Change shipping cost for specific countries based on total orders by customer in WooCommerce

I follow this thread that works perfectly:

Set discount based on number of orders in WooCommerce.

But in my case I need to apply the discount not to the order total, but to the shipping cost and I would like to do this only for a specific country, specifically UK.

For example:

• ONLY First order: 6€ (flat rate shipping cost)
• From the second order onwards, always 25€ (flat rate shipping cost)

I already set the flat rate at 6€ for Uk, but I need to understand how to apply the 25€ surcharge only from the second order onwards.

This is my code attempt:

add_filter( 'woocommerce_package_rates', 'free_first_order_shipping', 20, 2 );
function free_first_order_shipping( $rates, $package ) {
if(is_user_logged_in()) {
    $user_id = get_current_user_id();
    //We want to know how many completed orders customer have or remove status if you dont care.
    $args = array(
        'customer_id' => 1,
        'status' => array('wc-completed'),
    );
    $orders = wc_get_orders($args);
    //If there are no orders returned apply free shipping
    if($orders == 0) {
      unset( $rates['flat_rate:15'] ); // Shipping 25 euro
     }
    else{
    unset( $rates['betrs_shipping:10-2'] ); // Shipping 6 euro
     }
        }           

return $rates;
}

However, this does not adjust the costs, but removes the shipping method. Any advice?

Answer

Some notes on your code attempt/question:

• The answer you refer to is about adding a (negative) fee, the woocommerce_package_rates hook is indeed better suited than the woocommerce_cart_calculate_fees hook for your question
• You can use $package['destination']['country'] to determine the country
• unset( $rates['flat_rate:15'] ) will not adjust the cost but remove the method
• To get the total orders by a customer you can use the wc_get_customer_order_count() function

So you get:

function filter_woocommerce_package_rates( $rates, $package ) {
    // ONLY for specific countries
    $specific_countries = array( 'UK', 'BE' );

    // Checks if a value (country) exists in an array, if not return
    if ( ! in_array( $package['destination']['country'], $specific_countries ) ) return $rates;

    // Only for logged in users
    if ( is_user_logged_in() ) {
        // Get user ID
        $user_id = get_current_user_id();

        // Get the total orders by a customer.
        $count = wc_get_customer_order_count( $user_id );

        // Loop through
        foreach ( $rates as $rate_key => $rate ) {
            // Initialize
            $has_taxes = false;

            // Targeting "Flat Rate" shipping method
            if ( $rate->method_id == 'flat_rate' ) {
                // Get the initial cost
                $initial_cost = $new_cost = $rates[$rate_key]->cost;

                // Based on order count
                if ( $count == 0 ) {
                    // Set the new rate cost
                    $new_cost = 6;
                } else {
                    // Set the new rate cost
                    $new_cost = 25;
                }

                // Set the new cost
                $rates[$rate_key]->cost = $new_cost;

                // Taxes rate cost (if enabled)
                $taxes = [];

                // Loop through the shipping taxes array (as they can be many)
                foreach ($rates[$rate_key]->taxes as $key => $tax ) {
                    if ( $rates[$rate_key]->taxes[$key] > 0 ) {
                        // Get the initial tax cost
                        $initial_tax_cost = $new_tax_cost = $rates[$rate_key]->taxes[$key];

                        // Get the tax rate conversion
                        $tax_rate = $initial_tax_cost / $initial_cost;

                        // Set the new tax cost
                        $taxes[$key] = $new_cost * $tax_rate;

                        // Enabling tax
                        $has_taxes = true;
                    }
                }

                // When true
                if ( $has_taxes ) {
                    $rates[$rate_key]->taxes = $taxes;
                }
            }
        }
    }

    return $rates;
}
add_filter( 'woocommerce_package_rates','filter_woocommerce_package_rates', 10, 2 );

Don’t forget to empty your cart to refresh shipping cached data!