WooCommerce is a popular WordPress plugin for e-commerce. It takes an existing WordPress site and turns it into a full-on e-commerce portal in minutes.
However, like many WordPress plugins, they do not install with the correct settings for Australia. The defaults are usually set to what is required in the US or Europe (or wherever the plugin was developed).
The good news is updating your WooCommerce settings for Australia is a snap and in a few minutes you’ll be ready to sell to Australian customers.
Currency
First, login to your WordPress administration are and navigate to WooCommerce -> Settings in the left navigation pane. There you will see “Base location” and “Currency” settings. Update these to your location in Australia and Australian Dollars, respectively.
Bank details (direct deposit)
Many businesses allow customers to make an electronic funds transfer (EFT) payment, otherwise known as direct deposit, into a bank account before delivering the product or service.
WooCommerce supports direct deposits as a checkout option. Click the “Payments” tab on the top of the settings page and then click on the “Direct bank transfer” option. Make sure “Enable Bank Transfer” is enabled and enter your preferred title and description. The customer will see these messages when they make a payment so if you have anything specific you want to tell a customer you can enter it here.
Further down the page you will see “Account Details”. Enter in your bank account details:
Account name: The name of your account
Account number: Your bank account number
Bank name: The bank (in this case ANZ)
BSB: The bank’s BSB number
IBAN: An international banking code not used in Australia
BIC / Swift: An international banking identifier for international transfers. E.g. ANZ’s is “ANZBAU3M”.
With that done you’re ready to start taking orders from Australian customers.
Further localisation and integration
Requesting a bank deposit after an online order is a batch process which can involve manually checking to see if a payment has cleared. We will continue this blog series with more ways to configure WooCommerce for Australian customers and business requirements.
