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femsawyer
Starting Member
39 Posts |
 Posted - February 10 2007 : 08:08:22
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I've read through a lot on the forums here about needing the ability to have products drop shipped by suppliers. I'm currently using the USPS add-on. In the configuration, I had it set to xUseSupplierZip=Yes and xIndividualPackages=Yes. However, this didn't work because when a customer ordered numerous products from the same supplier - say 10 products each weighing 2 ounces, it calculated an enormous amount for shipping - I think it calculated $140 for express shipping or something ridiculous like that.
So changing xIndividualPackages=No, the shipping rates are close to being correct but this automatically cancels out xUseSupplierZip=Yes as that's only valid if xIndividualPackes=Yes. So, it figures shipping charges from our merchant zip rather than the supplier. Now, this is at least a little closer to correct shipping charges, however, what if a customer orders from more than 1 supplier? The charges definitely will not be correct.
As mentioned, the only shipping option I have setup is USPS add-on. I really need some insight on which shipping options I should utilize (UPS, Fed-ex) that will make this work correctly. The biggest thing is, I need it to total the weight for each individual supplier when figuring shipping rather than individual packages.
I would even be interested in setting it up so that a customer is charged a flat rate depending on the supplier. So, if they ordered 3 products from 2 separate suppliers, they would be charged:
$5.00 (shipper A for 2 packages)
$5.00 (shipper B for 1 package)
for a total of $10.00.
From what I've been reading here in the forums, it seems that the options are to either set it to per product basis, where in the above scenario, the customer would have been charged too much, $15.00 rather than $10.00, or set it to flat rate shipping and the customer would have paid too little, $5.00.
I'm really confused (and have probably confused you too..lol) at the best way to set this up but I see there are several people who have had this same problem. So with so many people having the same issue, I'm hoping that there is a solution somewhere that I'm simply not finding. Seems this would be a good upgrade for vpasp.
Any help, insight, suggestions, etc. are appreciated.
thanks,
Lianne
Partner/Designer: www.3Scrapateers.com
Digital Scrapbooking - Preserve your Memories! |
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femsawyer
Starting Member
39 Posts |
Posted - February 13 2007 : 19:29:46
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with all the people talking about this in the forums, nobody has come up with a solution for this?
Partner/Designer: www.3Scrapateers.com
Digital Scrapbooking - Preserve your Memories! |
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devshb
Senior Member
United Kingdom
1904 Posts |
Posted - February 13 2007 : 19:52:45
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I think you'd need a customisation done to your shipping interface/addon so that it groups together the products in the cart by supplier, and then treats that grouped-by sum of weights as individual packages.
The corresponding code to do that would be way too complex/awkward to add to this forum though and would need a fair bit of thought.
The changes would be made to the shipping addon/interface rather than the main vpasp shipping logic, hence it'd be specific to the shipping addon (ie one type of change for a ups addon, a different change for fedex etc)
eg the vpasp logic is correct, and the usps logic is returning the right values, the problem is with the usps/vpasp interface which'd need changing/customising.
Simon Barnaby
Developer
[email protected]
www.BigYellowZone.com
Web Design, Online Marketing and VPASP addons |
Edited by - devshb on February 13 2007 19:58:39 |
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femsawyer
Starting Member
39 Posts |
Posted - February 13 2007 : 21:19:16
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As I've already purchased a few of your add-ons, I'm well aware that you do customisation as well. Can you email me a quote on how much you would charge for this? Currently, I'm only needing the USPS add-on modified as that's the only shipping we currently offer.
email: [email protected]
Another question - I have one supplier who wants to do flat rate shipping regardless of how many of their items the customer orders. Is it possible to set this up while using the USPS add-on? I was kinda thinking that I may have to make a "shipping" sub-product for this product that they have to order with the product but I'm sure that would really confuse our customers, so looking for any suggestions on that as well.
Partner/Designer: www.3Scrapateers.com
Digital Scrapbooking - Preserve your Memories! |
Edited by - femsawyer on February 13 2007 21:20:02 |
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devshb
Senior Member
United Kingdom
1904 Posts |
Posted - February 15 2007 : 03:33:50
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yep; I'll email a quote etc in a moment.
In case other people are browsing through the forum and are also wondering about shipping things like this....
Shipping interfaces are one of the most awkward things to customise. The tweaks mentioned on this posting are (relatively) simple, the real complexities usually come into play when people want to combine different carriers (fedex/ups/usps etc) together to give a single-list of options/prices across all the relevant carriers.
