Shipping Cost Estimator Accuracy

[Ajeh]

The Shipping Estimator and checkout_shipping are both obtaining Real Time quotes from UPS ...

They use the same code to make the calls ...

[wormgineer]

OK great, thanks for the info. Knowledge is good.

I still do not understand why no one will answer if it is accurate in real life. I have run out of ways to ask the question. This is part of the art of e-commerce?

I am putting together another example or four.

[Ajeh]

That is relative ...

You have to check to see if the Real Time Quotes from the UPS servers match what you are getting charged ...

There are various settings that you might need to adjust to get that correct match ...

[wormgineer]

Four examples actually

Ship from Sherwood Oregon 97140
I have a new account with UPS, completely set up and after the waiting periods for rates to kick in.
The account is set up for Smart Pickup and I am using Internet Shipping (Shipping/Create a shipment).
My understanding is that should give me daily rates (not retail rates).

I am going to set up shipments for residential delivery and commercial delivery in Chicago and rural Georgia.

I used gmaps and whitepages.com to pick these addresses at random. My previous exmples were for local delivery (Zone 2).
1. Naples Pizza 4601 South Ashland Avenue Chicago IL 60609-3252
2. James Wilson 6710 S Claremont Ave, Apt 109 Chicago, IL 60636-2436
3. Pizza Place 2366 Highway 113 # C, Taylorsville, GA 30178-1873
4. James E Smith Jr 10 Mountain Breeze Rd Taylorsville, GA 30178-1749

On the create a shipment page at UPS
https://www.ups.com/uis/create?loc=en_US
I enter the ship to address, I check Validate this address but do NOT check Residential address in any case.
Ship from defaults correctly.
My packaging
Weight: 7 lbs
Dimensions: 8 x 8 x 13
Declared value: $40
How to Ship: UPS Ground
No additional services
No reference numbers
Bill to my account
No to schedule a UPS on-call pickup
I click next
Show shipping fees subtotal details
Shipping Fees Subtotal:
10.91 USD
Transportation
8.09 USD
Fuel Surcharge
0.62 USD
Declared Value
Package 1
No Charge
Residential Surcharge
2.20 USD
cancel

I used all the same values and settings for the other three addresses:

2. James Wilson 6710 S Claremont Ave, Apt 109 Chicago, IL 60636-2436
Shipping Fees Subtotal:
14.85 USD
Transportation
11.81 USD
Fuel Surcharge
0.84 USD
Declared Value
Package 1
No Charge
Residential Surcharge
2.20 USD

3. Pizza Place 2366 Highway 113 # C, Taylorsville, GA 30178-1873
Shipping Fees Subtotal:
11.18 USD
Transportation
8.85 USD
Fuel Surcharge
0.63 USD
Declared Value
Package 1
No Charge
Delivery Area Surcharge
Package 1: Delivery Area Surcharge - Rural Extended
1.70 USD

4. James E Smith Jr 10 Mountain Breeze Rd Taylorsville, GA 30178-1749
Shipping Fees Subtotal:
14.63 USD
Transportation
8.85 USD
Fuel Surcharge
0.83 USD
Declared Value
Package 1
No Charge
Delivery Area Surcharge
Package 1: Delivery Area Surcharge - Rural Extended
2.75 USD
Residential Surcharge
2.20 USD

OK off to my store. I login a new dummy customer for each of these 4 pretend orders.
1. Sue Smith at Naples Pizza has one item on her shopping cart, weight is 7 lbs.
Holy cow it matches at $10.91 That is the first time I've had a match.

2. Linda logs in and places an order to James Smith's address. Same order of course.
Estimator says $10.91 also, UPS wants $14.85. That's a diff of $3.94, too low. If the estimator missed the 0.84 fuel surchange and the 2.20 residential delivery charge the diff is $0.90, which is also the difference between UPS's Transportation of $11.81 and the estimator's total of $10.91

3. Betty logs in and places an order to Pizza Place. Same order of course.
Estimator says $14.63, UPS wants $11.18. That's a diff of $3.45, too high. If the estimator missed the 0.63 fuel surchange and the rural surcharge of $1.70 the diff is $5.78 which is also the difference between UPS's Transportation of $8.85 and the estimator's total of $14.63

4. Tom logs in and places an order for James Smith. We have another match at $14.63.

So it looks as if sometimes the estimator has the transportation fee correct and sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it accounts for the surcharges and sometimes it doesn't.

[wormgineer]

So I am pretty frustrated here and I just typed and deleted a sarcastic paragraph referring to the zc team. I decide to look into the support community here. Holy cow, only 4 people? I had no idea, I thought this was like phpBB, that zc would have maybe half as many people working on it as phpBB. Wow, that explains a lot.

My new business is going to be based on perpetual positive customer experience from the start. So I want correct shipping cost quotes. So I have offered to help fix this problem. I can call UPS and get the logic and rates all sorted out if someone here can revise the software.

In the meantime, why can't someone just admit it is only an estimator? It is not properly programmed to match the rates produced by UPS: the logic is clearly different. This is not a user error. Identical queries of identical databases produce identical results.

I am now going to go see how you disable the shipping estimator and will provide an alternate solution for my valued customers.

If you continue to ignore this problem, you also will be ignoring an offer to fix it. I see it as a critically important problem, apparently you folks do not. So be it, the ball is in your court and I am going to get on with my life. I have a business to launch.

[Ajeh]

What happens if you use:
UPS Pickup Method: CC