Shipping questions--Kind of confused

[tastysoil]

Hi,



I ship vinyl records, cassettes and cd's--- I am trying to make the shipping for products in my website better. Here are the things I need to do:



If someone buys a vinyl record by itself, the shipping costs more then the other items in the store because its a bigger package, so I want records to have a US shipping of a certain amount, and WORLD shipping another amount.



If someone orders a cassette or cd by itself i want it do be a different cheaper amount for US, and another slightly different shipping amount for WORLD orders



If people order a vinyl record + cd + cassette it should be a little more then just the Shipping of a LP, but not by much because they are so light.



i don't mind having set shipping rates (not based on weight), just on the three variables (LP, CD, CASSETTE) and then when people order a combination of the 3 items having a new shipping amount created--- plus have it work with international orders.



I can't even begin to wrap my head around how to do this, but was recommended by someone to try your service.

If you guys can give me pointers to help me come to a solution I would be soooo happy. The way my shipping is set up now, people that order just a cd or cassette are forced to pay the same amount as a vinyl record and it is causing people not to order.

[E-junkie_Guru]

First, you may find it helpful to know the basic formula we follow when calculating shipping charges:



((cost per oz.) X (total product wt. + container wt.)) + (container cost) + (handling cost)



The (cost per oz.) part would be determined either by a flat per-oz. rate you specify for Domestic or International shipping, or otherwise by standard USPS rates (we lookup First Class vs. Priority Mail and apply whichever is cheaper). Note that you can "game" the formula by applying non-literal figures for various settings, so the formula adds up the way you want.



For what you descirbe, I would suggest the following:



Go into your E-junkie Seller Admin > Cart Shipping Settings, delete your zipcode (this completely disables USPS postal rate lookups) and set your Handling and Domestic rate to 0.00, and set your International rate to 1.00.



Then pick two or three container types -- say, the Small/Medium/Large Boxes -- and set their Cost equal to your two or three Domestic flat rates (e.g. a Small Box would Cost your Domestic fee for a cassette, Medium for CD, Large for Vinyl). Then set their Weight as the difference between Domestic vs. International for each of those rate levels. E.g. if you'd charge 3.00 Domestic vs. 7.00 International for a CD, set the Medium Box with a 3.00 Cost and a 4.00 Weight. Then simply Edit each of your products so they are set to ship in the appropriate Package Type with a product weight of 0.00.

[tastysoil]

Sorry to bug you again, i'm kind of following you up untill the point where you are explaining how to set the price:

Tysonset the Medium Box with a 3.00 Cost and a 4.00 Weight. Then simply Edit each of your products so they are set to ship in the appropriate Package Type with a product weight of 0.00.

I'm not sure if this is possible, but here is a breakdown of how my friend has his shipping set, if there is any way to have this automatically happen through your service i'd be a customer for life..



<img src="http://tastysoil.com/picture-4.png">



Now, i know there are 4 variables here (USA, CANADA, MEXICO, WORLD) so if that is too much for the cart to figure out i could narrow it down to have canada/mexico lumped in together.



Another question, is the shipping preference automatically chosen just by where the customer has their paypal address set up at? They don't have to manually choose anything do they?



Thanks again for all the help, sorry to bug you with this!

You guys rule

[E-junkie_Guru]

TastySoilSorry to bug you again, i'm kind of following you up untill the point where you are explaining how to set the price:

Tysonset the Medium Box with a 3.00 Cost and a 4.00 Weight. Then simply Edit each of your products so they are set to ship in the appropriate Package Type with a product weight of 0.00.

I was basically "gaming the formula" there, and the figures I gave were just examples since I didn't know what actual rate you wanted. For the sake of demonstration, I presumed example rates per item of 3.00 Domestic and 7.00 International.



In that example, the Cost (e.g. 3.00) of a Medium Box will always be added for each item ordered that was configured to ship in a Medium Box. Since your Domestic rate would be set to 0.00, the box's weight would never add any extra charges for a Domestic buyer.



However, an Int'l rate of 1.00 would add a fee equal to the box's Weight (since $1.00/oz X 4.00oz = $4.00) on top of the Cost, so an Int'l buyer would be charged the 3.00 Cost plus the 4.00 rateXweight amount for a total of 7.00 for each item ordered that was configured to ship in a Medium Box.



Note also that these "boxes" you define to configure shipping in our system need not bear any relation to the size or number of boxes you will actually use when packing up an order; our containers are only relevant for making the Shipping calculation add up the way you want.

I'm not sure if this is possible, but here is a breakdown of how my friend has his shipping set, if there is any way to have this automatically happen through your service i'd be a customer for life..



http://tastysoil.com/picture-4.png



Now, i know there are 4 variables here (USA, CANADA, MEXICO, WORLD) so if that is too much for the cart to figure out i could narrow it down to have canada/mexico lumped in together.

