vidmarc Posted June 1, 2018 Share Posted June 1, 2018 (edited) I'm building a site for a friend who is based in the US, and I'm a little confused about the best options for shipping out orders. The store will ship DVDs and Blu-rays mainly to the US, but also worldwide. I guess USPS would be best? Does this work on "By Weight", or is there a better way to set this up. Edited June 1, 2018 by vidmarc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmither Posted June 1, 2018 Share Posted June 1, 2018 After the store owner gets permission to make Rate Requests, the USPS will offer all available shipping methods, from which the store owner chooses which will be allowed. The resulting list will be offered to the customer. The best option is to let the customer decide: International snail-mail, DVD Flat Rate Box, or some other shipper such as UPS Two-Day Air, UPS Ground. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vidmarc Posted June 1, 2018 Author Share Posted June 1, 2018 (edited) The USPS plugin is asking for: Packaging Weight Handling Cost Tax Type The first two options will vary on how many discs have been ordered. How do I find out about US tax rates? Is this the best plugin to use, or is there another that will do the job? Also, how do I get permission to make USPS rate requests? Sorry about all the stupid questions :) Edited June 1, 2018 by vidmarc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmither Posted June 1, 2018 Share Posted June 1, 2018 There is a place on the USPS web site. What you actually need is an account for the "USPS Webtools". Go here: https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/welcome.htm Step 1 is a sign up. Once you sign up, USPS will email to you your USPS Webtools Username. This username is something USPS creates for you. You do not create it yourself. Step 2 is that once you make a few tests requesting rates, you then email them back asking to put this username onto their "production server". This is explained in the email they send you. CubeCart will keep a tally on the shipping weight. Handling cost should be a unit cost - the same to actually package the order regardless of how many items. The store owner will decide who and how much to locally tax. The "Tax Type" is not an actual amount. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vidmarc Posted June 1, 2018 Author Share Posted June 1, 2018 Thanks again. Does the USPS plugin still work properly? It seems it hasn't been updated in a while and there are current issues. store currently has this setting: Quote $4 US, $7 Canada, $13 ROTW, plus a charge of $1 per additional item ($1.25 for ROTW orders). Can this be done in Cubecart? He says: Quote Honestly, this doesn't really fit the model I have worked out for how I do shipping. Again, USPS costs are different from stamps.com's negotiated rates. So I'm not sure if this is actually useful to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmither Posted June 1, 2018 Share Posted June 1, 2018 (edited) What module has those rates set? All-in-One-Shipping can set those fixed rates. USPS does have "customer counter" rates, as well as "commercial negotiated" rates. Unless and until the store owner enters into an agreement with USPS for "commercial negotiated" rates, requests made to the automated online Rate Request (aka, WebTools API) will be the same as those charged customers who walk up to the "customer counter" at the Post Office brick-n-mortar facility. Stamps.com may offer the same rates as "commercial negotiated" because their negotiated rates may be even cheaper (that is, they still make a profit for the services they provide). If Stamps.com has an API, a plugin could be written for that. Edited June 1, 2018 by bsmither Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vidmarc Posted June 1, 2018 Author Share Posted June 1, 2018 20 minutes ago, bsmither said: What module has those rates set? He's currently using BigCartel to sell his movies. I'd have thought there would be more shipping plugins available for the US? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmither Posted June 1, 2018 Share Posted June 1, 2018 Sub-total, weight, category, item count, three major commercial carriers, and a module that does a good job of combining various considerations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vidmarc Posted June 1, 2018 Author Share Posted June 1, 2018 (edited) I'm finding the All in One a bit confusing. If I want to set: USA Canada Rest of World How do I do this? I can only go up to 5 items it seems. And do I need to add zones? Edited June 1, 2018 by vidmarc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmither Posted June 1, 2018 Share Posted June 1, 2018 On the General tab, check the box for Total quantity-based rates. Save the changes. On the Add New Shipping Zone tab, enter USA as the description and check One or Countries. Save. Now, on the USA tab, click Add New Shipping Rates. Fill out the form. Click the link to add another group of blank rate rows. Repeat as necessary. Save. Add another shipping zone, Canada. