WooCommerce’s setup wizard is built for the whole world, which means its defaults suit nobody in particular. Leave them as they are and you can end up showing prices without GST, charging shipping to Perth at the same rate as Ballina, or sending order emails that never arrive.
This is the order we set up a new Australian store, screen by screen. Setting names below match current WooCommerce versions as of November 2026. If you haven’t chosen a platform yet, start with WooCommerce or Shopify for a small Australian shop? first.
Before you touch WooCommerce
Have these ready:
- Your ABN and whether you’re registered for GST.
- Your return address and the postcode you ship from.
- Your typical parcel sizes and weights.
- A business bank account to receive payouts.
- Your refund, returns and shipping policies, in writing.
- A plan for how the site will send email (more on that below).
GST: decide this first
Everything else in the tax settings depends on whether you charge GST.
According to the ATO, you must register for GST once your GST turnover reaches $75,000 a year ($150,000 for non-profits), and you need to register within 21 days of going over the threshold. You can register voluntarily below that. If you’re registered, GST is 10 percent and you charge it on most goods.
If you’re not registered, don’t charge GST and don’t show “inc. GST” on your prices. If you’re not sure where you stand, ask your accountant before the store goes live. This is general information, not tax advice.
Settings > General
Go to WooCommerce > Settings > General.
- Store Address: your real business address. It’s used for tax and shipping calculations.
- Selling location(s): if you only sell within Australia, choose “Sell to specific countries” and pick Australia. This stops orders you can’t fulfil.
- Shipping location(s): match it to your selling locations.
- Default customer location: “Shop country/region” is fine for a local store.
- Enable taxes: tick “Enable tax rates and calculations” if you’re GST registered. This adds the Tax tab.
- Enable coupons: on, if you’ll use them.
- Currency: Australian dollar.
- Number of decimals: 2.
Settings > Tax
If you’ve enabled taxes, a Tax tab appears. This is how we set it for an Australian store, using the option names from WooCommerce’s tax documentation:
- Prices entered with tax: “Yes, I will enter prices inclusive of tax”. Australians expect to see the full price, and you’ll want to type in $49.95, not $45.41.
- Calculate tax based on: “Shop base address” works for a store only selling within Australia, since GST is the same everywhere.
- Shipping tax class: the default, “Shipping tax class based on cart items”, charges GST on shipping in line with what’s in the cart. That suits most stores, including ones with a few GST-free products.
- Rounding: tick “Round tax at subtotal level” to avoid one-cent oddities across multiple items.
- Display prices in the shop: Including tax.
- Display prices during cart and checkout: Including tax.
- Price display suffix: “inc. GST” if you like.
- Display tax totals: “As a single total”, so the checkout shows a single GST line.
Then open Standard rates and add one row:
| Country code | State | Postcode | City | Rate % | Tax name | Priority | Compound | Shipping |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AU | 10.0000 | GST | 1 | No | Yes |
If some products are GST-free, set up a Zero rate class and assign it to those products. Test a cart with mixed items before launch and check the GST line is right.
Shipping: zones, methods and classes
Shipping is where most first stores lose money, either by undercharging or by scaring people off at checkout.
Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping.
Zones
A zone is a group of locations that get the same shipping options. For a regional store we often start with:
- Local: your town and nearby postcodes (local delivery or pickup).
- Same state: the rest of NSW.
- East coast: QLD, VIC, ACT.
- Rest of Australia: SA, WA, TAS, NT.
You can match zones by state, or by postcode ranges like 2477...2481. WooCommerce checks zones from the top down and uses the first match, so put the most specific (local postcodes) at the top.
Methods
In each zone, add one or more methods:
- Flat rate: a fixed price, optionally per item. Simple and predictable.
- Free shipping: with a minimum order amount, for example free over $120. A good way to lift order values.
- Local pickup: for customers who’d rather collect.
