ozpost shipping module

[frank18]

Q2

Learned recently that Aus Post introduced a so called 'Security Surcharge' of a whopping $A9.00 per item to the USA and to some other countries (which the clerk was unable to tell me). It seems that the mod does not apply this surcharge?

Documentation of the security surcharge is available here

Select country United States and scroll down to

2. Air mail, ECI and EPI parcels

Due to heightened border protection and increased aviation security measures introduced by the US Government applying to inbound freight, there is likely to be delays of around 48 hours to parcels being sent to the US. These new security measures have increased cost implications associated with screening and transport, and as a result a $9 surcharge will be imposed on all parcels over 500g (16 ounces) destined for the US.

This surcharge has been introduced solely to cover the costs of the revised security arrangements required by the United States, and Australia Post does not profit from the surcharge.

Hope this helps (and avoids lining up in one of our friendly post offices to find out about this surcharge....)

[RodG]

Q1

My Aussie shipping method is set to use Express Post satchels only (500g, 3kg and 5kg).

If I load the cart with an item weighing less than 500g (including tare) the Shipping Estimator and the Checkout Shipping page displays all 3 'options', namely 500g, 3kg and 5kg EP satchels. Similar, if the cart contains a weight of between 0.51kg and 3kg, both the 3kg and 5kg options are being shown.

This is best answered from quoting from the 'configuration.txt' file:

--------------------------------------------
Satchels:
These are treated as a special case.
If you allow *all* satchels the server will return *only* the most suitable size.
If you only allow *some* satchels, the server will return quotes for ALL satchels, and all of those that you allow will be displayed.

What this means in practice is if the shopping cart items weight 400gms and will fit into a 500gm satchel; If you have enabled *all* satchels
the customer will be presented with ONLY the 500gm satchels.
If you have only allowed *some* satchels, this same customer will be presented with a choice of the 500gm, 3kg or 5kg unless
these are the methods that you have disabled.
Another example
If the shopping cart items weigh 1kg and will fit into a 3kg satchel; If you have enabled *all* satchels
the customer will be presented with ONLY the 3kg satchels.
If you have only allowed *some* satchels, this same customer will be presented with a choice of the 3kg or 5kg unless
these are the methods that you have disabled. Note: in this case the 500gm satchel is still not an option.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Q2
Learned recently that Aus Post introduced a so called 'Security Surcharge' of a whopping $A9.00 per item to the USA and to some other countries (which the clerk was unable to tell me). It seems that the mod does not apply this surcharge?

This surcharge is applied when and where applicable.
The countries affected are:
USA, GUAM, Marshall Islands, Palau, Virgin Islands, and the /Federated States of micronesia.
It also only affects parcels that weigh more than 16oz (453 grams).

I have noted that the Australia Post website has (recently) rounded this up to 500gms.

Cheers
Rod

[frank18]

Thanks Rod

Re: Q1

I did read that paragraph in your configuration.txt file but found it a bit strange. If the weight falls within the limit of a given satchel then the larger satchels should not be shown to the customer. Obviously the logic in the coding (either ozpost.net server side or local resolving code of the server response) can't handle the conditions as yet.

Showing irrelevant 'options' only confuses the customer and that's the last thing we want once we got them to actually checkout. Naturally, the logically thinking customer would only select the cheapest option - but: not everyone is thinking logically .....

Food for thought for v2.3

I am having a couple of weeks off from work and may attempt to have a crack at 'fixing' this ...


Re: Q2

perfectly answered - thanks

Cheers / Frank

[RodG]

Thanks Rod

Re: Q1

I did read that paragraph in your configuration.txt file but found it a bit strange.

Strange as in you couldn't figure out what I was attempting to state, or strange in that is behaves in this manner?

If the weight falls within the limit of a given satchel then the larger satchels should not be shown to the customer.

This is/was the OLD behaviour before the latest update. To revert to this old behaviour just select ALL satchels, and then only the relevent satchels will be shown.

Obviously the logic in the coding (either ozpost.net server side or local resolving code of the server response) can't handle the conditions as yet.

The current coding logic is correct, albeit, not 'complete'

Did you read the discussions about this change earlier in this thread?

Showing irrelevant 'options' only confuses the customer

I agree....

I am having a couple of weeks off from work and may attempt to have a crack at 'fixing' this ...

Don't be afraid to send me details of any 'fix' you come up with. I admit that I'm not entirely satisfied with the current solution to the original problem.

The original problem being that if the server determined the best satchel for the job was (for example) the 3kg XL, and is the store owner disabled this method, it could produce the situation where no valid quotes appear possible and the static rates (or no quotes at all) were being used instead.

This is/was also a tricky one to fix because it needed/needs to be done in a way that wouldn't break things for those using older client software, which is where the 'all' or 'some' idea originated from.

I know that it won't take too much more code to fix the issues now being discussed, and about the only reason why it wasn't done wih the last update was due to time constraints and the need to fix the 'hole' that had been identified, along with a much more compelling need to fix other more serious bugs with the osCommerce version of this module. In short, this current code is a little bit of a compromise between not giving a quote at all vs giving too many quotes, some of which are unnessesary.

In summary, I agree that it currently isn't as nice as it could be, so if you do come up with a fix before I do I'll happily consider adding it to future updates. Howver, before you spend too much time on it, please be aware that I've *just* released ozpost for opencart, which means I now have time to start back with zencart code again, and this is going to be my #1 priority.

