Is Zen Cart a Good Choice for a Flowers Shipping Business?

My business is https://www.bridgewatergardens.com. We sell shade gardening plants but our main business is growing peony flowers. Most of our customers are brides who are doing their own wedding flowers. Most of our flowers are shipped out of state and theys have to be shipped overnight.

I try to use USPS Express Mail as much as possible since their cost is half that of Fedex or UPS. The problem is that Express Mail delivers overnight to probably 80% of my customers locations. If you are in a rural area then express mail might be 2 day which is too long. So in this case then I have to use Fedex or UPS.

Currently my process is manual and the workload involved is killing me. My customers e-mail me with their zip code, I check USPS to see if they do overnight to the customers zip code. If so then great.

If not I have to then estimate UPS or Fedex. Much of the time the cost is prohibitive and the customer does not want to order because of the high shipping cost.

Another factor is that my customers who are located in my state (MI) or OH or parts of IL can use UPS or Fedex Ground for shipping because Ground is one day to their location.

Currently I invoice my customers manually by sending Paypal Money Requests. As my business grows and I have more and more flowers to ship each year this is a ton of work.

So for next year I have to get a shopping cart that will handle this work for me. Does anyone know if Zen Cart will sort out which shippers do overnight to which zip codes for me?

Thanks, I appreciate any insight anyone can give me here.

Paula

Paula7928:

My business is www.bridgewatergardens.com. We sell shade gardening plants but our main business is growing peony flowers. Most of our customers are brides who are doing their own wedding flowers. Most of our flowers are shipped out of state and theys have to be shipped overnight.

I try to use USPS Express Mail as much as possible since their cost is half that of Fedex or UPS. The problem is that Express Mail delivers overnight to probably 80% of my customers locations. If you are in a rural area then express mail might be 2 day which is too long. So in this case then I have to use Fedex or UPS.

Currently my process is manual and the workload involved is killing me. My customers e-mail me with their zip code, I check USPS to see if they do overnight to the customers zip code. If so then great.

If not I have to then estimate UPS or Fedex. Much of the time the cost is prohibitive and the customer does not want to order because of the high shipping cost.

Another factor is that my customers who are located in my state (MI) or OH or parts of IL can use UPS or Fedex Ground for shipping because Ground is one day to their location.

Currently I invoice my customers manually by sending Paypal Money Requests. As my business grows and I have more and more flowers to ship each year this is a ton of work.

So for next year I have to get a shopping cart that will handle this work for me. Does anyone know if Zen Cart will sort out which shippers do overnight to which zip codes for me?

Thanks, I appreciate any insight anyone can give me here.

Paula

I think ZC would be perfect for you business, as it can do everything you need...........There is UPS, Fedex modules that will estimate shipping cost, delivery time, create tracking codes, all that good stuff Live. Of course, these are linked "live", when customer clicks, so YOU HAVE to sign up with USPS, UPS, Fedex, and whoever else you might use, for an online account.
Also, integrated into ZC is PayPal payments which will let your customers pay right on your site (Pro version with PayPal Merchant Account---MUST have SSL installed on your server for this.), create and email an invoice to you and your customer.

Tons of othere features you will fall in love with, once you have used it for a couple of months, and get used to where everything is located, and how to use it.

One of the best features about ZC is, you have a whole forum full of people to help you, so if you have a problem, you don't have to wait for 5-6 people, trying to answer hundreds of questions, to get back to you. Most of the time the answers come pretty quick here, with most being answered within the first 10-15 minutes.

Over-all, it's the very best you're gonna get for free software, with more features than most shopping carts, and a whole lot better support.

Hope to see you Zenning soon.
Robert.

Robert, thank you so much for the info. Can you please confirm that I can configure the shipping so that only 1 day / overnight options can be selected by the customer?

Paula7928:

Robert, thank you so much for the info. Can you please confirm that I can configure the shipping so that only 1 day / overnight options can be selected by the customer?

Absolutely....you choose what you want them to see (out of several options).