KeenToDesign Shipping with Australia Post for WooCommerce

A simple, lightweight shipping plugin that connects your WooCommerce store directly to Australia Post so your customers automatically see real shipping prices at checkout. No manual rate tables, no guessing.

What it does in plain terms

When a customer adds items to their cart and enters their delivery address at checkout, the plugin quietly contacts the Australia Post API in the background, tells it the total weight and size of the order and where it needs to go, and Australia Post sends back the exact price. That price is then shown to the customer as a shipping option, live, accurate, and automatic.

No more overcharging customers on shipping. No more absorbing losses because your flat rate was too low. Just the real Australia Post price, every time.

What the customer sees

At checkout, instead of a flat “Shipping: $10.00”, they see real options like:

• Australia Post Parcel Post ($8.50) 3 to 5 business days
• Australia Post Express Post ($14.20) 1 to 2 business days

You can rename these to anything you like, for example “Standard Delivery” and “Express Delivery”, so it looks professional and on-brand.

What you control as the store owner

• Which services to offer Parcel Post, Express Post, or both. International services too if you ship overseas.
• Service renaming Show “Standard Delivery” instead of “Parcel Post” so customers understand what they are choosing.
• A handling fee Add a flat amount on top of every rate, for example $2.00 for packaging. You can also use a negative number to discount.
• A fallback rate If Australia Post cannot return a price for some reason, show a fixed rate instead so customers can still checkout.
• GST Optionally strip the 10% GST from the rates if WooCommerce is already adding tax separately.
• Delivery time display Show or hide the estimated delivery days next to each option.
• Debug mode See exactly what the plugin is sending to Australia Post and what it gets back, useful for troubleshooting.

How it handles products with no dimensions set

If a product in your store does not have weight or size data entered, the plugin uses a set of default dimensions you configure so it never breaks at checkout and always returns a rate.

Best suited for

This plugin works best for small to medium sized items that can fit in a single parcel or satchel. It is ideal for stores selling:

• Books and stationery
• Clothing and apparel
• Accessories and jewellery
• Cosmetics and beauty products
• Homewares and gifts
• Electronics and small gadgets
• Toys and games
• Art prints and posters
• Phone cases and tech accessories
• Supplements and health products
• Pet accessories and supplies
• Candles and skincare products
• Baby clothing and accessories
• Craft supplies and hobby items
• Greeting cards and gift wrap
• DVDs, Blu-rays and media
• Sunglasses and eyewear
• Bags and wallets
• Socks, underwear and activewear
• Kitchen utensils and small cookware
• Sports accessories like water bottles, resistance bands and gym gloves
• Music accessories like picks, strings and small instruments
• Office supplies and desk accessories

Basically if it fits in a standard Australia Post satchel or a small to medium parcel box, this plugin will calculate the rate accurately.

It is not recommended for large or bulky items such as furniture, whitegoods or oversized equipment.

Technical basics

• Rates are cached for 15 minutes so it does not hammer the Australia Post API on every page load
• The cache clears automatically whenever you save your settings
• Requires a free API key from Australia Post, takes a few minutes to register at developers.auspost.com.au
• No subscription fees. The plugin only contacts the Australia Post API to fetch live rates (see “External services” below).
• Compatible with WooCommerce shipping zones, add it to any zone including international zones
• Supports WooCommerce High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS)
• Works with WooCommerce block-based checkout

External services

This plugin connects to the Australia Post Postage Assessment Calculator (PAC) API, an external service operated by Australia Post, to obtain live shipping rates for domestic and international parcels. Without this connection the plugin cannot calculate rates, which is the plugin’s core function.

What is sent and when:

• The plugin sends a request to the Australia Post API every time a customer reaches the checkout (or cart) page and a shipping calculation is required, except when a cached result from the last 15 minutes can be used.
• The data sent in each request is: the origin postcode (configured by the store owner), the destination postcode and country (entered by the customer at checkout), and the package weight, length, width, and height (calculated from the cart contents, falling back to the configured default dimensions when a product has none).
• The Australia Post API key (configured by the store owner) is sent in the AUTH-KEY HTTP request header to authenticate the request.
• No customer name, email address, street address, IP address, or other personal identifier is sent.

The endpoints used are:

• https://digitalapi.auspost.com.au/postage/parcel/domestic/calculate.json for domestic shipments
• https://digitalapi.auspost.com.au/postage/parcel/international/calculate.json for international shipments

This service is provided by Australia Post. By using this plugin you agree to the following Australia Post documents, which are linked here for your reference:

• Australia Post Terms and Conditions: https://auspost.com.au/terms-conditions
• Australia Post API Licence Terms of Use: https://auspost.com.au/content/dam/auspost_corp/media/documents/api-licence-terms-of-use.pdf
• Australia Post Privacy Statement: https://auspost.com.au/privacy