Shipping methods

[osCommerce-Official]

Same as the Payment methods, Shipping methods in osCommerce v4 can be linked to:

- a particular sales channel (website)

- customer group

- country or region 

and be available for the front end (checkout or quotation), back end, and POS.

Shipping methods can be also linked with one or more tracking methods (to be described further).

Same as the payment methods, Shipping methods can be installed, enabled or disabled. 

There exist a number of "offline" shipping methods, where prices are set manually in the back end. And a number of "online" shipping methods, which provide integration with the corresponding shipping provider's API. It is very likely that "online" shipping methods will find their way to a special section of the back end when osCommerce v4 is released. It is also likely that such "online" shipping methods will be made available through the marketplace, either for free or for a nominal fee (in the latter case it will be surely less than their analogues from WooCommerce, etc). And of course osCommerce developers will be very welcome to create new solutions and list them as apps too.

 

One interesting new solution is Click and Collect shipping. 

It is possible to set Click and Collect locations in the settings of osCommerce v4, and then allow customers to choose Click and Collect as a shipping option on checkout.

Here is the list of currently present "online" shipping modules, in no particular order:

- FedEx

- DHL

- UPS

- USPS

- TNT express

- NovaPoshta 

 

Another interesting new solution is a so called Zone Table method:

- it allows for setting up various shipping zones, by country, by region of the country, or even a range of post/zip codes 

- it allows for setting up various shipping methods and naming them accordingly 

- and finally, it links zones and shipping methods together, allowing setting up delivery costs by order price, weight, volume, dimensions, etc

 

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by osCommerce-Official

[ozEworks]

I make the same comment as payment methods. Availability of shipping modules is a make or break deciding factor when choosing an ecommerce solution. Probably more so than payment.

I believe it would be best to offer standalone and realtime. 

Stand alone:

Flat based on order value or weight

Free based on order value

Table rates, as per 2.3

zones rates as per 2.3

Real Time

To be truly global the ideal is to offer a real time shipping module for the country’s government carrier.  So for US, is it USPS, for Canada it is Canada Post etc. At least for the top 10 osCommerce country users. You’d need to research that. 

Any other method that is supported by the osCommerce team should be in the box and anything in the box should be free.

For USA, people need FedEx and UPS and DHL.  

 

For shipping it has to handle non-dimensional and dimensional shipping. It has to be able to configure the max weight per carrier. Freight has to be considered but anything that handles freight could be app store. 

These are just my random thoughts on a Saturday morning 🙂
 

 

 

[osCommerce-Official]

2 hours ago, ozEworks said:

I make the same comment as payment methods. Availability of shipping modules is a make or break deciding factor when choosing an ecommerce solution. Probably more so than payment.

I believe it would be best to offer standalone and realtime. 

Stand alone:

Flat based on order value or weight

Free based on order value

Table rates, as per 2.3

zones rates as per 2.3

Real Time

To be truly global the ideal is to offer a real time shipping module for the country’s government carrier.  So for US, is it USPS, for Canada it is Canada Post etc. At least for the top 10 osCommerce country users. You’d need to research that. 

Any other method that is supported by the osCommerce team should be in the box and anything in the box should be free.

For USA, people need FedEx and UPS and DHL.  

 

For shipping it has to handle non-dimensional and dimensional shipping. It has to be able to configure the max weight per carrier. Freight has to be considered but anything that handles freight could be app store. 

These are just my random thoughts on a Saturday morning 🙂
 

 

 

Thank you, Kym, appreciate your input. 

It is LIKELY that all standalone shipping modules will be available "out of the box" indeed. Instead of Zone and Table we now have Zone Table - this is a much better way of doing things, much more flexible, and allows setting up various price table-based shipping methods, naming them accordingly, and linking them to particular zones. Please note a "zone" now can go down to a range of zip/post codes, not just country/region like before.

Also, since each product can have its weight, and size, we can use this data to determine which shipping method will be used and how much the user will have to pay, as it is possible to set the price table based not just on weight or price but also on volume or dimensions.

Realtime ones - again, thanks for the advise, will likely put some of them in the app store, most likely free, unless some serious effort is required to maintain some. 

osCommerce developers will be able to add their own shipping modules to the app store

[sackling]

Loving the consistent updates.

