Shipping Setting for Multiple Dropshippers

[Keepsake]

Heh, nice to hear my module is helping some people out. Here's a link to the most recent version

www.sexycrochetlingerie.com/purchaseorders.zip

[tvadpro]

By the way, I managed to remedy my shipping dilemma by cloning freeoptions (renaming it flatoptions) and setting a minimum weight in flatoptions exceeding the UPS maximum. This way, flat rate and free pickup-at-shipper-terminal don't appear on orders that are small enough to ship UPS. Meanwhile, orders that only ship on a palette (e.g. 800+ lbs) invoke pickup-at-shipper (freeoptions) and flat rate curbside (flatoptions).

Any luck yet with that different-drop-ship-rate-for-every-product problem?

Sean

[sparrish]

Heh, nice to hear my module is helping some people out. Here's a link to the most recent version

www.sexycrochetlingerie.com/purchaseorders.zip

I've not seen that one before. Looks great though! I may have to install that to check it out. Does it do anything with custom shipping for each supplier, though? That is the primary reason that I've been working on this new module, as I need something that can give quotes based on each supplier's location and preferred shipping carrier. I didn't see anything about it in the readme file, but everything else sounds really nice.

[mafiasam]

I know that when shopping on Amazon this multi-vendor shipping is handled very well.

It's hard to believe that this CAN'T be accomplished with zencart. I mean it seems that each product SHOULD have a vendor specification (if only for admin purposes). There is a manufacturer specification.

Would it be possible to use that manufacturer identity (hiding it from catalog view) and use it to designate vendors? Using that, something could be written to first identify each product by its vendor in the cart and if multiple vendors are present it could add an additional fee or somehow figure the additional shipping.

I have multiple vendors and I'm basically playing roulette with my profits by not having this type of modification present. Luckily it has only been an issue a few times.

I'm in the process of learning PHP and mySQL myself right now. i also know a php programmer but he's extremely busy of course. I would like to see this happen.

[tvadpro]

Interesting idea, Sam. Maybe the cart/checkout could be modified to first check shipping limitations of each product in the cart, and then disable all related shipping methods except the costliest one. So if the cart contains a mix of, say, FedEx-only products, UPS-only products and USPS products, the only shipping method offered would be FedEx.

Does anyone else like this approach? How could it better serve the needs of the greatest number of stores?

Just thinking, talking, re-thinking ...
Sean

[bettysue]

Interesting idea, Sam. Maybe the cart/checkout could be modified to first check shipping limitations of each product in the cart, and then disable all related shipping methods except the costliest one. So if the cart contains a mix of, say, FedEx-only products, UPS-only products and USPS products, the only shipping method offered would be FedEx.

Does anyone else like this approach? How could it better serve the needs of the greatest number of stores?

Just thinking, talking, re-thinking ...
Sean

How would a system like this work with the suppliers who do not base their shipping price on weight or carrier? A clients main supplier has shipping prices assigned to each item on the inventory list. It's not by cateogry, type of item, weight, etc. It is different for every item. The total item list is 10,000+ different products.

betty

[tvadpro]

That's a conundrum, Betty. If my store had a different flat rate for every product, I'd be tempted to add each product's shipping charge as an option/attribute and then change the description for flat rate shipping to something generic like "shipping calculated with product price" -- so the shipping module doesn't charge for shipping, but the attribute does. This way, you get to assign product-specific shipping rates without totally reinventing the cart and checkout.

Are there a lot of stores whose shipping model resembles yours in that shipping rates are different for every product?

Sean

How would a system like this work with the suppliers who do not base their shipping price on weight or carrier? A clients main supplier has shipping prices assigned to each item on the inventory list. It's not by cateogry, type of item, weight, etc. It is different for every item. The total item list is 10,000+ different products.

betty

[Ajeh]

That is why this has to be coded custom ...

Some sites need to have it based on a manufactuer's table for zones and others need it based on the manufactuer's zip code to obtain rates for modules like UPS or USPS and compute the totals for the quote ...

And the computation has to take into account mixed manufactuer's and what to do with products that are not managed by the manufactuer but rather the shop zip code and product weight ...

It is not a simple one to write but it can be written ...

[tvadpro]

That makes sense. Our site is relatively simple shipping-wise -- big products ship via common carrier, medium products ship via UPS, big/medium combinations via common carrier -- and even we needed to tweak a few lines of code. But our shipping model probably bears no resemblance to any of the other ZC stores out there.

When developing cart/checkout for Zen-Cart, I suppose one must aim for something that meets the needs of the greatest number of stores -- knowing all the while that many stores will still find it necessary to invest substantial programming resources in order to satisfy their special shipping needs.

That is why this has to be coded custom ...

Some sites need to have it based on a manufactuer's table for zones and others need it based on the manufactuer's zip code to obtain rates for modules like UPS or USPS and compute the totals for the quote ...

And the computation has to take into account mixed manufactuer's and what to do with products that are not managed by the manufactuer but rather the shop zip code and product weight ...

It is not a simple one to write but it can be written ...

[Ajeh]

It's hard to believe that this CAN'T be accomplished with zencart. I mean it seems that each product SHOULD have a vendor specification (if only for admin purposes). There is a manufacturer specification.

It isn't that it *can't* be done with Zen Cart ... it is a matter of it *hasn't* been done with Zen Cart ...

This would require quite a bit of custom coding to allow for multiple drop shipping on a per product per order basis ...

All it takes is a lot of time and possibly $$$ to get the code written to handle this method ...