Simple Shipping Setup

Do you sell a digital product that also includes a physical bonus, like a signed print or a backup USB drive? Easy Digital Downloads is first and foremost built for selling digital products, which do not need shipping at all.

However, the Simple Shipping feature for Easy Digital Downloads lets you charge a flat shipping rate on any download. This means you can bundle a physical item with your digital files without switching to a separate cart system.

This guide will walk you through the steps to set up Simple Shipping in Easy Digital Downloads.

Note: Simple Shipping requires the Professional Pass or higher.

Before you get started, make sure Easy Digital Downloads is installed and activated.

You’ll also need to have installed the Simple Shipping feature and have at least 1 download product created.

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Setting the Global Shipping Options

To get started, we’ll set up the store-wide setting Simple Shipping uses to tell domestic orders apart from international ones.

From your WordPress admin sidebar, go to Downloads » Settings.

At the top of the Settings screen, select the Extensions tab.

Underneath the top-level tabs, a second row lists every extension with its own settings.

From that row, select Simple Shipping.

Base Region is your store’s home country. Customers shipping to this country pay your domestic shipping rate. Customers shipping anywhere else pay your international rate. Because this determines which rate applies, set it correctly before you adjust any shipping rates below.

From the Base Region dropdown, select your store’s home country.

By default, Easy Digital Downloads treats shipping as part of the purchase. Shipping fees are taxed using the same rules you already set up for your products. That means there’s nothing extra to set up for most stores.

If your local tax rules treat shipping differently, turn on Do not charge tax on shipping fees. When you’re done, select Save Changes.

With your global settings saved, you’re ready to turn on shipping for the individual products that need it.

Enabling Shipping for a Product

Shipping is off by default for every product, since most digital downloads don’t ship anything. Turn it on individually for any product that includes a physical item.

From your WordPress admin sidebar, go to Downloads » Downloads. From here, select the product you want to add shipping to.

On the product’s Details tab, scroll down to the Additional Details section. Turn on Enable shipping for this download.

Turning that on reveals 2 rate fields. Underneath the toggle, fill in a flat Domestic Rate for orders shipping to your Base Region, and a flat International Rate for everywhere else. Both are one-time flat fees, not calculated by weight or destination.

Once your rates are set, select Save to update the product.

Note: If a product has variable pricing turned on, each price variation gets its own Domestic Rate and International Rate fields. This means you can charge different shipping for different versions of the same product.

With your rates saved, you’re ready to see what Simple Shipping looks like from your customer’s side at checkout.

What Does Simple Shipping Look Like at Checkout?

Once a product has shipping enabled, Easy Digital Downloads adds a shipping line to the order summary automatically. No extra setup is needed on your end. The fee updates as soon as the customer enters their shipping country. Orders shipping to your Base Region get your domestic rate. Orders shipping anywhere else get your international rate.

Checkout also shows a Shipping Details section automatically for any order that includes a shipping-enabled product. No checkbox or extra click is needed to reveal it.

The customer fills this in before completing their purchase. The physical item then gets sent to the right place.

Returning customers see a slightly different version of this form. This applies if a customer is logged in and has ordered from your store before. Easy Digital Downloads shows a dropdown of their saved addresses instead of a blank form. They can pick a saved address or select the option to add a new one.

Note: If your checkout also collects a separate billing address, customers see a Ship to Different Address? checkbox instead. Checking it reveals this same shipping address form. This lets them send the physical item somewhere other than their billing address, like a gift for someone else.

With shipping now appearing at checkout, the next step is making sure each order actually gets shipped to your customer.

Marking Orders as Shipped and Adding Tracking Info

Every order that includes a shipping-enabled product needs to be fulfilled and marked as shipped on your end.

From your WordPress admin sidebar, go to Downloads » Orders. A Shipping column shows where each order stands. This lets you spot the ones that still need to go out.

Note: Shipping only applies to orders placed through your actual checkout. An order you create manually from the admin screen has no shipping fields at all, even for a shipping-enabled product.

From that list, open any order to see its details. In the Order Attributes panel, the Shipping Status field starts on Pending Shipment for every new order.

Under Order Details, select the Shipping tab to see the address your customer entered.

Just below it, the Tracking tab holds a Parcel Name field and a Tracking ID field for each package you send.

If you’re shipping an order in more than 1 package, select Add New Tracking ID to add another Parcel Name and Tracking ID pair. Each package gets its own tracking number.

Once you’ve shipped the order, fill in the tracking details. Then set Shipping Status to Shipped. Next, select Save Order.

Below the tracking fields sits a Send Tracking Info button. Once you’re ready to notify your customer, select it to email them the tracking details directly.

Beside the tracking number, a Track Parcel link opens the shipment’s tracking page on AfterShip, a third-party parcel tracking service. This means you and your customer can both check delivery status in the same place.

Note: The {shipping_fee} and {shipping_address} email tags aren’t limited to the tracking email. Add them to any Easy Digital Downloads email template, like the purchase receipt, if you want shipping details included there too.

Back on the Orders list, that order now shows a Shipped badge in the Shipping column.

That completes the cycle for a single order: mark it pending, add tracking, and notify the customer once it ships.

Managing Orders That Need Shipping

As your shipping orders add up, Easy Digital Downloads gives you a few tools to manage them without opening each order individually.

From your WordPress admin sidebar, go to Downloads » Orders. From there, select More to reveal additional filters.

The Orders list shows every order by default. Turn on Only show orders with shipping to hide the ones that don’t need it.

Under the same Shipping heading, 3 status options control which of those orders appear:

• Any shipping status: the default option. Shipped and unshipped orders both stay in the list.
• Shipment Pending: choose this when you’re working through what still needs to go out.
• Shipped: choose this when you’re checking what has already been sent.

To mark several orders as shipped at once, select the checkboxes next to each order. From the Bulk actions dropdown, choose Set as Shipped. Then select Apply.

A CSV export puts every order still waiting to ship into a single file. This is useful for packing a batch of orders away from your computer, or for handing the list to whoever ships them for you.

From your WordPress admin sidebar, go to Downloads » Reports.

From here, select the Export tab.

Next, find the Export Unshipped Orders panel.

Inside that panel, a dropdown controls which unshipped orders are included. This filters by payment status, not shipping status, since every order in this export is already unshipped.

All Orders is selected by default and includes every unshipped order regardless of payment status, which works for most stores. If you want to leave out unshipped orders whose payment hasn’t gone through yet, choose Completed Orders Only instead. Then select Generate CSV to download the list.

With these tools in place, you’re ready to see the whole workflow from a customer’s point of view.

Testing Simple Shipping

Before relying on Simple Shipping for real orders, place a test purchase of a shipping-enabled product yourself. As you do, confirm the shipping line item appears at the correct rate.

From there, walk through marking that test order as shipped and sending yourself the tracking email. This way, you’ll know exactly what your customers will see.

That’s it! Your digital products can now charge shipping for any physical items bundled with them. You have everything you need to fulfill and track those orders. Next, see Email Setup and Configuration to customize the emails your customers receive.

FAQs About EDD Simple Shipping