Product Delivery by Postcode (PDP) - [Support]

[frank18]

Product Delivery By Postcode (PDP) allows restricting delivery of certain products to specified (local) postcodes.

How does Product Delivery By Postcode (PDP) work?

PDP relies on two shipping modules:

• the new shipping module named Local Delivery
• a modified Store Pickup shipping module

These two modules need to be configured first by specifying delivery postcodes of orders.

If a customer states a delivery address which is within the range of the configured postcodes then these 2 shipping modules will be available during the checkout process. If the delivery address is outside the specified range then the customer can not choose any of the 2 shipping options.

Both shipping modules work independently which means that you can activate one or the other or both.

The real benefit of PDP is realized by configuring some products which can only be delivered locally. This is useful when you have very big and bulky parcels such as bales of hay.

PDP could also be used for a pizza shop that delivers pizzas.

Or, you are selling perishables which can only be delivered locally due to temperature restrictions - eg bags of party ice.

Products marked 'Local Delivery Only' are identified on the product info page as 'Local Delivery Only'
The customer is alerted about the restriction but they can still add the product to the cart (they may elect to change the delivery address later)

Scenario 1

• The cart contains no products marked 'Local Delivery Only'
• The delivery address is within the range specified in the shipping modules
• ALL shipping options are available

Scenario 2

• The cart contains no products marked 'Local Delivery Only'
• The delivery address is outside the range specified in the shipping modules
• Local delivery and Store Pickup are NOT available, all other shipping options (Zones, Table Rates) are available

Scenario 3

• The cart contains one or more products marked 'Local Delivery Only'
• The delivery address is within the range specified in the shipping modules
• The Shopping Cart page displays the message 'One or more products in your cart can only be delivered to certain local destinations' and the restricted product is identified in the cart
• ONLY Local delivery and Store Pickup are available

Scenario 4

• The cart contains one or more products marked 'Local Delivery Only'
• The delivery address is outside the range specified in the shipping modules
• The Shopping Cart page displays the message 'One or more products in your cart can only be delivered to certain local destinations' and the restricted product is identified in the cart
• No shipping module is available and the messages 'Sorry, we are not shipping to your region at this time' and 'Local Delivery Only!' are displayed

I let you know here when this plugin is available for download.

Cheers / Frank

[lat9]

Sounds pretty cool, Frank. I look forward to seeing it.

[frank18]

Sounds pretty cool, Frank. I look forward to seeing it.

Take it for test run on the demo site

[frank18]

The plugin is now available for download

[frank18]

Now that this plugin is official, I would appreciate any feedback regarding to functionality, installation and suggestions for improvement.

Thanks / Frank

[honda-crunch]

Now that this plugin is official, I would appreciate any feedback regarding to functionality, installation and suggestions for improvement.

Thanks / Frank

Highly commendable update, it is exactly what we are looking to do with our site.

Just tried it on our 1.50 cart. Looks good but I have a few complications. Before I uninstall it, I thought you may be able to help make it work on my UK site.

Main problem is the postcode part. As we use uk postcodes, it does not appear recognise them. It displays store pickup and local delivery options on all sales; not just the products set as local in admin. I can only think that this is because it is not designed for uk postcodes.

Just a couple of other things...
There was no inclusion of english files for either of the shipping mods. Luckily our site had the store pickup already so I created a local delivery version from that.

On the initial test, I could see all shipping options appear when an item was supposed to local only. After scratching my head, the only place I could think may be causing the issue could be in the functions_general.php.

In the function_general.php, I noticed that you had created the following code:

    // if product is local delivery only - disable zones
      case ($check_cart_local and $shipping_module == 'zones'):
        return false;
        break;
      // if product is local delivery only - disable table rates
      case ($check_cart_local_table and $shipping_module == 'table'):
        return false;
        break; 

This is where I found the problem. Our site uses many shipping mods. However, we do not use zones or tables. So I duplicated the code for all my other mods just by changing (== 'zones') to (== 'ukpost') or whatever the shipping mod fuction is called etc. Perhaps this information could be added to the help file.

My only other concern was my Royal Mail Mod. It is required to be listed correctly with the ISO codes. While the codes are present, so is the mod on all sales including being displayed on local only products. Remove the codes and it removes the whole mod from all products. It would work better if it uses the "all zones" method like all the other shipping mods. Not your problem so I'll see if there is a different version that may work better.