 

definitely super important for us to have a Canada post shipping module but that is not something I would 100% expect to be developed by the core coders. It is usually an addon. Of course if there was a module included it would be phenomenal.

 

One question is concerning weight/dimensions of attributes. For example a size 14 boot is not the same weight/size of a size 6. Will v4 allow for different dimensions based on attributes?

[osCommerce-Official]

3 hours ago, sackling said:

Loving the consistent updates.

Thanks! One of our goals is to "educate" everyone interested in the new version of osCommerce by the time it is ready for download through posts on this Forum.

3 hours ago, sackling said:

 

definitely super important for us to have a Canada post shipping module but that is not something I would 100% expect to be developed by the core coders. It is usually an addon. Of course if there was a module included it would be phenomenal.

Got it. Will forward to the development team, although can not give you a 100% guarantee it will get delivered along with v4. But the tool set will be there for it to be created by the add-on developers, if anything. 

 

3 hours ago, sackling said:

 

One question is concerning weight/dimensions of attributes. For example a size 14 boot is not the same weight/size of a size 6. Will v4 allow for different dimensions based on attributes?

There is already a solution that allows for weight to be different. BTW size 14 boot - wow!

There doesn't exist (yet) a way to set dimensions differently for attribute values or inventory, but will forward to the development team for consideration.

BTW it is possible to set its own SKU and EAN, price, weight, stock, and supplier(s) details for each inventory item. 

[PhoenixAter]

vor 19 Stunden schrieb ozEworks:

For USA, people need FedEx and UPS and DHL.  

Just USA. Not all people in the world need all possible possibilities. In my store e.g. I never offer "Delivery by FedEx". So why should I have it in the box? Or for other Europeans UPS and FedEx aren't popular, they prefer DHL, DPD or their local postal service. Germany and Switzerland have so called Packstationen run by the local "Post". Would you have them also in the box as shipping method: delivery to "Packstation"?

Once again: A small clear system with high performance and all other methods as Add-On's.

[♥Gyakutsuki]

It's better to have the shipping inside Marketplace / add on .. as you want.  It's very specific and it's in relation to the country. Also, the new v4 developer does not make all the shipping in all the country. Just the basic is enough after ti will inside the hand of the community.

[domiosc]

Please consider that some carriers charge a commission (% x amount) for cash on delivery.

[milkman45]

Hi Guys,

Great suggestions from all and progression of functionality even better. As for shipping options, this would be good to have freight brokers such as INTERPARCEL, SENDLE, and similar to have integration to the new platform with their own API. Similar to what WOO has in admin.

As I'm from Australia, AUD POST integration will be a bonus, however, I understand this may have to be build and implemented but AUD POST themselves.
Keep up the great work.

 

[gritsop]

Hello.

Just wanted to ask if the shipping modules include the option of declaring specific ZIP Codes for a given country  which are denoted as "Remote Areas" (eg DHL).

Remote area is a specific zip code where the carrier imposes an extra fee. It would be very practical to be able to declare these ZIP codes in order to avoid charging the normal rate and avoid discussing with the client being charged more.

Kind regards

 

[osCommerce-Official]

10 hours ago, gritsop said:

Hello.

Just wanted to ask if the shipping modules include the option of declaring specific ZIP Codes for a given country  which are denoted as "Remote Areas" (eg DHL).

Remote area is a specific zip code where the carrier imposes an extra fee. It would be very practical to be able to declare these ZIP codes in order to avoid charging the normal rate and avoid discussing with the client being charged more.

Kind regards

 

Thanassis, thanks for your comment! 

DHL integration is implemented via their APIs. So in case DHL decides to charge any extra, they will pass it via the API integration into osCommerce.

HOWEVER there exists a module called Zone Table, where you can manually set shipping methods (names), shipping zones (country, region, ZIP/post code range), and shipping costs too. There are multiple examples of this in the UK, for example, where shipping to remote areas in Scotland (Highlands of Scotland), Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, and other isles typically costs extra or is not provided. Zone Table approach deals with such situation beautifully. 

[Hotclutch]

I have 2 shipping methods: 1) a counter to counter service - where the shipping cost is fixed and always the same 2) Door to door service -where the shipping cost varies wildly, because of remote areas and surcharges applied by the courier company.

