Stamps.com: How do I prevent Non-shippable items from batch importing?

Hello,

This is my first post. I have been in zencart for 7+ years and finally discovered stamps.com and the ability to batch process orders. I've uploaded the files, customized the statuses to import only pending and processing orders and ignore 'shipped' for manually processed orders.

My problem now is, we sell a service where nothing needs to be shipped. we perform a service and later report on that service to the customer.

How do I prevent Stamps.com from importing these orders? I think it's set up as "free shipping" in zencart maybe that has something to do with it? I guess I have it setup wrong on the item? I've been using the forum for a lot of help but this one seems hard to pinpoint!

As a seperate question. I have v1.38a, is there any serious or advantageous reason to upgrade to the latest? I'm intimidated by the thought of upgrading a working installation lol

Thanks

CJ

gachogavacho:

Hello,

This is my first post. I have been in zencart for 7+ years and finally discovered stamps.com and the ability to batch process orders. I've uploaded the files, customized the statuses to import only pending and processing orders and ignore 'shipped' for manually processed orders.

My problem now is, we sell a service where nothing needs to be shipped. we perform a service and later report on that service to the customer.

How do I prevent Stamps.com from importing these orders? I think it's set up as "free shipping" in zencart maybe that has something to do with it? I guess I have it setup wrong on the item? I've been using the forum for a lot of help but this one seems hard to pinpoint!

As a seperate question. I have v1.38a, is there any serious or advantageous reason to upgrade to the latest? I'm intimidated by the thought of upgrading a working installation lol

Thanks

CJ

I'd like to address the most important thing in this discussion. You need to get your site upgraded. Besides the fact that version 1.3.8 itself ended up being prone to hacking, the fact that the site is still on the first revisionof that? It hasn't even gained the little benefit that later revisions had. The benefit? Client information security, and that's thinking of others, it's also possible that your site could be broken into, files changed, malicious action taken on it and others...

I'll follow this up with other discussion, but you need to at leastget to 1.3.9h if not coming up to the 1.5.x series.

gachogavacho:

Hello,

This is my first post. I have been in zencart for 7+ years and finally discovered stamps.com and the ability to batch process orders. I've uploaded the files, customized the statuses to import only pending and processing orders and ignore 'shipped' for manually processed orders.

My problem now is, we sell a service where nothing needs to be shipped. we perform a service and later report on that service to the customer.

How do I prevent Stamps.com from importing these orders? I think it's set up as "free shipping" in zencart maybe that has something to do with it? I guess I have it setup wrong on the item? I've been using the forum for a lot of help but this one seems hard to pinpoint!

As a seperate question. I have v1.38a, is there any serious or advantageous reason to upgrade to the latest? I'm intimidated by the thought of upgrading a working installation lol

Thanks

CJ

Ok, so the other aspect, stamps.com... It's my guess (because I don't use that service) that you've hit the nail on the head. Free shipping indicates that mail still needs to go out, just not at a direct cost to the customer. I'm not sure if the product settings have changed significantly from that version to the current, but I will say, I would think that an option that doesn't require a shipping address would be the one to choose and at least turn off the free shipping setting as it kind of doesn't make sense. I would normally ask for a web address to see how this looks/acts, but I refer you back to the previous post. I'd rather not be one to ask for the location of that site be made public for potential abuse... (Eek.)

And thirdly... Regarding the upgrade process. Please,please,please, when you do upgrade, follow the guidelines of the FAQs. An upgrade at least just prior to taking live is done/should be done in a location other than on the live site directly. Basically, get everything to look the way you want it, practice the transition, etc., but not miss a beat in sales...it's also a good time to evaluatewhat functionality you really must have and get things the way they are desired first. Overall not difficult per se, but can be time consuming dependingonhow things have been managed over the years.

Btw, congratulations on being such a long standing ZC user. Good on you!

gachogavacho:

Hello,

This is my first post. I have been in zencart for 7+ years and finally discovered stamps.com and the ability to batch process orders. I've uploaded the files, customized the statuses to import only pending and processing orders and ignore 'shipped' for manually processed orders.

My problem now is, we sell a service where nothing needs to be shipped. we perform a service and later report on that service to the customer.

How do I prevent Stamps.com from importing these orders? I think it's set up as "free shipping" in zencart maybe that has something to do with it? I guess I have it setup wrong on the item? I've been using the forum for a lot of help but this one seems hard to pinpoint!

As a seperate question. I have v1.38a, is there any serious or advantageous reason to upgrade to the latest? I'm intimidated by the thought of upgrading a working installation lol

Thanks

CJ

Re: Stamps.com

Stamps.com recently purchased ShipStation.com which has more robust, customizable filter. Your choice of using Stamps.com or Endicia for postage. Along with Express1, which is more economical than the others for Priority & Express postage.

I'm guessing that a filter is possible for "If free shipping, mark as shipped but do not notify marketplace."

You also have the capability to print UPS or FEDEX labels.

Stamps support may be able to help but their support was a deciding factor for us to switch to ShipStation.

Thanks for the Reply MC. I will perform the upgrade now. I didn't realize there were vulerabilites. Problem is, this site was ran by my deceased spouce and now i'm having to maintain and bring some things up to 'code', if you will.

I will try to see if there is an option in Stamps.com software to ignore items marked 'free shipping'. Curious: If on products that are sold as services, what would happen if I just changed the "Product is Virtual": to "Yes" and "Skip Shipping Address" also to "yes". Would maybe Stamps.com just ignore it? Hmm..

gachogavacho:

Thanks for the Reply MC. I will perform the upgrade now. I didn't realize there were vulerabilites. Problem is, this site was ran by my deceased spouce and now i'm having to maintain and bring some things up to 'code', if you will.

