How to Add and Manage WooCommerce Delivery Drivers

WooCommerce delivery drivers are essential for stores offering local delivery, same-day delivery, or scheduled shipping. WooCommerce is built for selling – not for managing the people who actually deliver your orders. If you’re running local deliveries right now and piecing it together with WhatsApp messages and spreadsheets, this guide is for you.

Why WooCommerce Isn’t Enough for Delivery Management

Here’s something that surprises a lot of store owners: WooCommerce has zero native support for delivery drivers. The platform handles your products, payments, and orders beautifully – but the moment you need to hand an order to a driver, you’re completely on your own.

Most stores start with informal systems – a WhatsApp group, a shared spreadsheet, a phone call to check who’s available. It works for a while. Then orders start slipping through, customers start calling, and you realize you’ve been spending more time coordinating deliveries than actually running your business.

Without a dedicated WooCommerce delivery drivers system, it becomes very difficult to keep orders organized and drivers accountable.

The pain points are always the same:

• Orders assigned to unavailable drivers – or not assigned at all
• No record of which driver handled which delivery
• Customers calling to ask where their order is – because there’s no live tracking
• No proof of delivery when disputes arise
• Hours wasted on coordination every day that could be automated

The Local Delivery Drivers for WooCommerce Premium plugin fills every one of these gaps – directly inside your WordPress dashboard. Here’s exactly what you get that WooCommerce doesn’t offer:

What You Need Before You Start

Before creating a driver account, make sure these are in place:

If you’re unfamiliar with how WordPress user roles work, review the official WordPress Roles and Capabilities documentation.

How to Add WooCommerce Delivery Drivers – Step by Step

Driver accounts live inside the standard WordPress user system. The plugin adds a “Delivery Driver” role, so the process will feel familiar if you’ve ever added a WordPress user before – just with a few extra configuration steps at the end that matter a lot.

A proper WooCommerce delivery drivers setup makes it easier to assign orders, track availability, and manage large delivery teams.

• 1
  Open the Add New User page
  Go to Users → Add New in your WordPress admin. Or, open the Local Delivery Drivers dashboard and click Add New Driver – it’s a shortcut to the same page.

• 2
  Fill in the driver’s details
  Enter their username, email address, first and last name, and set a password. The email must be unique – if it’s already registered to a customer or admin on your site, the account creation will fail.
• 3
  Set the Role to “Delivery Driver”
  In the Role dropdown, select Delivery Driver – the custom role added by the plugin. This is the most important step. Without it, the user won’t have access to the driver panel and won’t show up when assigning orders.

• 4
  Click “Add New User”
  WordPress saves the account and redirects you to the Edit User page for that driver. Don’t close this page – the driver-specific configuration happens here.
• 5
  Find the “Delivery Driver Info” section
  Scroll down on the Edit User page. Below the standard WordPress fields, you’ll see the Delivery Driver Info block added by the plugin. This is where the real setup happens.

• 6
  Set the account to Active
  Under Driver Account Status, select Active. Only active drivers can log in to the panel and receive orders. You can switch this to Not Active at any time to pause a driver without touching their data.
• 7
  Configure availability and permissions
  Set Work Availability (are they currently on shift?) and Claim Orders Permission (can they self-assign available orders from their panel?). Both can be updated in seconds from the dashboard later.
• 8
  Add vehicle and identity info
  Upload a driver photo, set vehicle type, and enter their license plate. These details appear on the customer-facing delivery tracking page – so customers see exactly who’s on the way.
• 9
  Click “Update User” to save
  Done. The driver is now active and ready to be assigned orders. They can log in to the driver panel immediately from any browser on their phone.

Driver Profile Fields Explained

The Delivery Driver Info section puts you in full control of every driver’s account. Here’s exactly what each field does:

Account & Availability

Vehicle & Identity

These fields appear on the customer-facing delivery tracking page. They’re a small configuration effort that pays off every day – customers who can see their driver’s photo, vehicle, and plate number rarely need to call the store.

Assigning Orders to Your Drivers

Once a driver is active, you have four ways to assign orders. Each one suits a different kind of operation:

Managing a Larger Driver Team

Creating one driver is straightforward. Managing ten or twenty is a different challenge – and the plugin dashboard is where that work happens.

The dashboard gives you a live view of every driver: how many orders they’re handling, their current availability, and whether claim permissions are on. Every status can be updated with one click – no need to open individual user profiles.

Frequently Asked Questions