Quote Originally Posted by katgirl72 View Post
Hi, I am a newbie Zencart user. I hired a company to implement my cart and honestly the back end support I have been getting leaves much lacking. One of my pressing issues is I need to get a different shipping module installed. I am drop shipping all my products from different locations and using Paypal upon checkout. It was recommended I not accept the responsibility of credit cards through the site direct. I see there is a CEON's Advanced Shipper module that seems to have alot of nice features and functions however not sure if this is the best option for my biz. I will be selling and shipping only to US and Canada. I am in the US. They installed a flat rate module on my site but Flat Rate seems to be high on some of the lower value items. Can someone give me some advice?
Unless something has changed recently, Advanced Shipper is no longer orderable. Conor released his module with the code open source but the documentation was copyrighted. After Conor's death JSweb had an arrangement with Conor's family to sell, modify, and support the module. They switched to an annual license and hid the source. They have since ended their relationship with Conor's family. That was the only usable option I found for drop shipping. There's no perfect solution to drop shipping from multiple locations.

What I've recommended to my clients is to find a ship from location that on average will make you whole. If most of your drop shippers are in California pick a zip in the center of your drop shippers. What this means is that sometimes you'll win, sometimes you'll lose, but on average your shipping costs will be close to what you charged you customers. At one time I researched this and Montana was the center of the UPS universe for US destinations if your drop shippers are all over the place. Once you've picked a location, use the live rate modules from USPS, UPS, or Fedex with that zip and track how you're doing. You can always add a surcharge or discount if you need to on the calculated rates.

I'll send you a PM.