Pallet shipping

If you sell large or heavy products, you don’t want to guess a shipping price from weight at checkout. The pallet shipping plugin measures what is in the cart, has the Teamdock pallet calculator work out how many pallets it really fits on, and charges that price. The calculator tries every pallet type you enable and picks the cheapest option that fits. Small orders can go as parcels when that is cheaper. Your customer sees a 3D loading plan of their own order below the shipping options.

Supported pallets: Euro pallet (120 × 80 cm), half pallet (80 × 60 cm), block pallet (120 × 100 cm) and a custom size.

In Teamdock itself

The same calculator works in Teamdock:

• On a new order the order form works out the pallets and the price the way checkout does, for example “2 × Euro pallet”. You can overwrite the amount by hand. If the calculator cannot price it, for example because there is no pallet method for the country, you enter the amount yourself. See Orders.
• The order’s pallets are taken along when you book with DACHSER or register a shipment with a Pier carrier.
• Your flat shipping costs under Settings → Shipping → Shipping costs are never added on top of the pallet price. They only apply when the calculator cannot price an order. See Shipping costs.

A shop hosted by Teamdock

In a shop Teamdock hosts for you, the plugin is already installed and active, with the key already set. You only set your pallet types and your prices per shipping zone in WooCommerce, as in steps 3 to 5 below. Updates arrive automatically.

A shop on your own hosting

What you need

WordPress	6.0 or newer
WooCommerce	7.0 or newer
PHP	7.4 or newer
Outbound HTTPS	your hosting must allow outbound requests from PHP to packer.teamdock.ai

Check that last one first: some managed or hardened hosting blocks outbound requests from PHP, and you cannot work around that from inside WordPress.

Your products also need dimensions and a weight. A product without dimensions is counted as a 10 × 10 × 10 cm box, which gives a wrong price.

You also need an API key. We create it for your shop: contact support. Treat the key as a password. If it has leaked, tell us; we revoke it and you get a new one.

Installing

1. Download the plugin in Teamdock under Settings → Integrations, at Pallet shipping, with Download .zip.
2. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the .zip, install and activate.
3. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping → Pallet shipping (Teamdock) and fill in the settings for the whole shop:
   • your API key;
   • your pallet types with their sizes: length, width, maximum height and maximum weight;
   • your parcel limits: the largest package your parcel carrier accepts. A limit of 0 means no limit on that side.
4. In WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping, open a zone, choose Add shipping method → Pallet shipping (Teamdock) and set that zone’s prices:
   • a rate per pallet type (leave one empty to not use that pallet type in this zone);
   • optionally a rate per package, to send small orders as parcels when that is cheaper;
   • a rate per shipping class for oversized products that fit none of your pallets.
5. Repeat step 4 for every zone; only the prices differ per zone. Save and test with a real product in the cart.

The API key, pallet sizes and parcel limits are set once for the whole shop. A new zone only asks for prices.

When the calculator is briefly unavailable

Checkout keeps working; the plugin does not block the sale. In the method’s settings you choose the Fallback pallet count:

• 1: the method charges one pallet at your cheapest pallet rate. You keep selling at an approximate price. Most shops choose this.
• 0: the pallet method briefly disappears from that checkout, and your other shipping methods take over. You then never quote a price that was not calculated.

Updating

The plugin does not update itself. When Settings → Integrations shows a newer version than the one in your shop, download it and upload it in WordPress the same way. Your settings, including the key and the pallet types, are kept.

What data goes to Teamdock

For each price calculation the plugin sends only the product lines from the cart: SKU and product name, length, width, height, weight and quantity. No customer data goes along: no names, addresses, e-mail addresses, order totals or payment details. Request logs are kept for at most 30 days and then deleted automatically. If you need a processing agreement in writing, ask for one.

Troubleshooting

• No pallet rates at checkout at all. Usually the products have no dimensions. Every item in the cart needs length, width, height and weight on the product or the variation.
• Rates far too high or too low. A product without dimensions counts as a 10 × 10 × 10 cm, 0 kg box. Also check the maximum height and maximum weight of your pallets: they decide how many pallets are needed.
• The rates have suddenly gone. Look in WooCommerce → Status → Logs for entries from teamdock-pallet. A 401 means the key is missing, wrong or revoked. A 429 means too many requests in a short time, for example from a crawler on your checkout.
• Nothing in the logs and no rates. Your hosting probably blocks outbound HTTPS requests from PHP. Ask your hosting provider whether outbound requests to external addresses are allowed.
• No .zip to download. If you see not available right now, contact support and we’ll send it to you.