WooCommerce: Set Default Shipping Class For All Products

Manually assigning a shipping class to each product can be tedious and time-consuming. Here’s where default product shipping classes come to the rescue!

This code tutorial will show you how to set a default shipping class for your products in WooCommerce without the need to access the “edit product” WordPress admin page to pick an option from the shipping class dropdown.

Enjoy!

Imagine you have thousands of products and you have no intention of manually setting the shipping class for all of them, one by one. the snippet below will help you set the default shipping class for all products, unless otherwise specified!

PHP Snippet: Programmatically Set The Shipping Class For All WooCommerce Products

Note: you will need to know the shipping class ID before using the code below. There are two ways to find the shipping class ID in WooCommerce:

1. WooCommerce Settings

2. Edit Product Page

  • This method involves using your browser’s developer tools once again.
  • Open the Edit Product page for any product.
  • Locate the Product data meta box and navigate to the Shipping tab.
  • Right-click on the Shipping class dropdown element and select Inspect (or Inspect Element).
  • In the developer tools window, look for the value attribute associated with the selected shipping class option. This value is the shipping class ID.
/**
 * @snippet       Default Shipping Class @ Woo Products
 * @tutorial      Get CustomizeWoo.com FREE
 * @author        Rodolfo Melogli
 * @compatible    WooCommerce 8
 * @community     Join https://businessbloomer.com/club/
 */

add_filter( 'woocommerce_product_get_shipping_class_id', 'bbloomer_default_product_shipping_class', 9999, 2 );
 
function bbloomer_default_product_shipping_class( $value, $product ) {
   $value = $value ? $value : 44; // default to shipping class ID = 44
   return $value;
}

Where to add custom code?

You should place custom PHP in functions.php and custom CSS in style.css of your child theme: where to place WooCommerce customization?

This code still works, unless you report otherwise. To exclude conflicts, temporarily switch to the Storefront theme, disable all plugins except WooCommerce, and test the snippet again: WooCommerce troubleshooting 101

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Rodolfo Melogli

Business Bloomer Founder

Author, WooCommerce expert and WordCamp speaker, Rodolfo has worked as an independent WooCommerce freelancer since 2011. His goal is to help entrepreneurs and developers overcome their WooCommerce nightmares. Rodolfo loves travelling, chasing tennis & soccer balls and, of course, wood fired oven pizza. Follow @rmelogli

2 thoughts on “WooCommerce: Set Default Shipping Class For All Products

  1. Hi Rodolfo! Could you please clarify on this? Does this code replace the “No Shipping Class” in the cart with the chosen shipping class?

    I initially thought that it would set the default Shipping Class on the products to a specific one so that all products that were unassigned would be automatically assigned the Class I wanted. It doesn’t seem to do that and it also doesn’t seem to change the Default Shipping Class for new products created either.

    Thank you

    1. Hey Kat! This will not change the “display” i.e. the select dropdown chosen option. Instead, it will “set” the shipping class to whatever shipping class ID you wish, whenever it’s needed e.g. on the Cart page. Does this help?

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