Drop Shipping

I am checking out different shopping carts and have heard good things about Zen Cart. Does anyone know if Zen Cart can handle drop shipping?

Does anyone know if Zen Cart can handle drop shipping?
Depends upon what you think "drop shipping" is???
It is only a method for one not to be required to have inventory.

It is most always NOT a "setup and forget" turn it on and it runs by itself proposition.
Those that are successful with it work hard on their relationship with their shippers and are busy every day insuring smooth orderfullfilment

Thanks for your reply. Most of my vendors will ship directly to the customer but I need to be able to get the order to them, hopefully automatically.

I also need the system to be able to accurately calculate the shipping from each of those vendors as each vendor has a different method of calculating shipping costs.

Some ship by weight, some a set price no matter the size of the package nor the amount of items in the package, and so forth.

Most of my vendors will ship directly to the customer but I need to be able to get the order to them, hopefully automatically.
Vendors??
How will the system know which vendor?
What if an order is comprosed of items from 3 different shippers?
Code logic to determine and separate this would be very complex.
I also need the system to be able to accurately calculate the shipping from each of those vendors as each vendor has a different method of calculating shipping costs.

Some ship by weight, some a set price no matter the size of the package nor the amount of items in the package, and so forth.
Same issues and one that only you can manually setup some weighted average.

There are systems/shopping carts that do this but they can be quite expensive. I just need to know if Zen Cart does it? Or is it a module that can be added on?

There are systems/shopping carts that do this but they can be quite expensive. I just need to know if Zen Cart does it?
Zen Cart is designed to do many things for many applications but by default not what you seek nor have I seen a module that would allow the dependant variables involved to be managed.
This is probably why what you have found is expensive - but if it gets one to the "Nirvana" that you describe - it is probably not expensive enough.

Do a search for "drop shipping". I saw that someone has compiled a module that claims to cater for some of the complex requirements of drop shipping, but I can't recall who did this.

In general, handling drop-shipping from multiple vendors is very complex as not only do they have different policies, systems and fulfilment arrangements, but as Kobra said... How will you "split" orders to inform different drop shippers, when a customer orders several products - each from a different drop shipper?

Add to this the potential for irate customers when they discover that the delivery charges may be several times higher than they expect (each shipper will charge a fee for delivery - order 3 products from 3 suppliers = 3 times the shipping charge!)

No shopping cart can resolve this as it is a functional issue (not a software issue).

So it's not just getting the order to each drop shipper... your ZC installation will ALSO have to split the order BEFORE all its constituent parts are forwarded to your suppliers AND it will have to calculate and apply each supplier's shipping fees, policies and formats. Some shippers use several methods. If the consignments are "signed for", your customer will have to be available to sign 3 separate delivery acceptances - and there's no guarantee that these will all arrive on the same day.

Very difficult and probably not worth it as customers are likely to rapidly abandon your site when they see that shipping the goods is more costly and problematic than a space shuttle flight!

We've been drop shipping with Zen Cart for over a year now. We have 6 different vendors, although most of that year has been only 3 vendors. Yes, sometimes it can be difficult with the shipping and we will occasionally lose a little on shipping when an order has products from 2 vendors. For us, our vendors carry products that are different enough that we hardly ever get orders including products from more than one vendor, but as we are adding more products from the 3 newer vendors this will change and we'll run into this more. It's not such a big deal when you are selling bigger ticket items, but drop shipping $10 items from 3 vendors in 1 order would make you lose money consistently! :D

It also depends on how you are approaching reaching your customers. We, for the most part, are going for the "long tail", the lesser searched but more specific keyword strings. So many of our customers are coming to the site with a specific product in mind, and right now we have 2800+ products and will eventually have over 45,000 once they are all added. For us, everything is working well even though many folks on the forums will say that multiple drop shipping is too complex.:D

So, from my experience, Zen Cart cannot handle drop shipping the way that you described, not just the default install. BUT, there is a drop shipper purchase order mod in the downloads. This will send emails to each vendor with the customer details, products, shipping method, etc and will split out different vendors in one order. It is not automatic but it's a very simple interface in the admin. I am currently looking into automating this by modifying the code.

AND, there is a commercial module called Advanced Shipper by Ceon, search for the user ceon and you should be able to get to their site or Google it, I don't think I am allowed to post a link. This mod allows you to configure shipping by product, category or manufacturer so you can set up different rules for your different vendors. I just came across it yesterday and have been playing around with their live demo to see if it's what I want before plonking down the $, but it's very very resonably priced and seems very robust. The author is very helpful when you have a question. I am 95% sure that we are about to purchase it to deal with little issues that are losing us sales. For instance, one vendor charges a $5 drop ship fee on top of shipping and handling. Default ZC can allow me to add a handling fee to UPS or whatever, but then it's across the board. So, another vendor that doesn't charge the fee still is getting it added to the shipping rate, and since we sell a lot of small items from this vendor we are losing sales because the shipping is coming back so high compared to the cart value. So the Advanced Shipper will pay for itself quickly!!:D

So, between the free drop ship purhcase order mod and the Advanced Shipper mod you can do multiple vendor drop shipping pretty straightforwardly.

If you are not a coder, you can post in the commercial help wanted section to modify the drop ship PO module to be automatic if you can't wait for me or someone else to do it for free(I'm not sure how long it will take me :D).

Having been at it for over a year, I can attest that it is possible to use Zen Cart with a multiple drop shipping situation but it's not fully automated(yet!).

lankeeyankee:

We've been drop shipping with Zen Cart for over a year now. We have 6 different vendors, although most of that year has been only 3 vendors. . .

I think this is one of the most useful and comprehensive posts I have seen regarding zencart and dropshipping. Thaks so much for letting us know of your experiences.