At the moment, custom rates (non-USPS rates) can only distinguish Domestic (within your country) from International (outside your country). We are working on some enhancements to Shipping calculation that may soon add the ability to define custom per-oz rates on a destination-country basis. Our USPS rate lookup would of course give the proper Postal rate for the total weight of the shipment and its actual, specific destination (we compare First Class vs. Priority and apply whichever rate is cheaper).

Another question, is the shipping preference automatically chosen just by where the customer has their paypal address set up at? They don't have to manually choose anything do they?

Not quite sure I follow what you mean here, but if you're referring to the destination address, that is provided during Checkout. For PayPal this would typically be whatever default or Verified address they have saved in their PayPal account unless they manually choose to specify a different address.

[tastysoil]

thanks!!!

[tastysoil]

Ok, I have another question--

I have my site all set up, but haven't published it online yet--when i preview the site (through rapidweaver) the carts work fine when i add an individual item, when i type in the zip code the shipping factors in and its all good. But when i say continue shopping and try to add another item in it forgets the first item. Is this due to the fact that i'm just previewing it without it really being published online?



Also, how can i preview the international shipping to see if it works? Every time i select a international country from the dropdown in the cart and click update no shipping gets factored in. Thanks again for all the help, i really appreciate it!

[E-junkie_Guru]

Yes, your site needs to be live and online, and tested in a regular Web browser in order for the cart to work properly. You can publish your site and simply not tell anyone about it if you're still testing things. :^)



To test International shipping you may need to enter something in the ZIP/Postal Code field; entering anything there should work, as I don't think we can validate for accuracy there.

[tastysoil]

thanks, that works if i type anything in.

I noticed that when i select some countries "none" pops up in the zip code spot and it automatically works fine with updating the shipping, then others nothing pops up and i have to manually type something into the zip code spot to make it update. Maybe its a bug in the system?

[tastysoil]

another question:



I published the site and it works fine,

One thing i'd like to try and work out..if someone buys a cd by itself they get charged the cd shipping, thats good. If someone buys a cd AND a LP Record, then they get charged for the LP shipping, plus the cd shipping even though they can be mailed together because the LP box is big enough.

Is there a way for the shipping calculator to understand that this is ok to do and these items don't need to be shipped separate?

Maybe i set something up wrong? Thanks again for all the quick help

[E-junkie_Guru]

It's not exactly what you describe, but maybe you can get this to work for you:



Our Tube container types were programmed with selling posters in mind, so if someone ordered some small posters that ship in a Small Tube and some larger posters that ship in a Large Tube, it made sense to just ship them all together in a Large Tube. You can take advantage of this technicality, even if you're not literally shipping in actual tubes, to combine different types of product into a single container for the sake of calculation purposes. Items which are configured to ship in any Tube container type can consolidate into the largest such container specified for any item in the order, up to the max. packing capacity specified for that item.



For instance, suppose you you can pack up to, say, 4 LPs in a single parcel, but if less than 4 are ordered, you can fit at least that many cassettes or CDs into the unused space. We would then configure every LP product to ship in a Large Tube with a packing capacity of 4. CDs might be configured in a Regular Tube, cassettes in a Small Tube -- of course you would set up all your Tube container types instead of Box types with the cost/weight settings described earlier. If an order comes in for 1 LP, 2 CDs and 1 cassette, the LP's "Large Tube" container still has 3 empty "slots" (since we gave LPs a packing capacity of 4 in this example), so the 2 CDs and 1 cassette that are configured to ship in smaller Tube types can occupy those 3 unused spaces.

[tastysoil]

this actually works perfect! Thanks for the good ideas with bending the rules of the way the tube shipping works. The only problem that i'm having is that when i try to add the only item i've set with the "LARGE TUBE" shipping set it keeps saying "this product combination does not exist" but i've triple checked that i've set this item with the "LARGE TUBE" shipping in the item edit area, and i've triple checked that I have dollar amount and weight set for the "LARGE TUBE" in the shipping cart calculator edit area. What did I do wrong?

Every other item marked as SMALL/MEDIUM TUBE works fine with no errors.



here is a link to my page so you can see: http://tastysoil.com/store/storemain.html



The only other thing is that I am still having the ZIP CODE problem with international orders---when you select some countries from the list it'll automatically fill in "NONE" in the zip code place and update the shipping field, but other countries will not update automatically and make me manually type anything into the zip code area, then click update. --- I'm worried that my international customers will not know to do this, because there isnt a place that tells them to do this in the shopping cart. --is this a bug that will be fixed? is this something I set up wrong?

thanks again!!!!

[E-junkie_Guru]

Regarding the Shipping postal code, we enter "none" for countries which we are certain do not use postal codes; buyers in other countries should know what their own postal code is and enter that accordingly.



