Calculating shipping?

How to calculate domestic and international shipping

[dtribble]

Hi everyone,

I'm building a web site for a client which they will be using to sell two different books. I'm using asp.net to handle the order calculations and am probably going to process the payments using Payflow Link.

My problem is that I am not sure how to calculate the shipping costs for domestic and international orders. My client will be using UPS.

We've thought of going with a flat rate per book charge for domestic orders. What are your thoughts on this?

How can I calculate the costs for shipping internationally?

They don't really need a shopping cart since they are just selling two books. Are there any solutions out there which don't involve integrating a shopping cart?

Any advice you can offer would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Damon

[Morgenhund]

Hi dtribble,

being in the book business (no US-based) -- many international shippers use something like $10 - $14 per book when sending abroad from US. It seems that it covers most expenditures, since this is a widely used.

However, there is a web-service from USPS (as far as I know) that allows you to calculate shipping costs precisely in real time.

But IMHO in case of two books it just isn't worth programming such a complicated system.

[bwnbwn]

Morgenhund
The biggest problem on shipping international on any system automated or not is
1-The cost on International is based on weight or package size. If the weight gives the higher amount it is based on weight but if a box measurment will bring more it goes on box size.

All box measurements are given a weight that this box could hold for it's size so say a

6X10X10 in the system is 10# and your package weight is 5# and you base your shipping cost on this weight, well you the shipper will recieve an updated bill on your account for the added 5# as all this is automated in UPS or FedEx.

Say you charged the customer 10.00 for the shipping charges based on the 5# the actual cost after it adjustment by ups may be 25.00. So you go in the hole on shipping 10.00 on this package.

I have discontinued all 2 day and or international for this very reason.

Now Groud is doing the same but the difference in cost isn't such a big swing as international or 2 day.

The only way to figure the actual shipping charges it do it both ways by weight and box measurement and take the greatest amount as the cost to ship the package.

This in itself is the problem an a coding nightmare.

How Amazon gets away with it is most likely volume based and they have to ship x amount for x amount if they fall short they pay the difference.

This is not based on fact just my theory but I hear they are taking a big big hit on shipping cost overrun.

[rocknbil]

Easy way: program a per-item cost for shipping based on the average of the worst case scenario, one for domestic and one for international. This is good for customers who can't see past "keep it simple." For two items, I'd just make the shipping rate per book a flat fee, editable by some administrative area on the site. Go into the UPS site, get a calculation on the worst case scenario, the best case, average it, there's your baseline. But for books, you may want to convince them to use USPS (see below.)

The "right" way: the most accurate way to do this is with the USPS or UPS programming API's, in which you connect with the respective websites via silent post, send an XML query string formatted to their specifications, and parse the response in real time. The problem with a flat rate per item is the shipping will vary the farther the destination is. It gets more complex if you have multiple items in an order and the items vary in size and shape.

For USPS, the calculations are based on weight, selected service, and shipping destination, up to the point at which the girth + length exceeds 130 inches, or the weight exceeds 70 lbs. Then it goes into an oversize calculation. There are also other parameters, such as flat rate boxes and the fact that books qualify for the media mail category that provides reduced rates.

UPS uses the same basic principles but has a few more complexities - every parcel requires length, width, and height parameters, and requires a destination city as well as zip code for domestic shipments. The complication here comes in programming the dimensions of the final box on multiple items. Re-shifting all the dimensions of a multiple item order is a bit more complex than just getting the volume and dividing it up. :-)

Our scheme sticks with USPS, and we display results of all available services - that is, for a given package, we query USPS and display a list of links, choose your shipping (parcel, priority, express, etc.) UPS shipping rates are only more economical than USPS if the package exceeds 7 pounds. Our database stores the shipping dimensions and weight of each item, and a setting adds a padding value to compensate for voids and padding. A box weight value per square inch calculates the cost of the box - overall we've come out ahead a dollar or two on most packages, keeping shipping within a reasonable range for customers.

A secure server is required to make the posts, other than that there are no costs involved, just a lot of hard work in programming. All major languages are supported.

[sun818]

I take it you are selling each book individually rather than wholesale? I think US Postal Service is actually better for books than UPS if its under 4 pounds in shipping weight. If the dimensions of the book can fit inside a USPS Priority Flat Rate Envelope, you can charge a flat rate for domestic and international orders:

1) Domestic $4.60 USD
2) Canada $9.00 USD
3) Rest of the world $11.00 USD

They also offer Express Mail Flat Rate which you could also use.

Anyone that ships with UPS can tell you that expenses are not predictable since the Bill you expect and what you get may not always match up. At least with US Postal, you know your costs exactly.

[rocknbil]

If the dimensions of the book can fit inside a USPS Priority Flat Rate Envelope

See previous, media mail applies to books and costs even less. The problem with flat rate is it will cost more on closer destinations. Rule of thumb: if it's far away and over 4 lbs, flat rate, if it's closer, regular Priority.

[sun818]

> The problem with flat rate is it will
> cost more on closer destinations.

Priority will cost more than Media Mail? Yes, that's true. I am aware of the option of Media Mail for US Postal, but I was thinking someone that uses UPS will not feel very comfortable using a slow delivery method like Media Mail. Priority Mail is faster than UPS Ground in many situations without the detailed tracking capability.

> My client will be using UPS.

If you client insists on UPS, I suggest a 90 day cost analysis. Add up the UPS bill for 90 days and divide by the number of orders from the same period. For example, if you shipped 1800 orders and your UPS bill came out to $9,000, your flat shipping rate would be $5.00 per order.

[dtribble]

Thanks everyone for the great responses. I can see that this is as complex an issue as I thought it was! :-)

For the purposes of this project, I lean towards the flat, per-book rate for domestic based on the average between worst and best-case costs. As for international, I think I'm going to recommend that he just ask international users to contact him via email as I don't anticipate many international orders.

Thanks again...

-Damon

[dpd1]

The tricky part in a flat rate is not knowing how many items they'll buy. For domestic, the way I do it is a flat rate, but we usually sell one item at a time. We do mostly USPS Priority. In their cost calculator, I run a package with it's weight and put in a zip that's the farthest distance from me (ie: the farthest zone). I consider that my top shipping fee I'll ever have to pay out, then factor the charged shipping cost based on that. As it turns out (Murphy's law) we end up selling a majority of stuff to people that seem to be in the farthest zone. But on the times it closer, it's a few more dollars in our pocket. You could say that this seems a little unfair to people that live closer, but in 6 years, I've never had anyone bring it up. I also look at it in the way that we really don't over charge for shipping, and that's probably what ticks people off more than anything. I think that's the most simple way to do it if you don't have a system that can calculate each different shipping destination.

Dave