ELTA Courier Shipping Costs for WooCommerce - Shipping Calculators Greece

This plugin extension for WooCommerce allows fast and accurate calculation of shipping costs for the Greek courier company ELTA Courier.

You can view screenshots from the plugin by clicking here.

download

After purchasing a subscription to this product, visit the download section to get the latest version of this plugin extension.

install

Complete step-by-step instructions on how to install and configure the plugin extension are available.

Instructions

support

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accurately calculates shipping costs

Accurately calculates shipping costs for all the domestic and international services offered by the company.
Knows about the company’s extra services and lets you choose which ones to apply.

✅ If customer chooses Cash-on-Delivery as payment method, it is charged extra in the shipping costs, when available.

domestic services

Domestic:
- Door-Door / Point-to-Door / Door-to-Point.
- Within the city / between cities / hard-to-reach areas / island destinations / Crete.
Domestic Same Day:
- Within Athens.
- Within Thessaloniki.
- Between Athens and Patras.
Domestic Courier with Prepaid Envelope.

✅ For same day delivery, you don’t have to enter any zone data manually. City zones are calculated on the fly based on PO box codes (TK).

✅ For other domestic deliveries, the plugin extension detects automatically city boundaries, hard-to-reach villages, and islands. Hard-to-reach remote villages are identified from user input using a curated database of these villages that can be matched against nominatim-geocoded addresses.

✅ The plugin extension understands addresses given by the customer in English, Greek or Greeklish. It uses geocoding to understand destinations correctly, even in cases where there are typos or simple errors in the provided addresses.

✅ You can select which product shipping classes can go into Prepaid Envelopes. The plugin extension will check the product volumes to ensure that shipment fits into an envelope. Shipping with envelopes offers very competitive shipping costs, compared to shipping parcels.

international services

Express Mail Service (EMS)
Special Priority Mail (SPM) Air
Special Priority Mail (SPM) Road/Economy
Fast Parcel Cyprus (FPC) Air freight
Fast Parcel Cyprus (FPC) Ocean freight

✅ For all international shipping methods, you don’t have to enter any zone data manually. Country zones are computed based on the country selected at checkout.

✅ You don’t need to worry about when to apply VAT on shipping costs. The plugin extension will instruct WooCommerce to add VAT only when it should. Simply follow closely the installation instructions on how to setup shipping tax.

✅ You can select countries that you wish to disable for each shipping method. By default, countries currently at war are disabled.

packaging

The plugin extension uses product dimensions and weights to place all the products of an order into one or more boxes, using a fast 3D placement algorithm.

✅ The boxes available for packaging can be configured by the shop manager.

✅ By default, the available boxes are the cardboard boxes sold by ELTA Courier.

✅ The weight used for cost calculations is either Volumetric or Real, as appropriate in each situation. For example, EMS only uses Real weights and the plugin extension knows this.

✅ Product dimensions and weights can be entered in any type of units. They are converted to cm and kg for use in the calculations.

extra services

The plugin extension knows what extra services are applicable for each available shipping method and how much they cost.

✅ The shop manager can choose the applicable extra services for each shipping method.

✅ Only the extra services applicable to e-commerce are available.

✅ Extra services that are not compatible with the order are not available: For example, Cash-on-Delivery is not applicable for SPM if the cart total is over €3.000.

✅ Extra services that have to be applied necessarily are applied automatically: For example, a surcharge for over-sized packages is automatically applied if the shipment is over 70kg.

fee customization

The shop manager can apply extra shipping fees or shipping cost discounts.
The shop manager can specify free shipping for orders with a cart subtotal that is over a set amount.

✅ Extra fees and discounts can be set for each shipping method independently.

✅ Extra fees and discounts can be specified as a fixed amount or as a percentage of the shipping costs subtotal.

reporting

The shop manager can view details on how the shipping costs were calculated for an order: Geographic details about the shop address and the destination address, packaging information (box types and contents), weight totals per box, and other information that went into the calculation are all available via the order admin screen in WooCommerce.

✅ The plugin extension also displays a helpful legend to help understand what this information is and how it was used.

warnings

The shop manager is warned if the WooCommerce settings are not compatible with the plugin extension. Multiple checks ensure that all available information is entered correctly, including the shop address, shipping taxes, exchange rates, etc. This catches a lot of potential errors that can occur while installing the plugin extension.

✅ These warnings will assist in setting up the plugin extension correctly. Only show the shop to your customers when there are no more warnings in the admin screens.

price catalog

The ELTA Courier company releases a price catalog for each shipping method. The price catalog is a bunch of long PDF documents, detailing the current prices for its services. These documents are released/updated at arbitrary intervals, whenever the prices change.

✅ The latest version of this plugin extension will always contain the latest price data from ELTA Courier.

✅ Have a special price agreement with the company? You can edit all prices in the catalog to match those in your agreement.

✅ You can always revert the prices to the latest data from ELTA Courier, with a click of a button.

exchange rates

The price catalog from ELTA Courier features prices denominated in Euros (€). Naturally, most e-shops will use Euro as their base currency. However, this is not necessary. You can set your WooCommerce installation to use any other base currency, such as USD ($) for example. The plugin extension can use today’s exchange rates to calculate shipping costs in the shop’s base currency.

