Shipping and handling charges

how to do it

[AmyNY]

Just started using mals-e.com free shopping cart. So far we like the setup and it was easy to configure. We process the credit cards by hand in-store. The problem is configuring shipping and handling charges? We are set up right now to contact the customer with shipping charges.

Items we ship can weigh from 3 lbs to 300 or more lbs and boxes can be any variety of dimensions. Handling charges can vary greatly too. We offer UPS ground, next day, 2nd day, 3rd day air, Fed Ex and trucking for very large stuff. We sell to comsumers and business.

Amy

[CygnusX1]

Hi Amy,

We also had the same trouble with shipping and handling. We ended up using a more in-depth shopping cart.

Free is nice, but you kind of get what you pay for. It sounds like you may need something that can handle different weights and sizes a little better then a shopping cart that is "free". I think you will find a good shopping cart is worth a certain amount of money. Even if it is just for the convenience.

[AmyNY]

I didn't really need the least expensive shopping cart. I just spent a lot of time reading here about carts and couldn't decide. Was afraid of the carts that google couldn't spider, also I'd read a positive post about a cart and then someone would counter with a negative, I tried setting up mysql database with php admin (that was easy), couldn't figure out how to write the php code to connect the database to the site. Mals was quick and easy to set up and won't interfere with the spiders (just time consuming to edit the forms).

Amy

[sun818]

Hi Amy, you can review the shipping options for Mal's eCommerce here: [mals-e.com...]

You can also look at AmeriCart, another remotely hosted solution. They seem to offer a more complex shipping, handling, and insurance options which may be better suited for your situation.

I'm finding that quoting shipping price based on weight only is not best as the shipping services will "adjust" the weight if the package is considered "oversized".

[Essex_boy]

Thats interesting as I use teh same cart and im having the same problems, Ill checkout Americart.

Thanks

[jbinbpt]

Hi AmyNY,
We found ourselves in a similar situation. We use the Miva package that came with the hosting package. We process credit cards off system also. These are some of the things we found that helped us.

Miva allows a fixed handling charge based on a weight range to be added to calculated UPS charges. You define the ranges and Miva will add the appropriate handling charge. You can have as many ranges as you want.

For the items that we knew occurred additionally handling charges, we adjusted the weight to compensate for those charges. For example, long, light items show a shipping weight , not the actual weight. You can add this information to the description so the customer knows.

Charge full freight, but arrange for a discounted service. Use the difference to cover the items you could not tweak. There are two things to look into….
If you don’t have a UPS Daily pickup, look into getting one. There is a service charge, but there are also discounts available if you have enough volume. The UPS hundred weight program is worth considering for your shipments over 150 lbs. They really drop the price at that point
If you want, you can play Fedex off of UPS. Opening a Fedex account, gives you access to ground, air and trucking services. Discounts are available for steady shippers.

My apologies is you already have these things covered.

jb

[balinor]

I've had really good luck with Xcart and their 'lite' version called LiteCommerce. You can write as many complex shipping calculations as you want fairly easily. I was using Americart before, but it simply didn't offer me enough options as my transactions got more complex. Good luck!

[AmyNY]

Sun818

I've talked with the folks at mals and the shipping options are definately limited. I've read through all the help. Will look at Americart.

jb

My host comes with miva for free. I thought there were too many negative comments on this board about miva so I looked elsewhere. One discussion regarding robots spidering miva pages. There seems to be conflicting comments as to whether or not this is still a problem.

We have daily UPS pickup. In Manhattan there is a surcharge for this because there is no parking.

balinor

Will look at xcart.

Everyone:

Regarding other carts (particulary xcart and americart):

Are they easy to use?
Can I integrate "buy now" buttons on my current pages?
Are pages static or dynamic? Can goggle read them?

Those are my immediate needs. After that we'd like to download the info into quickbooks? Do most of the carts download to a csv file and does quickbooks allow a csv file to be imported?

Thanks everyone for your help.

Amy

[johnroger]

With any out of the box solution you aren't going to be able to cover every shipping known to man. There are hundreds of different ways to calculate shipping. The key when choosing an e-commerce solution is to find one that has the flexibility to customize your shipping solution into it Preferably from the software makers themselves this way you can keep support. A good solution for you guys may be digiSHOP as they can customize the shipping for you. They did for me. One of my clients had drop shipping and they had a complicated formula and those guys added it to the cart and I still have full support.