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vidmarc Posted June 1, 2018 Author Share Posted June 1, 2018 Still confused - how do I add $1 for each additional disc? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmither Posted June 1, 2018 Share Posted June 1, 2018 On the General tab, click the Show Advanced Settings link. This opens more options. (It will look messed up - this needs some better styling.) Check the box next to Per Item Component. Save. Back to the USA tab, you can see that each row now has an initial shipping rate plus an offset per item. For example: Method Name: Small Order (can be named whatever you want) Shipping Price: 2.00 + 1.00 per item Total Quantity of Items: 1-5 Method Name: Medium Order (can be named whatever you want) Shipping Price: 1.75 + 1.00 per item Total Quantity of Items: 6-15 Method Name: Large Order (can be named whatever you want) Shipping Price: 1.25 + 1.00 per item Total Quantity of Items: 16-500 These rows then calculate a derived cost of: Small: 3.00 to 7.00 Medium: 7.75 to 16.75 Large: 17.25 to 501.25 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vidmarc Posted June 1, 2018 Author Share Posted June 1, 2018 I'm not getting the option to add +1.00 to the other options. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmither Posted June 1, 2018 Share Posted June 1, 2018 On the General tab, Advanced Settings, make sure the correct checkbox is checked. There should be four checkboxes, and Per Item is the second checkbox. Be sure to Save. If you mean the Shipping Price column now shows something like "2.99 + 0.00 per item", and you find you wish to edit that phrase, click directly on the 0.00 of the phrase. The 0.00 turns into a text entry field with 0.00 as the entered value. Change the value and click Save. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vidmarc Posted June 1, 2018 Author Share Posted June 1, 2018 (edited) All I'm seeing is this. Edited June 1, 2018 by vidmarc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmither Posted June 1, 2018 Share Posted June 1, 2018 This image shows a control panel that does NOT have the text entry field "Name to show as shipping method". Therefore, I think your version may not be the latest. In admin Manage Extensions, verify that the version shown is 1.0.10 or later. Upgrading the actual plugin does not mean you have to start over. Also, in Advanced Settings, enable the Flat Rate Component. I also suggest enabling the Total quantity-based rates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vidmarc Posted June 2, 2018 Author Share Posted June 2, 2018 (edited) I'm using version 1.0.11. It seems to be working now I've selected those other settings. http://mondo-macabro.com/ The plugin is currently set to debug mode. Edited June 2, 2018 by vidmarc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vidmarc Posted June 2, 2018 Author Share Posted June 2, 2018 I can't get an exact $6 to ship 3 discs. Is there a way to fix this? USA, 1 disc 4.00 + 0.00 per item 1 - 1 USA, 2 discs 4.00 + 0.50 per item 2 - 2 USA, 3 discs 4.00 + 0.66 per item 3 - 3 USA, 4 discs 4.00 + 0.75 per item 4 - 4 USA, 5 discs 4.00 + 0.80 per item 5 - 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmither Posted June 2, 2018 Share Posted June 2, 2018 One rate row: Method Name: Shipping (can be named whatever you want) Shipping Price: 3.00 + 1.00 per item Total Quantity of Items: 1-12 (really doesn't matter, but needed*) One disk in the order calculates to: 3.00 + (1*1.00) = 4.00 Three disks calculates to: 3.00 + (3*1.00) = 6.00 * Total Quantity of Items for a distinct row allows for different fixed base costs for distinct ranges of quantities. For example, any order that has 1 to 12 discs would have a fixed base cost of 3.00 for the cost for that size of the box, 13 to 24 disks would have a fixed base cost of 4.00 for the cost for that size of the box, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vidmarc Posted June 3, 2018 Author Share Posted June 3, 2018 (edited) I can't seem to eneter the brackets or * symbols in the "+" field. It reverts to 0 or the first number when I save each field. Edited June 3, 2018 by vidmarc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmither Posted June 3, 2018 Share Posted June 3, 2018 (edited) Sorry. Here is what was describing. Enter only what is shown for each of the text entry boxes: Method Name/Description column (has one text entry box): Standard Shipping Price column (has two text entry boxes): 3.00 1.00 Total Quantity of Items column (has two text entry boxes): 1 12 Edited June 3, 2018 by bsmither Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vidmarc Posted June 4, 2018 Author Share Posted June 4, 2018 (edited) Thanks for that, very clever stuff - I was obviously overthinking it :) Edited June 4, 2018 by vidmarc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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