[Old] Royal Mail Modules

Brilliant. Thanks Pixxi. :thumbsup:

I changed to the file cacheing and that now works. I'll try the sql method when I'm feeling a bit braver.
Great job thanks.
TFB

Chuckl
Thanks for taking an interest. all sorted now.

Try as I might I can't get the RM modules to hide if Free Shipping is applied. Weights are set to zero, zones are not an issue and hide if invalid is set to true. Have I forgotten something or is this just something that the RM modules are not programmed to do?

I am using the Freeshipper module not Freeshipping options module.

Sorted out VAT question by the way which prompted my problem. Had a logged call to the VAT woman and it turns out that if delivery is invoiced on the same invoice as zero rated goods then delivery is also zero rated - delivery of any vatable goods on the same invoice as the zero rated goods have to have VAT apportioned. Its not too much of a problem, because we shall just include delivery in the price of the zero rated items.

Sort of half solved my problem. Have inserted:

   // disable only when entire cart is free shipping
  if (zen_get_shipping_enabled($this->code)) {
    $this->enabled = ((MODULE_SHIPPING_RM1STPACKET_STATUS == 'True') ? true : false);
  }

but will only work if hide if invalid switch is off in relevant shipping module admin.

Still good enough for me. Wish I knew what I was doing.

TPH,
For some one who doesn't know what they are doing, you seem to be doing all right? Nice work.
I read your post late last night and was going to reply this morning, but you got there first. I'm not quite sure what the 'hide if invalid' set to false does, as I normally use that for troubleshooting shipping problems, but hey if it works...
To summarise, the freeshipper module should cause all other shipping methods to be hidden, if the cart products have the 'always free shipping' selected, and/or have a weight of zero.
The weight is a point of debate, as the store shipping/packaging configuration cas cause it to add a packaging weight even if the product weight is zero, and perhaps that is what the 'hide if invalid' is doing?
The other contentious area to test is when you have a 'mixed' cart of some free and some not, to check that the shipping, tax etc are being correctly calculated.

Chuck

Yes, I checked mixed baskets and it works as expected. The only problem I have now is that it is pretty anomalous to have identical products one taxed and paying addtional delivery while the other (for registered charities) is tax free and includes delivery.

Will have to have a meeting with my boss (my 19 year old son) if I can get him out of bed. Not far from you, by the way - Bourne End.

Always a pleasure to try and help the neighbours!
I had a similar challenge a year back when there was a potential need for bulk/wholesale pricing on a friends store. Ultimately it wasn't needed, but we used a customer group/wholesale pricing/product type approach, that meant that only qualifying customers could see those products.
It might have used one of the contributed mods, I'll have to see if I can find something on our efforts.
Hope that helps

Chuck

Don't forget that Royal Mail prices have just gone up (again!) as from the beginning of April 2007.

Some prices have gone up, others have gone down. Effectively they've widened the gap between 1st Class (recorded) and Special Delivery. For a while there, some packages were cheaper (or the same price) to send via Special Delivery than by Recorded. Not any more. :wink:

(He says, having just been caught out by that one myself this morning...:oops: )

International shipping charges have also changed significantly - I've only looked at small packet but I believe all have gone up:-

Increases in Airmail small packet base rates for Europe and R.O.W.

International signed for is still £3.50 on the base rates

Compensation limit raised from £32 to £34

International Signed for extra insurance is now £2.00 (was £1.50) more than standard International signed for.

The Big Royal mail has the £1.50 hard coded I think - anyone know how this can be changed? It's not a major issue as I can simply add the extra 50p to the comma separated prices.

Thanks,

Jonathan

AtomicWorkshop:

The Big Royal mail has the £1.50 hard coded I think - anyone know how this can be changed? It's not a major issue as I can simply add the extra 50p to the comma separated prices.

