ReadyToShip will automatically import a HS Code and Country of Origin for each item if present as a product attribute in your WooCommerce store.
By default, WooCommerce doesn’t have fields to enter HS codes and Country of Origin data for your products. But, you can use the WooCommerce custom attributes feature to add this information.
WooCommerce has a detailed help article on HS Tariff Codes and other customs requirements available for their customers here.
To view their instructions on how you can add the required customs information to your products, click here.
So what do you need to do in WooCommerce?
First, you will need to create custom attributes for HS codes and Country of Origin in your WooCommerce store. To add a new product attribute in WooCommerce, you’ll need to fill out both the Name and Slug fields
The ideal product attribute Slug to use for ease of identification would be hs_code and country_of_origin but you can choose any name, just ensure you are using the underscore key between words as per our examples.
Below is an example of the Attributes screen:
Then, you'll need to add the HS Code and Country of Origin data to each product using the new attribute fields you have created.
Note that in order to set HS Code per country the Alpha2 country code for the destination country needs to be added a prefix to the tariff code like this “US:877654”. This is useful where a country may have it's own specific HS Code, such as the US 10-digit HTS codes.
Also, the Country of Origin needs to be entered as an Alpha2 country code. For example, for a product made in China you would enter the country code CN, not "China".
You can look up the Alpha2 country codes here.
How to Configure ReadyToShip to import your customs data.
Once you have created the custom attributes and filled your products with the HS Codes and Country of Origin in WooCommerce, you will need to edit your store settings in your ReadyToShip account.
Login to ReadyToShip, then go to Settings > Stores and click on your WooCommerce store to open.
Scroll down to the relevant fields and enter each of the attribute "Slug" names you have chosen. Then click Save at the bottom of the page.
Once you have done that, any new orders placed after clicking Save will include the HS Code and Country of Origin for the products when imported into ReadyToShip.
Optionally, you can also add a custom attribute for Goods Description if you wish to submit different information to customer instead of your product title.
By default, we use the product title as the goods description unless you override this. So this is only necessary if you always wish to use a different Goods Description to your product title.
Note that goods descriptions must be descriptive. See our dedicated article about that here.