USPS Insurance?

Hello,

I'd like to make USPS insurance an option for the customers on my site.

Here are two concerns:

1. I get a big discount on USPS insurance from my current shipping software provider. Can I pass the insurance savings onto my customers? I don't want them to pay more than they need to.

2. USPS Priority flat rate already comes with $50 of free insurance. I want Zen Cart to know that insurance purchased for Priority flat rate will be additional insurance. Will this pose a problem?

Thanks in advance!

brillarmory:

Hello,

I'd like to make USPS insurance an option for the customers on my site.

Here are two concerns:

1. I get a big discount on USPS insurance from my current shipping software provider. Can I pass the insurance savings onto my customers? I don't want them to pay more than they need to.

2. USPS Priority flat rate already comes with $50 of free insurance. I want Zen Cart to know that insurance purchased for Priority flat rate will be additional insurance. Will this pose a problem?

Thanks in advance!

For item 1, I would say to read your agreement with your current shipper, you may not be allowed to charge your customers for that associated fee. After that (ie, if allowed), then just need to pass the approriate information to and from the module to accouunt for the desired services to be paid by the customer.

Item 2, I haven't looked into the newly coded USPS module, but I would guess that it is coded to recognize to not begin charging extra insurance until the value was considered to exceed the threshhold established by the USPS. Just my guess, but would surprise me if not so coded and not told so in the install instructions.

mc12345678:

For item 1, I would say to read your agreement with your current shipper, you may not be allowed to charge your customers for that associated fee. After that (ie, if allowed), then just need to pass the approriate information to and from the module to accouunt for the desired services to be paid by the customer.

Item 2, I haven't looked into the newly coded USPS module, but I would guess that it is coded to recognize to not begin charging extra insurance until the value was considered to exceed the threshhold established by the USPS. Just my guess, but would surprise me if not so coded and not told so in the install instructions.Thank you.

Currently, I see no option to offer insurance with the USPS module... How do I get this?

brillarmory:

Thank you.

Currently, I see no option to offer insurance with the USPS module... How do I get this?

Recommend downloading the latest version of USPS http://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1292

At least the 2013-07-30 J5 had an option in the adminpanel related to insurance and notification to the customer. I haven't gotten up-to-speed with these new options, but the admin panel has several new settings, one of which includes insurance.

Be sure to follow the directions for install, and remember to backup the database as well as the files before installing/making major changes.

I don't see any options in the USPS shipping module that allows for insurance to be an option for the customer. Does anybody know how to get USPS insurance to work? I have the latest version of the USPS shipping plugin.

At this time, Insurance is not a **customer **option but a store owner option ... this is set in the USPS shipping module itself ...

Ajeh:

At this time, Insurance is not a **customer **option but a store owner option ... this is set in the USPS shipping module itself ...That seems like a major flaw to me. I don't want to force insurance on all of my customers. I would like to give them a choice to purchase insurance.

You might look at the add on for Optional Insurance and see if you can adapt that to your needs ...
http://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=232

brillarmory:

That seems like a major flaw to me. I don't want to force insurance on all of my customers. I would like to give them a choice to purchase insurance.

I'd call it unimplemented functionality. Before one of these recent versions, there wasn't even the possibility to have it at all. Been a while since I've personally looked at USPS rate schedules, but I wouldn't wonder if there is a bit of complexity involved to overcome. How many boxes are being shipped, which item(s) are to be considered insured? The entire shipment or just part of it? How would the option(s) be displayed? One line for each with and without insurance? What about the other available options that are store set versus customer set and their being set by the customer? Etc...

How disappointing. You would think that something as important as insurance would be a feature in the official USPS module. I will try the optional insurance module, but based on what I've read it looks complicated.

brillarmory:

How disappointing. You would think that something as important as insurance would be a feature in the official USPS module. I will try the optional insurance module, but based on what I've read it looks complicated.

But it is a feature, just store owner instead of customer configured. Always on or always off.

There is the possibility and it would be a pain, that you ask customers to leave a note to exclude insurance and then you figure out what that associated cost is and refund it. Doesn't look good, would be burdensome, and could always make a mistake in doing it, but you could also tout that you are providing a service to ensure that the product(s) arrive in quality shape, or some other statement. There might also be some configurable options in the file through coding, but yes there are some complicated aspects to the whole thing. At least it's available in some regards.

Is there any way to petition USPS or ask them to make insurance a fully functional feature?

brillarmory:

Is there any way to petition USPS or ask them to make insurance a fully functional feature?

Ah ha, so now the perspective is understood. If such a petition were sent to the USPS, a conversation internal to the company similar to the following might occur:
Rep1:"But we offer all of these options as available to be used by programmers, why is someone asking us to do what we have already provided?"
Rep2:"You know I was looking at a couple of different groups that have or have not implemented this and well this one site, they seem to work off of each other and build these programs to do a lot. Seems that they have an entire ecommerce store that is built entirely from code that has been contributed by other authors."
Rep1:"Yeah, so what you're saying is that everything that is used to operate that ecommerce store is written by contributors?"
Rep2:"It sure is. As we have added capabilities, someone has to figure out a way to tap into that functionality and to do so with consideration of the largest audience. Sure the USPS module well predominantly serves just the US, but some of the same can be said about other postal methods. So what's the issue?"
Rep1:"It seems that no one has devoted all of the necessary resources to add the functionality so that a customer can choose certain items that we offer, but instead the functionality has been incorporated so that the store owner can choose to factor it in or not essentially for all items."

That's just my thought of a potential conversation related to this. The "official usps plugin" is considered official by the authors and significant contributors to ZC, not the USPS. The USPS does not control the code that is provided here, but instead provides resources to be able to access their information and the code that is written to do that is by public individuals willing and able to provide such a product.

You could try this for allowing an Optional Insurance with USPS March 7, 2014 K3 ...

What this will do is place a choice on the checkout_payment page of the checkout to allow the customer to choose whether or not they want the insurance for USPS shipping ...

The USPS shipping will still show the total of the shipping plus the insurance, but the Optional Insurance will reduce the Order Total by the amount of the USPS Insurance if the Customer decides they do not want the insurance ...

That didn't work...

Do they offer insurance with the official USPS module yet? Every time I ship an expensive package I feel like I'm rolling the dice.

The USPS module in post #14 is most likely out of date as the current USPS September 7, 2014 K5 version has been released ...

I would have to try to get the time to re-write this optional shipping method yet again for you to see if I can get it working for you with the current USPS code ...

Are you still using Zen Cart v151? What version php are you on?

Yes, I'm still using 151. I'm not sure what PHP version I'm running. How do I check?

Look in your Zen Cart Admin in the Tools ... Server Info ... it will be listed near the top where the color area starts on the server info ...

You could try this test version of USPS September 7, 2014 K6 version that will be released in the next day or two ...

I added to the USPS file the code for the optional insurance ...

NOTE: you still will need the Order Total module from the previous code that I wrote for you on post #14, the only thing that changes is which usps.php file you would be using ...