ozpost shipping module

[RodG]

There is also; "A person who is as brilliant and precious as a piece of jewellery."

I'm hardly brilliant, and probably the exact opposite of precious, so I ruled that particular definition out. :)

Cheers
Rod

[e-football]

When a customer buys many (4 or so) items, the cubic weight seems to be too high. All my sizes are accurate but sometimes the postage calculation is calculating too high. Is this something others have suffered with?

[RodG]

When a customer buys many (4 or so) items, the cubic weight seems to be too high. All my sizes are accurate but sometimes the postage calculation is calculating too high. Is this something others have suffered with?

If you can provide a specific example I\'ll be happy to look into it. I\'ve just done a random check using 4 random items purchased in quantities of 4 from your store and didn\'t spot anything amiss. Also, try enabling the DEBUG option to get an idea of how packages are created. This is *not* a simple task, and the code is far from perfect. Cheers Rod

[e-football]

Rod, here is one example

1 x Arsenal Cap $25.00
1 x Arsenal Jumbo Mug $20.00
1 x Arsenal Birthday Card $5.00
1 x Arsenal Glass Coasters $15.00
Sub-Total: $65.00
Australia Post (Insured Parcel up to 5 Kgs cubic weight): $21.10

This was going from postcode 5075 to 4159.

I have another example too if need be.

[e-football]

Here is the second one.

Here is another example

1 x Liverpool Mug (Crest) $15.00
1 x Liverpool Crest Key Ring $10.00
1 x Chelsea Beanie $10.00
1 x Chelsea Holdall $40.00
Sub-Total: $95.00
Australia Post (Parcel up to 7 Kgs cubic weight): $19.30

This was going to 2340

Thanks!!!

[RodG]

Rod, here is one example

1 x Arsenal Cap $25.00
1 x Arsenal Jumbo Mug $20.00
1 x Arsenal Birthday Card $5.00
1 x Arsenal Glass Coasters $15.00
Sub-Total: $65.00
Australia Post (Insured Parcel up to 5 Kgs cubic weight): $21.10

This was going from postcode 5075 to 4159.

I have another example too if need be.

I\'ll let you resolve the second example yourself. As for this one, it is over complicated... Similar results can be obtained with just the cap and mug: mug 17cm x 14cm x 11cm cap 26cm x 20cm x 16cm If you pack just these TWO items together, the smallest rectangle that they create will be 26cm (the longest dimension) 20cm (the width of this item) 27cm (the sum of the two heights). From the Australia post website Dimensions 27.0cm x 26.0cm x 20.0cm Weight Up to 4kg cubic weight Express Parcel $43.05 Cheers Rod

[e-football]

Hi Rod,
Thanks.
It seems our problem may be that these items aren't necessarliy solid blocks. So for the example you have calculated, the mug actually fits inside the body of the cap, resulting in a much smaller parcel overall. So we often find with these multi-item parcels that the postage actual cost comes up less than the customer is charged. We offer customers a refund or credit on our site for the difference when this occurs. However we fear that some customers may be put off ordering due to high postage quote in the shipping estimator. Do you have any suggestions on how best we get around this? We wonder whether we should set a postage cap, is it possible to do this? We may sometimes find we have to pay a few extra dollars ourselves but would rather this than lose potential customers.

[RodG]

Hi Rod,
Thanks.
It seems our problem may be that these items aren't necessarliy solid blocks. So for the example you have calculated, the mug actually fits inside the body of the cap, resulting in a much smaller parcel overall.

Good luck in 'teaching' this to a computer. If the packing algorithms weren't complicated enough, trying to code it so that some items can fit inside some other items will take someone with far more talent that I could ever hope to reach. You need to work with what the computer is capable of, which makes the assumption that all items are a solid block, so the dimensions you provide should be the size of the smallest box/package that the item will fit into for postage. Not the size when worn on the head. :) As I mentioned before, enable the DEBUG output to see exactly how a parcel is created/stacked by ozpost. Don't be too surprised when you discover that 10 of the same item measuring X, Y, Z will give totally different results than 10 different items also measuring X, Y, Z. Cheers Rod

[e-football]

Thanks Rod, I will look at the Debug today.

Is the cap option a possibility? So we can put a maximum cost for shipping?

[RodG]

Is the cap option a possibility? So we can put a maximum cost for shipping?

It isn't something that I would be willing to include as a standard configuration option, because it goes against the one of the prime objectives of the module, which is to supply *accurate* quotes (within its capability to do so).

Also, if this was going to be considered, what method/means would we have of ensuring you don't end up screwing yourself by making the maximum cap a lot lower than actual costs?

The secondary objective of the ozpost module is to protect the merchant from under quoting, which is almost always going to be more detrimental to the long term survivability of a store than over quoting. Plus you get additional 'brownie points' if you do over quote and then provide a refund :)

For many stores, a few $$$ difference in shipping costs isn't going to make much difference in the grand scheme of things, but for many other stores this can make the difference between a profit/loss on the entire sale.

Anyway, if you DID want to add your own maximum cap, you'll need to edit the ozpost.php file, locate the line of code that checks to see if ($quote->cost > 0) { , then just after that line insert another line that'll read something like

if($quote->cost > YOURMAX) $quote->cost = YOURMAX ;

I can't tell you the exact line of code to change because it will vary between versions.

Cheers
Rod