I will try to see if there is an option in Stamps.com software to ignore items marked 'free shipping'. Curious: If on products that are sold as services, what would happen if I just changed the "Product is Virtual": to "Yes" and "Skip Shipping Address" also to "yes". Would maybe Stamps.com just ignore it? Hmm..

Please remember, you do not need to disable your current site while you are reconstructing the site under a newer version. I realize it is not easy to pick up after someone else to manage a website especially when there was such a connection with the previous operator. You have my deepest regrets for your loss.

Regardingidentifying the product as virtual, no shipping address, it may bethe way to go or at least worth trying. I'm curious though, if I understood correctly, I thought everything was this type of service based product, would there be any reason to have the stamps.com plugin installed if that were the case? Hopefully you also saw rixstix response regarding alternative options as well.

mc12345678:

Please remember, you do not need to disable your current site while you are reconstructing the site under a newer version. I realize it is not easy to pick up after someone else to manage a website especially when there was such a connection with the previous operator. You have my deepest regrets for your loss.

Regardingidentifying the product as virtual, no shipping address, it may bethe way to go or at least worth trying. I'm curious though, if I understood correctly, I thought everything was this type of service based product, would there be any reason to have the stamps.com plugin installed if that were the case? Hopefully you also saw rixstix response regarding alternative options as well.

Thank you MC, It's not been easy. Well, I'll be finishing the upgrade tomorrow. Was too busy getting some new products added to the store that were created but never published. Our business mails products but also provides a service too. I guess it was setup as 'free shipping' before and since there is a 'shipping' something attached, it wants to send it out. I'll change one of the service items, make a purchase and see if it skips import. I'll take a look at the other options mentioned as well. I'll report back on if that takes care of it or not for others' sake.

gachogavacho:

Thank you MC, It's not been easy. Well, I'll be finishing the upgrade tomorrow. Was too busy getting some new products added to the store that were created but never published. Our business mails products but also provides a service too. I guess it was setup as 'free shipping' before and since there is a 'shipping' something attached, it wants to send it out. I'll change one of the service items, make a purchase and see if it skips import. I'll take a look at the other options mentioned as well. I'll report back on if that takes care of it or not for others' sake.

Making positive progress? How did the test purchase of the newly set service turn out?

Well, it didn't quite work as expected. However I did upgrade my sites to 1.53. Now that that's finished and all security has been completed I can now divulge the website which is https://www.conjureDoctor.com

I haven't really tested the stamps.com software because I've been working on the database and Zen cart upgrade. However, I would like to know if there is a way that I can tell the system to ignore certain products like the setting of lights. If someone orders a setting of lights, which is a candle that we like here in our store rather than mailing it to them, there is obviously no shipping. However if someone buys a jumbo candle that we will be shipping to the customer and a setting of lights service in the same order I somehow need to figure out how stamps.com can still batch process the order but ignore the products in the order that are not shippable

Rix and others,

I started a trial of shipstation.com I agree, the purely online is much better since our environment has mac/pcs also.

I'm guessing that a filter is possible for "If free shipping, mark as shipped but do not notify marketplace."

Can you tell me how to do this in shipstation?

See if this works for you. If not, the SS support team has been really helpful to us. Support times have been a bit slower recently due to releasing a new interface a couple weeks ago so they are in bugfix mode as well as routine support mode.

Within ShipStation

Account Settings
Order Filters
Create a new filter
Filter Name: Free Shipping-mark as shipped (your wording)
Add Criteria: Requested Service (marketplace value)
Contains:
Free Shipping
Save

Automation Rules;
Create a RULE: Free Shipping mark as shipped (your wording)
Checkbox: Only apply these actions to orders that match an existing filter: FreeShipping-mark as shipped (use pulldown menu)
Add an Action:
Add tag: Don’t import the order (use pulldown)
Save Changes

Review the filter and rule to make sure they are 'active'

Ah! Easy! Ok thank you for that.

So for this example it looks like if I have someone has an order that has items that are not 'free shipping and items that are "free shipping" it will filter out the entire order? If an order contains a 'free shipping' item, I can leave the weight as zero so it doesn't' affect shipping cost, but I don't want orders that have items that are to ship to be filtered out just because they have a 'free shipping' item in the same order. Make sense?

I'm going to give them a call and see how it goes. Thanks for your help!

RixStix:

See if this works for you. If not, the SS support team has been really helpful to us. Support times have been a bit slower recently due to releasing a new interface a couple weeks ago so they are in bugfix mode as well as routine support mode.

Within ShipStation

Account Settings
Order Filters
Create a new filter
Filter Name: Free Shipping-mark as shipped (your wording)
Add Criteria: Requested Service (marketplace value)
Contains:
Free Shipping
Save

Automation Rules;
Create a RULE: Free Shipping mark as shipped (your wording)
Checkbox: Only apply these actions to orders that match an existing filter: FreeShipping-mark as shipped (use pulldown menu)
Add an Action:
Add tag: Don’t import the order (use pulldown)
Save Changes

Review the filter and rule to make sure they are 'active'

I misunderstood your requirement.

The rules and filters pickup the Shipping Method for the entire order from the OT_shipping as transmitted with the order.

ie: USPS, UPS, Fedex, FreeShipping, etc

As setup in Modules/Shipping

It has nothing to do with individual products.

Stamps.com... bubye! Shipstation is so much better and importing orders is a breeze. I was able to use the automation rules to ignore orders that have a shipping of zero, apply a bunch of presets, even. If an order has a non-shippable or 'free shipping' item, the item in my zen cart has a Zero weight so it wont affect shipping anyway and we don't send out packing slips or invoices. Thanks to those who recommended it! This will save me a lot of labor on preparing to prepare a shipment rather than just boxing and sticking a label on it!

Sweet :)