Shipping classes
If you sell items of very different sizes (a candle and a garden bench), set up shipping classes under the Classes section, like “Small parcel” and “Bulky”. Assign each product a class, then give each class its own cost in the flat rate settings. Without this, the bench ships for the candle’s price.
Live carrier rates
If flat rates won’t work, a carrier extension can quote live prices at checkout. The Australia Post extension calculates quotes from product sizes and the customer’s address. Note that it shows standard rates, not any discounted rates on your business account, and it doesn’t buy labels. For labels and tracking, most small stores use a separate service like MyPost Business, Sendle or a multi-carrier tool, each with its own WooCommerce integration.
Live rates only work if every product has accurate weight and dimensions. Fill these in for every product, or the quotes will be wrong.
Payment gateways
Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Payments. Keep it to two or three options. Too many choices slows people down, and each one is another account to manage.
The usual Australian setup:
- A card processor: WooPayments (available to Australian businesses), Stripe or Square. These take Visa, Mastercard and usually Apple Pay and Google Pay. Compare fees on the provider’s own website, because they change.
- PayPal: still preferred by a lot of customers, particularly older ones.
- Buy now, pay later: worth considering for higher-priced items. Check fees carefully.
- Bank transfer: handy for wholesale or B2B customers, but turn it off for retail if you don’t want to chase unpaid orders.
After connecting each one, place a real order and refund it. Test mode isn’t enough to prove payouts arrive in your bank account.
Settings people miss
Products > Inventory
- Hold stock (minutes): how long unpaid orders keep stock reserved. If you sell limited quantities, make sure this is set sensibly.
- Notifications and recipient: set an email address for low-stock and out-of-stock alerts.
- Low stock threshold: pick a number that gives you time to reorder.
- Out of stock visibility: decide whether sold-out products disappear from the shop or show “Sold out”. Hiding them can hurt SEO if they come back.
Accounts & Privacy
- Allow customers to place orders without an account: on. Forced account creation loses sales.
- Privacy policy page: link your actual policy. Australian Privacy Principles may apply depending on your turnover and what you collect.
Emails
WooCommerce sends order confirmations, processing notices and admin alerts. Under WooCommerce > Settings > Emails:
- Set the “From” name to your business name and the “From” address to an address on your own domain.
- Add your logo and colours so emails look like they came from you.
- Check the New order email goes to whoever packs orders.
Then make sure the emails arrive. WordPress’s default mail sending is unreliable, and order emails landing in spam is one of the most common problems we see in new stores. Set up an SMTP service before launch, with your domain’s email records in order (the DNS side is part of our business email setup work). Our guide on why emails from your WordPress site go missing explains how.
Tax invoices
If you’re GST registered, business customers will ask for a tax invoice showing your ABN and the GST amount. WooCommerce doesn’t create these out of the box. Add a PDF invoice plugin and set it up with your ABN and the words “Tax Invoice”.
Store pages
Check WooCommerce has assigned the right pages: the Shop page under Settings > Products, and Cart, Checkout and My Account under Settings > Advanced. Write your refund and shipping policies as real pages and link them in the footer and at checkout.
Site visibility
Recent versions of WooCommerce include a “coming soon” mode under Settings > Site visibility. Leave the store in coming soon mode while you test, then switch to Live on launch day.
The launch test
Before you announce the store, run through this with a friend’s address:
- Add three different products to the cart, including one bulky item.
- Check the shipping price for a local, interstate and WA postcode.
- Apply a coupon.
- Check the cart shows prices including GST and a single GST line.
- Pay with a real card and with PayPal.
- Confirm both the customer and admin emails arrive, and not in spam.
- Refund one order and check the refund email.
- Check the order on your phone, as the person packing it would.
If anything is off, it’s much cheaper to find now than after 50 orders.
Our e-commerce builds start from $4,500 + GST, and we test tax, shipping and email delivery before launch. If a hosted platform suits your range better, we also build Shopify stores. Store half set up and the GST or postage figures not adding up? Send us a message with an example order.