Is it possible to restrict a payment method (credit card payment) to only a certain type of shipping method (in my case counter to counter) ?

 

[deansmar]

From me are the same comments as in payment methods...

If I remember correctly, we have not used any of the supplied shipping methods.. all ours are addons..

 

Request freight quote, Royal Mail, parcel force, interlink ...

So long as the add ons are available for V4 that would be okay for me..  😉

Edited April 1, 2021 by deansmar
Correction

[wdepot]

I'm very glad to see that osCommerce 4 is apparently going to include size information to use on products for shipping purposes since basically all carriers now charge dimensional weight if a package is large but light. I assume that there will be some setup for available boxes to use for shipping to go with this. I would interested in knowing if osCommerce 4 will allow for single products that come in multiple packages for shipping purposes, like the split products portion of the dimensional weight contribution that is available for osCommerce 2.3.x. I would also hope that the packaging routine for osCommerce 4 doesn't do like the one in the aforementioned dimensional weight contribution and add products to a box based solely on the calculated remaining volume. We have had more than one instance of our 2.3.4 packager using a particular size box for a rate quote that the products won't all physically fit in to because of the dimensions of the products even though the total product volume is less than the volume of the box. Each product is checked to be sure it will fit in the box individually, but it doesn't check to see if they will fit in the box together with the other products based on their dimensions.

[Guest]

Nice featured screenshot, it will be amazing
Anyway...
Same comment as

Based on how many shipping methods must exists in an Official OSCommerce v4+ release !

[aisonet]

I hope it will have product stock for store locations, so you can do pickup from store and see what stores have what items in stock and how many, via:

Create a “Pick up from store” shipping method and let customers choose where they want to pick up the product. The shipping rates and time depend on rate areas.

Show the list of cities where you have a store/pickup point in the Customer geolocation block in a Map view like google maps. Customers will be able to select the city from the list.

Show the map with the selected pickup point in the order-related documents: invoice and packing slip.

[aisonet]

On 9/21/2021 at 10:21 AM, aisonet said:

I hope it will have product stock for store locations, so you can do pickup from store and see what stores have what items in stock and how many, via:

Create a “Pick up from store” shipping method and let customers choose where they want to pick up the product. The shipping rates and time depend on rate areas.

Show the list of cities where you have a store/pickup point in the Customer geolocation block in a Map view like google maps. Customers will be able to select the city from the list.

Show the map with the selected pickup point in the order-related documents: invoice and packing slip.

Also hope there will be a POS system/screen, similar to Shopify POS lite & pro

[aisonet]

I also hope their shipping modules have code for box packing like WooCommerce and its box packer code.

[aisonet]

On 5/6/2021 at 5:21 PM, wdepot said:

I'm very glad to see that osCommerce 4 is apparently going to include size information to use on products for shipping purposes since basically all carriers now charge dimensional weight if a package is large but light. I assume that there will be some setup for available boxes to use for shipping to go with this. I would interested in knowing if osCommerce 4 will allow for single products that come in multiple packages for shipping purposes, like the split products portion of the dimensional weight contribution that is available for osCommerce 2.3.x. I would also hope that the packaging routine for osCommerce 4 doesn't do like the one in the aforementioned dimensional weight contribution and add products to a box based solely on the calculated remaining volume. We have had more than one instance of our 2.3.4 packager using a particular size box for a rate quote that the products won't all physically fit in to because of the dimensions of the products even though the total product volume is less than the volume of the box. Each product is checked to be sure it will fit in the box individually, but it doesn't check to see if they will fit in the box together with the other products based on their dimensions.

I agree this will be important as well.

[♥Gyakutsuki]

Hello,

there, an example inside a product about the shipping but also the approach could be more complex.

 

[♥Gyakutsuki]

[D.M.]

The Zone Table looks a very nice idea.
But where is the UI for it?
I have installed 4.12

Where are the (no doubt multiple and convoluted) places I need to set up stuff.
Please describe the menu paths to reach them.

[D.M.]

Hello, is anyone there ???

 

[bonbec]

Take a look to the FAQ : https://www.oscommerce.com/wiki/Managing_Zone_Table

[wrsenter998]

It's too bad the Zone Table says "Application Coming Soon".