Perhaps you could confirm before I uninstall it; if it will be able to cope with uk postcodes in any future updates.

Many thanks and good work
Robert

[frank18]

Highly commendable update, it is exactly what we are looking to do with our site.

Thank you

Main problem is the postcode part. As we use uk postcodes, it does not appear recognise them. It displays store pickup and local delivery options on all sales; not just the products set as local in admin. I can only think that this is because it is not designed for uk postcodes.

I feared this being the case - the UK postcodes are somewhat of an "odd" nature compared to most other countries where the postcode is just one string without spaces - like 12345

I know of another UK based site that has this mod working to a tee. The mod was installed before official release and I did ask the owner to give me some feedback as to the UK postcode configuration. To date I had no reply...

Just a couple of other things...
There was no inclusion of english files for either of the shipping mods. Luckily our site had the store pickup already so I created a local delivery version from that.

Will be included in the file system of the mod - thanks

On the initial test, I could see all shipping options appear when an item was supposed to local only. After scratching my head, the only place I could think may be causing the issue could be in the functions_general.php.

In the function_general.php, I noticed that you had created the following code:

    // if product is local delivery only - disable zones
      case ($check_cart_local and $shipping_module == 'zones'):
        return false;
        break;
      // if product is local delivery only - disable table rates
      case ($check_cart_local_table and $shipping_module == 'table'):
        return false;
        break; 

This is where I found the problem. Our site uses many shipping mods. However, we do not use zones or tables. So I duplicated the code for all my other mods just by changing (== 'zones') to (== 'ukpost') or whatever the shipping mod fuction is called etc. Perhaps this information could be added to the help file.

point taken

My only other concern was my Royal Mail Mod. It is required to be listed correctly with the ISO codes. While the codes are present, so is the mod on all sales including being displayed on local only products. Remove the codes and it removes the whole mod from all products. It would work better if it uses the "all zones" method like all the other shipping mods. Not your problem so I'll see if there is a different version that may work better.

Need to look into that...

Perhaps you could confirm before I uninstall it; if it will be able to cope with uk postcodes in any future updates.

As per above - I know there is a way as it works with UK postcodes on that site

Thanks Robert - great comments and feedback

Frank

[honda-crunch]

Main problem is the postcode part. As we use uk postcodes, it does not appear recognise them. I can only think that this is because it is not designed for uk postcodes.

Sorry, just sorted out this issue. It does recognise UK postcodes....

The only pitfall is that you have to type in the post code exactly as what you have logged in the database. ie. if the customer has used lowercase (ip7 4je) to fill in their account application your databse needs to have the postcode in the database listed in lowercase. If the postcode is listed in your database in capitals i.e. (IP7 4JE) then it fails. Likewise, before login, to view the estimator, with other shipping mods you can usually get away with just using the first part of the post code (IP7) . Again, unless you have this listed already in the database it will fail. So to have one side of a street address, you have to use: (IP7,ip7,IP7 4JE,ip7 4je,)
Using this formular, it worked well.

Robert

[frank18]

Sorry, just sorted out this issue. It does recognise UK postcodes....

................So to have one side of a street address, you have to use: (IP7,ip7,IP7 4JE,ip7 4je,)
Using this formular, it worked well.

Must be a way to fix this - let me mull over that issue. Will take me some time though as I am heavily involved in a big project that I need to get up and running asap.

Frank

[frank18]

Submitted version 1.1 for review - it should be available for download in a few days.

Changes:

1. added missing language file for new shipping module 'Local delivery'
2. modified the code in includes/functions/functions_general.php to enable de-activation of any other shipping module if a product marked for local delivery is added to the cart. This means that you don't have to worry about other shipping modules such as USPS, Royal Mail, Ozpost etc which you may have installed and activated. In other words: there is nothing else to do in this file should you decide to install another shipping module.

Please note:

Due to inclusion of the file includes/functions/functions_general.php (which has changed from ZC 1.5.0 to ZC 1.5.1) this mod is NOT compatible with ZC versions prior 1.5.1 (thanks to DrByte for pointing this out)


UK postcodes:

Still working on implementing a function to format and validate UK postcodes.

Cheers / Frank