✅ If the shop’s currency is not Euro, you will be prompted to provide a free API key to the fixer.io service. Just follow the on-screen instructions to set this up at no extra charge.

FAQ

What is the main benefit of using this plugin extension?

Shipping costs offered by courier companies in Greece are subject to many complex rules. Costs depend on the various shipping methods, the types of destination addresses, and in some cases entire geographic zones are not available for some shipping methods. All of this is determined by long lists of postcodes at best, and by vague geographic descriptions at worst. There are restrictions on package sizes, package weight, and in some cases, even complex restrictions involving the ratio of the largest circumference of the package, versus the second largest circumference! All of this is hard or impossible to keep track of, using generic shipping costs plugins.

Typically stores present to the buyer a fixed shipping cost, that is set high enough to cover the actual shipping cost paid. This fixed cost necessarily overestimates the cost that has to be paid by the customer, so that the store does not lose money on a sale.

Fast and accurate calculation of the exact shipping costs helps your shop to offer more competitive shipping prices. More competitive prices compared to stores that don’t have this edge, can translate to more sales and happier customers.

Can I continue to use the plugin extension after my subscription ends?

Yes.
After your subscription ends you will lose access to support and to updates, but you will be able to continue using the plugin extension in its existing form on your site without limitations. You may resubscribe at any time to regain access to support and updates.

What if the ELTA Courier company releases a new price catalog?

The price catalog is always editable via the admin screens, so you can update the prices at any time to match the latest ones given from ELTA Courier. If you want to avoid the data entry, you can simply install the latest version of this plugin extension, and reset the prices to the latest defaults. Downloading the latest version of the plugin extension requires an active subscription to the product.

Is there a video showcasing installation / usage of the plugin?

Yes, see the installation instructions page for the video.

Is it possible to use a demo before purchasing a subscription?

Yes, there is a demo page setup at https://demo.shippingcalculators.gr/

Please contact me to receive credentials and review the plugin on the demo site.

