your shipping method settings look different from the ones below, you can check the official WooCommerce shipping method documentation here.

We’ll go through all these steps below, but if you prefer video, you can watch here:

How to set up time slots based on postcode/zipcode/regional shipping zones

Shipping zones in WooCommerce allow you to set up different delivery or collection methods based on postcodes, zipcodes, and regions. 

For the purposes of this guide, we’re going to show you how to set up a shipping zone based on specific postcodes; those that live in the postcode area beginning with “AB”. Then we’ll apply this to your time slots.

To do this, take the following steps:

Set Up Shipping Zones and Methods in WooCommerce

  1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to WooCommerce > Settings and click on the Shipping tab.shipping tab
  2. Click Add shipping zone.add shipping zone
  3. Once done, a page will appear allowing you to add your shipping zone information.add shipping zone information
  4. Give your shipping zone a name in the Zone name field. In this case, we’ll call it UK – AB.name your zone
  5. Next, in the Zone regions section, select a region you want to restrict your time slot to. In our case, we’ll select the United Kingdom.
  6. After this, click the Limit to specific ZIP/postcode text under this field. This will allow you to get more specific in terms of what postcodes or zipcodes you want to restrict this shipping zone/your time slot to.
  7. In this case, we’re going to put AB*. This will restrict this shipping zone to postcodes beginning with AB. See the WooCommerce documentation for more info on what you can add here.postcode restriction example
  8. Next, we’ll add our shipping method. In this case, we’ll add Flat rate. This is the standard method for delivery.shipping method example
  9. This should automatically save, but if not, click the blue Save Changes at the bottom of your page.

Assign Shipping Zones to Time Slots

Once happy with your shipping zones, we’ll then assign these to your time slots. This means, when your customer selects a shipping method at checkout from one of the zones you’ve created, they’ll only see time slots that are available for that specific shipping zone/method.

  1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to WooCommerce > Delivery Slots and click on the Time Settings tab.Time settings example
  2. Once here, scroll down to the Time Slot Configuration section and view your Time Slots. If you’ve not set these up yet, see our documentation for more details.add time slots
  3. Within your Time slots, you’ll see the Shipping Methods section. Here you’ll be able to select which shipping method you’d like to apply to each timeslot by clicking the checkbox next to it.set time slot for shipping method
  4. Once happy, click the blue Save Changes button at the bottom of the page and your time slots will be updated.

How to set up time slots for delivery and collection based on shipping zones

If your store is looking to offer both delivery and collection, you might want to set up separate time slots to accommodate both. If this is the case, you can use shipping zones coupled with your time slots to achieve this.

In this example, we’re going to set up one UK-wide shipping zone with two separate shipping methods. One flat rate for delivery and one for local pickup.

To achieve this, take the following steps:

Set Up Zone-Based Delivery and Collection Methods in WooCommerce

  1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to WooCommerce > Settings and click on the Shipping tab.shipping tab
  2. Click Add shipping zone.add shipping zone
  3. Once done, a page will appear allowing you to add your shipping zone information.add shipping zone information
  4. In this case, we’re going to call this shipping zone Local and set the region to the United Kingdom.Local shipping method exampleUK shipping zone
  5. Next, we’ll add two shipping methods, Flat rate, and Local pickupLocal pickup method
  6. Once happy, click the blue Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.

This setup means that anyone in the UK can either select Flat rate or Local pickup at the checkout. 

If you wanted to restrict local pickup to certain ZIP/postcodes, you could create a different shipping zone. One that covers local ZIP/postcodes with Local pickup as the shipping method. You could then create a different shipping zone to cover delivery.

Now we have our shipping zone set up, we’ll next want to add these shipping methods to our time slots.

To do this, take the following steps:

Assign Time Slots to Delivery/Collection Shipping Methods

  1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to WooCommerce > Delivery Slots and click on the Time Settings tab.Time settings example
  2. Once here, scroll down to the Time Slot Configuration section and view your Time Slots. If you’ve not set these up yet, see our documentation for more details.add time slots
  3. Within your Time slots, you’ll see the Shipping Methods section. Here you’ll be able to select which shipping method you’d like to apply to each time slot by clicking the checkbox. In this case, we want one of our time slots to cover Local pickup and the others to cover Flat rate.Select local pick up
  4. Once happy, click the blue Save Changes button at the bottom of the page and your time slots will be updated.
example of time slots in action

WooCommerce Delivery Slots

Choose a delivery date and time for each order. Add a limit to the number of allowed reservations, restrict time slots to specific delivery methods, and so much more.

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