Shipping, need a breakthrough

[acicorp]

:wink:

 

This one is for the books. Your shipping module is great but no one has come up with a cost effective solution to multiple shipping locations. Seems easy enough to do, but yet no one has done it, maybe it's not that simple.

 

We do not have a warehouse and will be drop shipping items from the manufacturer and the manufacturers are located all over the country. When a customer orders more then one item, from different manufacturers of course, everything goes out the window. Could you tell me if this is something that you could handle or would handle?

 

I have searched and searched and to no avail, please help us out if you can.

 

Thanks,

Rick A

[sfatula]

I would like to know what you would LIKE to have happen if I order 2 different items from different suppliers? What do you do without any shopping cart when this happens? Do you charge the full rate twice, one from each supplier? That will obviously inflate your shipping rates as compared to a guy who stocks both items as he doesn't have to ship twice, but still, what do you want to have happen?

[acicorp]

:? Good point and one that I have struggled with. I have not checked to see if a 12 oz. bottle of product would be the same price as say a 24 oz. bottle. Simply put, if we shipped a 12oz. bottle from Texas and another 12oz. bottle from Ca if that total shipping charge would be the same as if we were to ship a 24oz. from one location. I know shipping from different locations would most defiantly increase the overall price for small items, but for the larger items?, I have no idea.

 

There has to be a more precise way of shipping so that you do not risk losing money on an already small markup. I wonder if it is possible for the program to check the rate of everything from one location, compare it to the individual shipping and split the difference?

 

Either way, thank you kindly for at least thinking about this and if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears..

 

Many thanks,

Rick A.

[sfatula]

Well, let's look at the data. A 20# package shipped to zone 5 is $8.78 UPS ground. So, two of them is $17.56. A single 40 pound package would run $14.70, a savings of $2.86. Is that significant to you? I dunno, doesn't seem like much. But, as you say, a 1 # item shipped from 2 locations is almost double a 2# item, and that IS significant.

 

But, let's alter it and say the customer wants overnight. Using standard UPS rates (air saver), the 20# package is $56.75, times 2 = $113.50. A single 40# is $88.75, now you have a savings of $24.75, which on a small markup is the end of you.

 

So, the difference can be *very* significant. Your price would have to be that much cheaper than me as a stocking store to make it worth it. Which could be I suppose, depends on the item. But, clearly, there IS a big difference.

 

So, the question would still remain, would you want to charge the customer $113.50 for shipping? Even better - would he pay it? But, if you don't how would you possibly work the deal, I don't see any other way, so maybe you can just hope the products don't mix a lot. You should know if they do or not. Maybe you can just assume that most orders will be from one vendor, and if they are, then mostly you are fine. On those orders that come from ultiple vendors, maybe you then hope they are always ground shipments of at least some decent weight as they won't be much difference. Maybe you just eat the cost for those times it doesn't work that way.

 

I have the same issues, though my store does stock many items. But still, obviously I cannot stock 30,000 items at this point. So, I struggle with this same issue. Currently, I just hope that items won't be from 2 different vendors. And 99% of the time, they are not. For that 1%, I hope they do not want overnight. And 99% of the time they do not. For that remaining order that is overnight from 2 vendors, I suppose you can just eat it, or make them wait until you order them in to yourself so you can ship, which isn't overnight, and you might lose the order.

 

Any more thoughts or ideas you have?

[acicorp]

:cry: Steve,

 

You make too many good points and there is going to be no way of being right on all the time. The best thing to do it seems is to pick a central state or thereabouts and use that as a home shipping zone. I posted another question regarding the possibility of having an email address for each manufacturer and upon check out, an individual email could be sent to the manufacturer with all the shipping instructions etc... This would save on phone calls and perhaps there is an accounting software that can be used with this site that will tally up totals for each manufacturer at days end.

 

Thanks for all your input, you have helped a great deal.

 

Rick A.

[acicorp]

:cry: Steve,

 

You make too many good points and there is going to be no way of being right on all the time. The best thing to do it seems is to pick a central state or thereabouts and use that as a home shipping zone. I posted another question regarding the possibility of having an email address for each manufacturer and upon check out, an individual email could be sent to the manufacturer with all the shipping instructions etc... This would save on phone calls and perhaps there is an accounting software that can be used with this site that will tally up totals for each manufacturer at days end.

 

Thanks for all your input, you have helped a great deal.

 

Rick A.

[sfatula]

The email would be a good thing, as long as you process the credit card in advance. Otherwise, if it turns out the card was bogus or had a bad address, or whatever, then you have to take the time to cancel the order you emailed them about.

[acicorp]

8) Steve,

 

Do you know of anyone good at doing this type of work? I wonder if anyone has done this for the os system?

 

Rick

[sfatula]

Well, I can tell you I likely will tackle this if for nothing else, selfish reasons as I need the same thing! I am just not there yet, working on other changes I need badly. My business is about to grow by a factor for 5-10, and I need some other convenience features for credit cards and shipping more than this, although this is up there as I also don't need to be hiring more people just to send emails!

 

Whether or not such a change would be easily made into a contrib, I dunno. For my use, I make most of my changes more integral into the app for efficiency. This makes them less portable, but offers me more functionality. Since I run a e-business, this is very important to get the most bang out of the employees I have.

[escv]

I too need this functionality, however all of my products are shipped from the same location. Our customers will purchase as many as 10 items and want them all shipped to different locations.

 

I would be interested in speaking with anyone who is already working on this and would be happy to assist to get it done. You can contact me at [email protected]

 

Thx.

 

-- rmg

[cgchris99]

I too need this functionality. However, I need something slightly different.

 

I have groups of products that ship from multiple locations. So I need to be able to flag the items or groups of items for warehouse location ie zip code.

 

So a customer order 5 items from groupA and 2 from groupB. There would be two shipping origins not seven.

 

I hope someone is working on this.

 

keep us informed.