The error saying "This product combination does not exist" would bear no relation to Shipping-related settings. It's usually due to an inaccurate Item Number in the button code or a missing Variants combination (which latter you aren't using, so that's irrelevant in your case). If you copy and paste the button code we provide for a product, and then subsequently change the product's Item Number, that breaks the old button code that referenced the original number. Looking at the Item Number pattern for your other items, I guessed that product should have the number TS-002 instead of TS002 which the button code has, and it looks like adding the dash would make it work. You can recopy and repaste the current button code for that product, but really you just need to edit the button code in your page, so the button URL for that product has TS-002 instead of TS002.

[tastysoil]

thanks! i should have caught that--- you've really helped me a lot! i hope this thread helps other people creating a small record label website.

[tastysoil]

another question, i just got my first order through your setup and it added a handling charge of 3.00 into the order and i have all handling set to 0.00---how did this happen? I want to turn this off, thanks!!

[tastysoil]

I just tried to order the same exact things as the order that just came through and I didn;t have this problem. here is what the paypal payment shows:



PayPal Shopping Cart Contents

Item Name: SLITHER "LEFT TO ROT" Cassette

Item Number: TS011



Quantity: 1



Total: $6.00 USD







Item Name: SLITHER "HORRIBLE MUTILATION" CDr

Item Number: TS-008



Quantity: 1



Total: $10.00 USD







Cart Subtotal: $16.00 USD

Handling: $3.00 USD

Shipping: $4.00 USD

Sales Tax:

Cart Total: $23.00 USD







----



The shipping should only be 3.00 for these items combined. Where is the Handling fee of 3.00 coming from (I set it to be 0.00 in my shipping calculator) and where is the 4.00 shipping getting factored in from? It should show up as 3.00..



here is a link to my store: http://www.tastysoil.com/store/storemain.html

thanks for all the quick help!!

-chris

[E-junkie_Guru]

The total Shipping amount we can pass to PayPal gets labeled in their receipt/records as a "Handling" charge, as they don't provide any way for us to pass an amount that would get labeled as "Shipping". Any "Shipping" amount you see there is being added by settings in your PayPal account, not coming from us.

[ett]

Hi, I have two questions.



1) under create new shipping rules is Min. Item Total field the total number of items or the total charge amount? And if I leave these at "0" are they ignored like the Max fields?



2) I need to set up shipping based on this matrix: http://www.eoutletcards.com/wp-content/themes/revival/images/ShippingWeight.pdf



I would like to be able to send UPS Ground, UPS 2nd Day, UPS Overnight. I have configure the system several ways and have not been able to get it to come close to the rates if I go on UPS.com so I must be doing something wrong or its not possible to do it.



Can you point me in the right direction.



Thanks

[E-junkie_Guru]

1) "Min./Max. Item Total" refers to the order's price subtotal, before any tax/shipping are added. "Min./Max. Items in Cart" refers to the total quantity of units for all items in the order. Any settings left blank or set to "0" would be ignored.



2) I don't understand how the matrix you linked relates to shipping charges? If you just set up your products with accurate weights in Ounces, then we can do a live rate-lookup for UPS Ground, but we currently have no way to lookup any other UPS rates nor any FedEx rates.

[ett]

We pre weighed the boxes and the amounts of cards that would fit into them and that is the matrix I am trying to follow.



There is enough spread that I dont have to worry about the cost of the package so I left those fields blank. At the individual product setting on the 100 Bundle pack product for example...I took the 2lb package that holds 25 gift cards and divided them out to get 1.28 ounces each. I then chose large tube and set my packaging capacity to 250 which is the highest amount of cards that would fit into a large container.



On the rate calculator section I choose UPS ground and compared with a live ups ground quote to say Washington state from the mailed from zip in Fl and the rates are off by about 75 cents on a 2.b box and then I tried comparing a 250 card order (13 lbs) and the cart is charging 21.79 and UPS.com says 15.35



Why are these rates so different?



If I build my shipping matrix out figuring how much each box will cost via UPS.com for ground, overnight, 2nd day what is the best way to game the system so I can get closer to my actually cost? Not sure what settings to choose in the calculator....price per weight, per unit.....etc?



Thanks

[E-junkie_Guru]

The UPS Ground rates we can lookup would be for delivery to a Residential address, rather than Commercial, so that may explain the difference you were seeing.



Bear in mind that the Packaging Capacity you define in the settings of each product would determine how many separate parcels we'd be telling UPS are in the shipment, so that may affect the rate (e.g. 2 parcels weighing 30 oz. each may cost more than 1 parcel weighing 60 oz.).



"Price per unit weight" refers to a per-ounce shipping rate that would be multiplied by the total weight of each order, and "Price per unit" means a per-item rate that would be multiplied by the number of items in each order.