Cheers
Rod

[frank18]

Just created this 'order' in my playground:

total weight: 1.925 kgs
destination: US
shipping & handling: $2.50

The estimator comes up with:

registered air mail: $69.50 (correct)
air mail: $73.10

The latter should be (according to Aus Post's latest Feb '11 pdf file)

Over 1,750g up to 2,000g: $52.60 (Zone C)
plus security surcharge: $9.00
Plus S&H: 2.50

a total of: $64.10 (which compares to the estimated $73.10 - out by 9 bucks)

Cheers / Frank

[frank18]

This is/was the OLD behaviour before the latest update. To revert to this old behaviour just select ALL satchels, and then only the relevent satchels will be shown.

That did work - but: I don't want to offer 500gm Regular and 3Kg Regular which means that I am not selecting ALL satchels. That's the 'strange' part ...

Don't be afraid to send me details of any 'fix' you come up with. I admit that I'm not entirely satisfied with the current solution to the original problem.

The original problem being that if the server determined the best satchel for the job was (for example) the 3kg XL, and is the store owner disabled this method, it could produce the situation where no valid quotes appear possible and the static rates (or no quotes at all) were being used instead.

This is/was also a tricky one to fix because it needed/needs to be done in a way that wouldn't break things for those using older client software, which is where the 'all' or 'some' idea originated from.

I know that it won't take too much more code to fix the issues now being discussed, and about the only reason why it wasn't done wih the last update was due to time constraints and the need to fix the 'hole' that had been identified, along with a much more compelling need to fix other more serious bugs with the osCommerce version of this module. In short, this current code is a little bit of a compromise between not giving a quote at all vs giving too many quotes, some of which are unnessesary.

In summary, I agree that it currently isn't as nice as it could be, so if you do come up with a fix before I do I'll happily consider adding it to future updates. Howver, before you spend too much time on it, please be aware that I've *just* released ozpost for opencart, which means I now have time to start back with zencart code again, and this is going to be my #1 priority.

Cheers
Rod

Got that - in principle your mod is an absolute marvel, top idea. But I also understand that it is quite complex to code. And - like us humans - nothing is absolutely perfect.

I have subscribed to email notifications about changes of this thread and will keep my ears/eyes glued to updates.

Cheers again and have a nice weekend

Frank

[RodG]

The estimator comes up with:

registered air mail: $69.50 (correct)
air mail: $73.10

This looks like a bug.... regd air shouldn't be cheaper than regular air.

The latter should be (according to Aus Post's latest Feb '11 pdf file)

I'll also need to download this new pdf.
I doubt there are any price differences (as these don't usually go unnoticed), but I need to check anyway.

Over 1,750g up to 2,000g: $52.60 (Zone C)
plus security surcharge: $9.00
Plus S&H: 2.50

a total of: $64.10 (which compares to the estimated $73.10 - out by 9 bucks)

Cheers / Frank

Am I wrong, or are you telling me the surcharge appears to be added twice for airmail? (this is quite possible if AustPost have updated their servers to also include this surcharge. Although ozpost is entirely independent of the austPost servers for australain quotes, it still uses their servers for some of the overseas estimates.

Cheers
Rod

[RodG]

That did work - but: I don't want to offer 500gm Regular and 3Kg Regular which means that I am not selecting ALL satchels. That's the 'strange' part ...

Not so strange really.... by not having ALL selected in your client settings is telling the server that you wish to filter the satchels to use locally, which means the server will provide quotes for *all* satchels (else there won't be anything to filter locally).

If you tell the client that you will handle ALL satchels sets the condition whereby only the most suitlable satchel size is returned by the server..

By design, the server *should* only output viable methods, which means only one satchel size at any given time.

I've needed to break this design rule because of the aforementioned problems,

A little confusing perhaps, but not what I would call 'strange'.

Then again, I have very odd ideas as to what is or isn't strange in this confusing world of ours :-)

Cheers
Rod

[frank18]

Am I wrong, or are you telling me the surcharge appears to be added twice for airmail? (this is quite possible if AustPost have updated their servers to also include this surcharge. Although ozpost is entirely independent of the austPost servers for australain quotes, it still uses their servers for some of the overseas estimates.

I had that inkling too as the difference was exactly 9 buckeroos which equates to the (whopping ) surcharge ...

A little confusing perhaps, but not what I would call 'strange'.

My bad - sorry. I should have called it something else but 'strange' ....

Cheers / Frank

[RodG]

Over 1,750g up to 2,000g: $52.60 (Zone C)
plus security surcharge: $9.00
Plus S&H: 2.50

a total of: $64.10 (which compares to the estimated $73.10 - out by 9 bucks)

Cheers / Frank

All prices should now be correct.
Please verify.

Thanks for reporting this problem. I do my best to ensure that everything is up to date, but with the sheer number of variations and possibilies involved it is always of added benefit for end users to do their own verifications and reporting any discrepencies they find.

In MOST cases, the discrepencies usually turn out to be 'user error', eg, getting quotes for grams instead of Kgs, but in this case you found a genuine error (the surcharge was being added twice), so on behalf of all ozpost users, a big thanks for taking the time to check and report.

Muchly appreciated.
Cheers
Rod