full list of product features

Price list of ELTA Courier services
- Editing from the management environment of all prices (without VAT) of the price lists for the following services:
  - ELTA Courier Domestic Same Day:
    - Within Athens.
    - Within Thessaloniki.
    - Between Athens and Patras.
  - ELTA Domestic Courier:
    - Door-Door / Point-to-Door / Door-to-Point.
    - Within the city / between cities / hard-to-reach areas / island destinations / Crete.
  - ELTA Domestic Courier with Prepaid Envelope.
  - ELTA Courier Express Mail Service (EMS).
  - ELTA Courier Special Priority Mail (SPM) Air.
  - ELTA Courier Special Priority Mail (SPM) Road/Economy Service.
  - ELTA Courier Fast Parcel Cyprus (FPC) Air freight
  - ELTA Courier Fast Parcel Cyprus (FPC) Ocean freight
- Can reset all prices with a button to the current ones of each price list.
- Current prices are the most recently announced by the company. In case of a new price list, a new version of the software will be issued that will include the new prices.
Management of operating parameters for each service:
- Edit the name of each service as it appears in the online store.
- Enable or disable additional services that are useful in e-commerce (e.g. cash on delivery, special management) depending on the available services of each shipping method.
- Possibility of free shipping if the total cost of the cart exceeds one price.
- Possibility of applying a discount on extra fee:
  - fixed amount.
  - percentage of the total cost of extra fee.
- Possibility of applying an additional charge to extra fee:
  - fixed amount.
  - percentage of the total cost.
- Management of available packages:
  - Name of package.
  - Package dimensions (Length x Width x Height in centimeters).
  - Packaging cost in euros.
- The packages sold by the company are already registered and can be modified by the administrator.
Calculate shipping at checkout:
- Positioning (done for all services):
  - 3D placement of the cart products in one or more of the available packages based on the product dimensions.
  - Each package never exceeds in actual weight or dimensions the maximum allowed weight and maximum dimensions of each service.
  - In the case of the domestic service with a prepaid envelope: Cart products are checked for dimensions if they fit in an envelope (or envelopes).
  - The administrator has the possibility under each order to see which products are placed in which package.
Shipping cost calculation:
- For the same day domestic service:
  - Calculate shipping zone and delivery zone based on store address and shipping address.
  - In cases where the city of an address cannot be confirmed, it is geocoded through the free Nominatim service and then it is established whether the address is in Athens, Thessaloniki or Patras.
  - The dimensions and volumetric weight of the packages are used to find the shipping cost in the price list.
  - If any product exceeds 35 kg, the service is not made available.
  - Selected additional charges are applied for each package separately if these have been selected by the administrator:
    - Delivery at a predetermined time.
    - Special Management (receipt receipt and return of Shipment Note)
    - Pay on delivery
    - Cash on delivery is also selected if it has been selected as a payment method by the buyer
    - Order of Receipt (Protocol number etc.)
    - Send SMS
    - Same day shipping by car
- For the domestic service:
  - To select the correct price list, check if the delivery (and shipping) address is:
    - hard to reach areas
    - within the same city
    - in different cities
    - on island
    - in Crete
  - To determine if an address is inaccessible, it is searched by area name and postal code.
    - User-entered city/area name is compared to known names in fuzzy fashion to avoid problems with alternative spellings.
      - The area is first searched in an integrated file that contains all the hard-to-reach areas of Greece as described by the company.
      - The database contains alternative names for each region as well as coding based on the free OpenStreetMap service.
    - If the area cannot be found as it is in the built-in database, it is geocoded via the free Nominatim service and then the normalized data is searched again in the database
  - In case the area is not hard to reach, geocoding is used to determine if the address belongs to one of the other categories
  - The dimensions and volumetric weight of the packages are used to find the shipping cost in the price list
  - If any product exceeds 35 kg, the service is not made available.
  - Selected additional charges are applied for each package separately if these have been selected by the administrator:
    - Delivery at a predetermined time.
    - Special Management (receipt receipt and return of Shipment Note).
    - Pay on delivery.
    - Cash on delivery is also selected if it has been selected as a payment method by the buyer.
    - Order of Receipt (Protocol number etc.)
    - Send SMS.
- For the domestic service with prepaid envelope:
  - Checks if all products in the cart belong to shipping classes that the administrator has defined that can be placed in an envelope.
  - If all products do not fit in an envelope or if they do not belong to appropriate shipping classes, the service is not made available.
- For Express Mail Service (EMS):
  - The zone is calculated based on the country of dispatch and the corresponding price list is selected.
  - VAT applies to shipping costs for zone 1 only.
  - The dimensions and actual (not volumetric) weight of the packages are used to find the shipping cost in the price list.
  - If any product exceeds 30 kg, the service is not made available.
  - If any package exceeds 1.5 meters in its largest dimension, the service is not made available.
  - If in any package the sum of the length and the perimeter calculated in a direction other than that of the length exceeds 3 meters, the service is not made available.
  - If the destination country is disabled from the management environment, the service is not made available.
    - By default, countries that are at war when the plugin is released are disabled.
- For the services ELTA Courier Special Priority Mail (SPM) Air and Road/Financial Service:
  - The zone is calculated based on the country of dispatch and the corresponding price list is selected.
  - VAT applies to shipping costs for Zone 1 only.
  - The dimensions and volumetric weight of the packages are used to find the shipping cost in the price list.
  - If any product exceeds 100kg, air service is not made available, only road service.
  - If the actual weight of a package exceeds 70 kg, an extra charge is applied (Over Size Piece).
  - Selected additional charges are applied for each package separately if these have been selected by the administrator:
    - Saturday delivery.
    - Signature Requirement Service.
    - Pay on delivery.
    - Cash on delivery is also selected if it has been selected as a payment method by the buyer.
    - If the cash on delivery service is selected but the amount exceeds 3000 euros, the services do not become available.
    - If the cash on delivery service is selected but the destination country does not support cash on delivery via SPM, the services do not become available.
- For the ELTA Courier Fast Parcel Cyprus (FPC) Air freight and Ocean freight services:
  - The dimensions and actual (not volumetric) weight of the packages are used to find the shipping cost in the price list.
  - If a product exceeds 30 kg, the company’s charges apply, which are not included in the price list but are only announced by the company over the phone!
  - If any product exceeds 50 kg, the services become unavailable.
  - If any package exceeds 1.5 meters in its largest dimension, the air service is not made available, but only the ocean service is.
  - Selected additional cash on delivery charges apply for each package separately if selected by the administrator.
    - Cash on delivery is also selected if it has been selected as a payment method by the buyer.
  - The shipping service can also be used if the store is located in Cyprus and the shipping address is in Greece.
- Shipping cost modification for all services:
  - For all shipping methods, shipping is free if the payment amount exceeds an amount set by the store manager.
  - For all shipping methods an additional charge or discount is applied to the total shipping cost if this has been set by the store manager (fixed amount or percentage of the total shipping cost).
  - All calculations are made in Euros. In the event that the currency of the store is not the Euro but another currency (e.g. US dollar), a conversion is made based on the exchange rate of the day of purchase.
  - Exchange rates are made available using the free service fixer.io (requires entering the API key in the plugin settings).
The admin is warned if any WooCommerce setting is incompatible with the functionality of the plugin:
- If WooCommerce is not installed.
- If your WooCommerce version is too old and not compatible with the plugin.
- If the address of the store is not within Greece.
- If the address of the store is missing (valid zip code and city name are required).
- If the store currency is not Euro and an API key for the free fixer.io exchange rate service has not been provided).
- If 24% VAT has not been set for Greece, or if VAT has not been set to apply to transport costs as well.
- If the VAT rate applied is not the one corresponding to the store address (and not to the recipient address).
When viewing a submitted order, the store manager sees:
- How the transport costs were calculated in detail.
- A legend explaining what all the values used for the calculation mean.

Pricing