on setting up the shipping I picked the World and it dropped down all the countries do i leave them as they are and set a price or do i have to do them one by one
The first dropdown selection is just to help limit the number of countries that you need to select manually, so if you select Europe you will only get european countries on the the list, but the long list is the one that is used for your shipping method.
You should select countries according to the cost of shipping. So if you're using Royal Mail you would need one shipping method for each service (1st, 2nd, tracked etc) to cover the UK, Guernsey, Jersey & Isle Of Man because domestic shipping is cheaper than International. Royal Mail splits the rest of the world into Europe and 3 World zones for pricing, you can get the prices here https://www.royalmail.com/current-postage-prices. It's up to you how many you want to ship to. If you want to ship everywhere you would need one method for each zone/service.
I suggest you start with just the UK, work that our first, then worry about the rest of the world. It is a bit tedious getting everything set up. And as long as you have Request A Quote enabled for worldwide buyers will be able to ask for a shipping price.
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You should select countries according to the cost of shipping. So if you're using Royal Mail you would need one shipping method for each service (1st, 2nd, tracked etc) to cover the UK, Guernsey, Jersey & Isle Of Man because domestic shipping is cheaper than International. Royal Mail splits the rest of the world into Europe and 3 World zones for pricing, you can get the prices here https://www.royalmail.com/current-postage-prices. It's up to you how many you want to ship to. If you want to ship everywhere you would need one method for each zone/service.
I suggest you start with just the UK, work that our first, then worry about the rest of the world. It is a bit tedious getting everything set up. And as long as you have Request A Quote enabled for worldwide buyers will be able to ask for a shipping price.
I hope that makes sense.