It's very rare that a merchant's shipping customisation will be directly relevant to another merchant (because there are so many different versions/setups/options etc), so generally whenever we do a shipping customisation it's (sadly) not usually something that we could then sell as an addon for others merchants (if it was then we'd package them up and sell them as addons and give the relevant merchant a profit-split from sales of the addon).
Because there are so many variables/unknowns, what we usually do is to give a rough ballpark estimate initially, and then do the changes in chunks of around 1 or 2 hours, with each chunk being paid-for as we go along (ie so that it doesn't get out of hand for us or the merchant). As each chunk gets done the amount of estimated-time-left becomes increasingly known (ie because we'd have seen the code/options etc).
I'm guessing that other developers here have found the same thing (ie that if offering a fixed quote/charge at the outset then they'd either end up losing money, or to avoid losing money they'd charge a huge amount at the outset to cover contingencies). The charge bit-by-bit as it goes along is the only realistic/fair way that we've found to do this kind of stuff, as both sides can see the progress/logic as it goes along and neither side is over-committed. But equally an initial ball-park figure/estimate should also be provided by the developer so that the merchant has a rough idea of whether it might be a 2 or 3 hour job or a 1 week job etc.
Simon Barnaby
Developer
[email protected]
www.BigYellowZone.com
Web Design, Online Marketing and VPASP addons |
Edited by - devshb on February 15 2007 03:36:00 |
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cayars
Starting Member
USA
49 Posts |
Posted - January 25 2009 : 03:00:53
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Has the situation posted by femsawyer in the first message of this thread ever been fixed yet?
This is a big problem with all the shipping modules.
The shipping modules are in big need of a major update all around. There are a lot of things that don't work correctly or well in them. They are not even standard amoung them. For example the USPS wants 2 seperate fields for lbs and oz but the UPS just uses pounds (or oz) in one field.
Many of the source code changes I've made to this software have been in the shipping modules. These are way over "coded" and need to be redone in my oppinion. The code or logic is pretty "ghetto/spaghetti" like. The XML calling files work OK but the code/logic between these and the cart is in bad need of repair/recoding.
Things like dimensions sort of work but don't really work when you add mutliple packages to an order with individual dimensions set in the product table. This only works for UPS and not for USPS.
There really should be a set of core logic written in one place that is used for all shipping companies with only the different things unique to each carrier in the seperate files.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE update/fix/expand shipping in version 7 if not sooner. :)
Carlo
PS has the original issue ever been fixed as mentioned in the first message? As it stands now this shopping cart is pretty useless as is for anyone wanting to drop ship products. |
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support
Administrator
4679 Posts |
Posted - January 26 2009 : 06:39:47
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VPASP is a great tool for providing a powerful starting point for businesses with a great many different options available for people to use straight away.
Unfortunately the down side is that we cannot be all things to all people out of the box.
We provide a product that goes a long way to meeting most peoples requirements however in some areas we will simply not be able to meet every businesses need.
However, we are open source so it is generally a straight forward matter of working out exactly what it is you need and if not available out of the box then a developer can implement your changes for you.
There are many developers here who frequent the forum and we ourselves offer customisation services.
We are working on improving shipping in version 700 however we do not have a final list of what will be altered as yet.
Thanks
Cam
VPASP Support |
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cayars
Starting Member
USA
49 Posts |
Posted - January 26 2009 : 10:21:55
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OK Thanks Cam,
Is is probably safe to assume that the shipping modules will stay pretty similar to what they are in 6.5x? I'm just wondering if I should wait or move forward with some additional changes I was going to make to the code.
Thanks,
Carlo |
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support
Administrator
4679 Posts |
Posted - January 27 2009 : 07:02:50
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Hi Carlo
The changes are more to add extra functionality than revisting existing features so you should be good to make the changes.
Thanks
Cam
VPASP Support |
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cayars
Starting Member
USA
49 Posts |
Posted - January 27 2009 : 07:29:25
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As usual, Thanks Cam.
BTW, as we get closer to the quarter 2 release can you guys put up a list of new features? |
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support
Administrator
4679 Posts |
Posted - January 28 2009 : 23:53:13
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Hi Carlo,
We will be posting a list of features as we get closer to release date.
Thanks!
Cam
VPASP Support |
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savvymedias
VP-CART New User
191 Posts |
Posted - May 21 2009 : 23:55:28
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BYZ, et al, were any improvements made for anyone?
We have less than 20 products. 3 are shipped via UPS and the rest go freight (separate XML) or are picked up. I am having a heard time getting this to work. Any suggestions, thoughts or add ons? |
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