I can also vouch for Conor Kerr (ceon). I had forgotten about his Advanced Shipper module, but I agree... if there is a way to handle complex shipping with multiple suppliers, then Conor's module is probably it.

And as it solves practically every shipping conundrum, it's well worth the tiny charge he makes for it.
www.dev.ceon.net

fairestcape:

I think this is one of the most useful and comprehensive posts I have seen regarding zencart and dropshipping. Thaks so much for letting us know of your experiences.

I can also vouch for Conor Kerr (ceon). I had forgotten about his Advanced Shipper module, but I agree... if there is a way to handle complex shipping with multiple suppliers, then Conor's module is probably it.

And as it solves practically every shipping conundrum, it's well worth the tiny charge he makes for it.
www.dev.ceon.net

Thanks for saying that, and your welcome!:smile:

I am just getting into the Advanced Shipper module and I am really really impressed by how flexible it is for complex shipping scenarios. It is the answer to every drop shipper's shipping prayer, you can even set the zip/postal code for each vendor to get super accurate rates. This will take our drop shipping enterprise to a whole new level as we are going to be able to convert the majority of our lost sales, which are mainly due to the relatively rigid one-rule-fits-all shipping rules of the default ZC.

I really love Zen Cart, it is so powerful and flexible and we have had great success with it, and without this incredible community I would not have been able to realize my ecommerce dreams! I don't have a lot of experience with other carts apart from giving them a good test spin and digging into the code of a few, but I would recommend to the OP that they use ZC for their drop ship cart system, it really can't be beat once you make a few small changes.

Interesting thread! I enjoyed reading the different perspectives on drop shipping.

Guess I'll toss in my 2 cents! :) My store both drop ships and stocks. Shipping and order fees are certainly an issue to be dealt with when considering your drop shipping strategy. But, we decided that charging our customer for multiple shipments would discourage customers too much. Instead, we've designed our site so that 95%+ of all our orders end up going to the same drop shipper or all from our stock. When an order does get split up, we generally still make a small profit (key word here is small!). Occasionally, we do get an order where we lose money. We consider this loss to be just part of doing business. However, there are several advantages to drop shipping, even if you stock like we do. Many of our suppliers are on the east coast. So, sometimes we drop ship even when we have the item in stock because it reduces shipping costs for us. This is especially useful when we get an expedited order. Another nice thing about drop shipping is that several of our suppliers stock the same products. So, if one supplier happens to be out, we can often still fill an order.

A couple tips we've used or learned that you may find helpful for drop shipping:

• Only choose suppliers who ship fast, are consistent and reliable, and have fill rates for orders above 98%. Time is money, and I'd much rather spend my time dealing with customers and promoting my site than handling issues with suppliers. It takes time to find the right suppliers. Spend the money and do this right -- fly to trade show and talk to people. Try suppliers out, but if they aren't working, dump them. It's not worth the hassle! Plus, you'll lose repeat customers if you aren't able to fulfill their orders within 24 hours. And remember, repeat customers don't cost any advertising bucks!

• Some products are much cheaper to stock because you get discounts. Others are the same price. Figure out where you can save money and stock what you can if possible. We've got products that we can buy in bulk for 30% less than drop shippers pay. Well worth it for those products!

• Buying expensive products is ok if you have the cash flow. But, don't EVER buy the large products and stock them. The more warehouse space you need the more it costs. This keeps costs down!

• This is a biggie for us: Use the cross sell mod. You can guide your customers to products designed to work with their products that are generally sold by the same manufacturer. This reduces the chances of multiple shipments for an order. Plus, I think this increases conversions. When you make it easy for customers to find the products that go with other products it makes it easier to shop. Easy shopping = more sales!

• Some products, especially expensive ones, almost everyone drop ships (no one wants to stock a $5000 fountain!). So, the margins are already built in for these products to make drop shipping affordable. For cheaper products that are mass marketed you can really get hurt by shipping costs. If possible, find one or two really reliable distributors that carry most of these mass marketed products.

• Forget fully automated. Its a nice dream, but most drop shippers are not going to send tracking to your customers, and they certainly won't be answering your phone calls from customers! Running a good ecommerce store is a full time job that requires a full time commitment to do it right! With that said make everything as easy as humanly possible. Get into a reliable routine that makes the work as fast as possible. Spend the time and money to develop the tools you'll need to make work fast and painless. Anything you can automate, automate. Anything you can't automate, make it as quick as possible. You'll need every minute you can find to promote your site and handle customer service!

Hello lankeeyankee's Avatar and you all,
I am completely new to this forum and do not have Zen Cart at this point but am considering it. I'm really relieved to see your posts on the thorny issue on the DropShipper Shipping function. I am dealing with this right now. I fear I bought the wrong Shopping Cart (not Zen) because it does not deal with this. But, worse, I had feared there was no answer.

Can you tell me this: Your last post is from Jan. 2009 and it's now April 2, 2009. How is that solution you describe working now? Still good?

In your last post in Jan, you say: "I would recommend to the OP that they use ZC for their drop ship cart system, it really can't be beat once you make a few small changes. " 1) What's OP? 2) Have you described the changes to me made in your posts here? If not, I'd really appreciate it if you could tell us what changes need to be made.

I am not a programmer, but a technical writer. I'm conversant, but not a developer. And I'm pretty much developing my own e-commerce site where I'll sell toxin-free skin care products using 4 - 10 suppliers who will drop ship for me. These are not large ticket items--from $5 to $69--and I see that in order to succeed, I must be precise in my Shipping charges.

If anyone has anything to add, I'll be grateful. Already grateful to you all! I will change my profile to allow e-mails directly to me just anyone might be willing to share info offline that they think others might not be as interested in as I am.
Thank you!
Manyquestions
:smile: