The problem while currently checking out of your Woocommerce shop, the Woocommerce plugin only provides limited options for billing/shipping information;
- Country dropdown (Level one)
- State dropdown (Level two)
- Text field for a city. (Level three)
- Zip code field.
- And an open ended address field where one has to type
TL:DR Would rather watch the video
Unfortunately, the way shop owners make deliveries or bill commerce items requires more context in terms of the billing and shipping address. In certain parts of the World, only one zip code is supplied for a whole country e.g. Uganda is 00256, Kenya is 00254 while the US will have a zip to a smaller geographical mapping like Beverly Hills – 90210.
If Woocommerce enabled break down of geographical mappings to about 4 “select-able” levels deep from the Country level, this would make admin and customer experiences better. Currently, you need a myriad of plugins to make this possible or completely opt for another solution.
However, customers are unpredictable and will not always give you the right information in the address field. Inputting addresses needs some guidelines since addresses are rigid in nature.
The address needs to be correct otherwise, the client will be angry at undelivered items and the shop owner will suffer bad reviews for poor/no delivery and lose money in the end.
The Solution
Locations Creator is a new Zero/Less Code Custom Plugin extending Woocommerce to allow Shop Admins to improve customer experience whereas making deliveries of items better. This is achievable by providing more context to their billing/shipping locations for shop admins.
How is Locations Creator solving this?
An admin interface
On installing the Locations Creator plugin, we have introduced a sub-page in the Woocommerce admin page to allow one to add
- Bew countries like Abkhazia that have never been listed.
- Multiple states to existing countries
- Multiple cities to new and existing states.
In the same interface, you are also provided with a delete section to edit/remove the new country, states or cities.
A quick select user interface
For the user, we have made the choice of location more modular so they choose the provided locations from the admin area.
Works with the Pre-existing locations
Locations Creator for Woocommerce by default works with the pre-existing locations defined in the Woocommerce plugin. However, a filter hook will be introduced in the next release to ignore the pre-existing locations for advanced users and only use the new locations you provide in the admin section. If you desire this as a switch on/toggle option, please let us know by clicking the button below.
Upcoming Features
- Add fourth level location i.e. villages which are a subset of cities.
- Adding new locations as shipping zones
- Disable/disregard pre-existing locations
- New Action and Filter hooks
- Deleting multiple locations at once
We really hope this a plugin that will make your e-commerce experience the best ever yet. We have a road map that you can checkout on what we plan for the upcoming versions. Let us know what you think.