Drop shipper module

[birdoasis]

I'm working on a drop shipper module and wanted to brainstorm it in here. Hopefully other drop shipping merchants will jump in.

The problem:

Zen Cart 1.3.7 and below use the store's zip code when calculating cost of shipping.

A merchant that stocks product and dropships product as well often has to choose either to dropship everything, or run the risk that the customer will order items in stock, and items fro the dropshipper.

In my case I carry items that sell frequently and are able to ship in USPS boxes. If a customer orders an item I have in stock at my store zip code, and an item located at the dorpshipper zip code, then I'm more likely to dropship everything.

However if the customer orders only items I have in stock then I ship it from my store zip code.

Unfortunately we often find that the customer is charged less, than they need to pay. So with having to pay a portion of the shipping, plus incur the drop ship fee I've lost a good chunk of profit.

So now let's brainstorm this.

I want any shipping module to reference the product_Zip_Code instead of the store's zip code.

I need the following fields to be associated with each product, and/or attribute for the db.

Product_Zip_Code: Zip Code of product location.

Default_Zip_Code: This is the zip code of the main drop shipper who has every product I sell.

If the customer orders multiple items associated with the drop shippers zip code, then the default_zip_code will be used to determine the shipping cost and time.

Questions:

Would the fields be better as a separate table, with a relation to the products, or would it be best to add them to the products table?

Now I have to figure out how to have the shipping modules check the product zip code instead of the store zip code, and the if/then statement that would direct the shipping module to the Default_Zip_Code.

The flow:

If a single product is ordered, then use the product_zip_code to calculate shipping.

If the multiple products are ordered, then use the default_zip_code

I understand that it may be necessary to alter core files, but if there is any way to avoid altering core files I would rather use that method.

JP

[rwment]

Well JP the only problem I forsee with your flow is that if they order a combination of products you carry and products you dropship.

It is almost as if the mod will need to calculate the shipping for each product and then add them together.

The problem there is that it still wont be completely accurate due to if you ship multiple products in one package it would still be cheaper than shipping them all seperately.

I don't mean to rain on your parade but I just wanted to make sure that you realize just how big a project this MAY turn out to be. I love the idea and would be willing to help in any way I can, even if only as official project parade rainmaker.

Robert

[cyberkill]

With past stores and dropshipping. I don't worry so much about shipping costs. Set an avg shipping cost from the middle of the US. You'll over charge some and under charge others. In the end it evens out. Reason I do it this way is like the above person said. To many variables come into play with different dropshippers, it can even get ugly with 1 ships UPS and another ships DHL!

Now, with zen cart and dropshipping what I would like. The ability to input my cost of the products and tie those into the checkout portion and tied to google analytics. This way the Google reports show net profits and not gross profits.

[supersnow]

Someone who has the know-how might want to look at the oscommerce contribution that works well with drop shipments - I am not sure what modifications it would need to work with zencart, but is would at least help with the start.

The link to the oscommerce contribution is:
http://www.oscommerce.com/community/...all/search,mvs

Hope this helps anyway!!

[djstern]

Ideally it would take all the products shipping from one location and get a shipping price from UPS then take all the items shipping from another location and get the price from UPS, then present the total shipping cost to the customer. This would require a FOB location to be specified in the product listing in the store for each item. Setting a default FOB location and changing it for items that vary from the norm could make entering products easier.

I've been looking for a contribution that would do this my self. I ship a number of products from in house, and ship a good bit by drop ship as well. The double shipping kills me sometimes. A way of getting proper shipping costs on orders that ship from more than one location would be great. Unfortunately, I read Greek better than I read PHP or I'd write it my self. :) This is something that I and I'd imagine a lot of other people could really use.

If there's any way that a non coder like my self can help, let me know. I'll do what I can.

[supersnow]

Ideally it would take all the products shipping from one location and get a shipping price from UPS then take all the items shipping from another location and get the price from UPS, then present the total shipping cost to the customer. This would require a FOB location to be specified in the product listing in the store for each item. Setting a default FOB location and changing it for items that vary from the norm could make entering products easier.

I've been looking for a contribution that would do this my self. I ship a number of products from in house, and ship a good bit by drop ship as well. The double shipping kills me sometimes. A way of getting proper shipping costs on orders that ship from more than one location would be great. Unfortunately, I read Greek better than I read PHP or I'd write it my self. :) This is something that I and I'd imagine a lot of other people could really use.

If there's any way that a non coder like my self can help, let me know. I'll do what I can.

To be honest I have two stores. One that is oscommerce and one that is zencart. I do prefer zencart as I really prefer the attribute control better. But I use the oscommerce site because at the time I like the fact that they had a working drop ship module. As I indicated above the contribution from oscommerce does the following as described in the contribution notes:

This contribution changes the way osCommerce handles shipping. You can now set the shipping
parameters for each product individually. All of the following (and more) are possible:

1. Most products ship by a selection of standard shipping methods, but certain large and heavy items
ship by truck.
2. Products ship from one of two or more locations.
3. Some products ship by a selection of standard shipping methods, some must ship by a specific
method, others ship directly from several different suppliers.
4. Any combination of the above.

You can have orders sent directly to your supplier in the case of products that are shipped directly
from that supplier.

All of the necessary settings are controlled in the admin panel. There is an Admin page to set up
each Vendor (or shipper, or shipping method). There is an Admin panel for setting shipping modules
for each vendor, similar to the Shipping Modules page in the current Admin. There is also a
configuration setting to turn this whole Contribution off if it is no longer needed. In Admin->Configuration->Shipping/Packaging.

As I have said I actually used this on my oscommerce site. It is fantastic. You can send emails to the drop shipper letting them know a product is ordered or you can have the system do it automatically. Each Vendor has its own shipping module that you can set totally independent from each other and each product is set to a particular vendor in the product description. I have my store set for USPS and one of my vendor just uses UPS and the other just ships within US & Canada with a flat fee. So each one I set accordingly. So if someone can convert it to zencart most of the hard work is done with contribution!

[katrobb]

Another way would be to use the manufacturer as the source for the zip code. With my store, I have mainly one supplier for each manufacturer. That would the time of entering a zip code for each product.

I like your idea of using the product's (manufacturer's) zip code for all orders from one zip code and using the default store zip code for multiple shipping zip codes. It would be nice to have it figure out the individual zip code charges and total them, but this idea would be a great start.

As you are brainstorming, I also wanted a way to use different shipping modes for each manufacturer and if the order has mixed manufacturers, use the store's default shipping modes. The zip code and shipping information could be in its own separate table and tied to the manufacturer's information section. Unless the order has multiple manufacturers, the program would use this table and if there is no shipping information, then it would use the store's default. Just something to think about.

Katrina