The compensation amounts are in:

includes/languages/english/modules/shipping/your custom folder/name of module

eg:

define('MODULE_SHIPPING_RMAMISFSMALLPACKET500_EXTRA_INSURANCE', '1.50');

Yes, we need to get this mod updated for the new rates. I'll see if I can track down a list of the changes - but if anyone knows (or can find out) just the rates that have changed please post and I'll update the modules and put a new version in the downloads section.

Let's hope RM doesn't keep changing the rates every few months .. :smile:

Pixxi,

Thanks for that, I actually found it about 10mins after posting but left the post on here just to make sure I'd edited the correct line and there wasn't additional edits to be made elsewhere.

From the prices I've looked at so far, all have been increased:- Large letter 1st, Recorded, Special Delivery, Airmail, International signed for and ISF extra insurance.

Please please help?

Why can't I get 2nd Class Packet Signed for to work? All I get is...

The shipping rate cannot be determined at this time

1st Class Packet signed for works fine.

[email protected]

I FIXED IT!

its the tare setting in configuration - shipping/packaging

set it to 0:0 (was on 0:3)

at last!

Pixxi:

Let's hope RM doesn't keep changing the rates every few months .. :smile:
I suspect they will. This change was part of a familiar "con" that a lot of companies take part in these days.

A few months back, RM introduced "pricing by proportion" and made great efforts to assure us that "90% of post would be the same price or cheaper". That statement was based on the fact that a 1st class stamp would now cover 100g rather than 60g.

Then, as soon as they get "pricing by proportion" in, they put up all the prices. If they'd put up the prices at the same time as introducing pricing by proportion, they wouldn't have been able to say "90% of post will be the same price or cheaper". So they just delay the price rise for a few months to ensure they can use the headline-grabbing con - in other words "placate the customer so they don't cause a fuss".

I suspect we'll see more of this over coming months. Change one section of prices to make another section look favourable, shout about "unchanged prices or cheaper", then a few months later change those prices too.

(This kind of "con" happened a while ago with my ISP. They increased the price of the broadband connection one month, then the following month they changed the speed but claimed "at no extra cost" - legally it's true, but morally they've just increased the price one month earlier.)

I've uploaded a modified Big Royal Mail with the April 2007 RM price changes. Only changes are to the RM prices, taken from their website.
It's available in the downloads area.

Please treat with caution as all were entered manually, and while checked and double checked, odd errors may have crept in. Please report any that you find.

Rgds,

Chuck

as all were entered manually ... odd errors may have crept in

Just a thought...

I use a spreadsheet to calculate Royal Mail's new rates for the long lists of
international rates; I need printed-paper rates which go up to 5kg so its even more
tedious for me to do it by hand.

The first 12 (ish) rate bands are not consistent but after those each rate increases by
a fixed amount and you can do relative copy/paste in a spreadsheet to get it to
calculate the amounts automatically.

With a bit of creative thinking (or even a macro to export the data in exactly the right
format) you can export the file as a csv and then process it with search/replace in a
simple text editor to produce the required strings for the various RM shipping modules.

Chances of error practically zero; only takes a few minutes to update the lot.

You are indeed right, I could have screen scraped the tables off the Royal Mail site as well, but I'm a secret Luddite, and have a love of hand chiseled code....

Pixxi has been trying to get the files out of the RM folk for several weeks now, without success, so I used the manual update as a way to postpone several other even less enjoyable tasks.

Chuck

I could have screen scraped the tables off the Royal Mail site as well

Indeed; but that would make you a masochist rather than a Luddite. (Way too much work).

Pixxi has been trying to get the files out of the RM folk

Ah, a head-banger...

Chuckl:

I've uploaded a modified Big Royal Mail with the April 2007 RM price changes. Only changes are to the RM prices, taken from their website.
It's available in the downloads area.

Please treat with caution as all were entered manually, and while checked and double checked, odd errors may have crept in. Please report any that you find.

Rgds,

Chuck

I wonder if I have found an "odd error" or two?

apologies for the long post but I want to be clear about exactly what I did to get this.

I downloaded the updated version: big_royalmail_v2.2 (big_royal_mail_2.21.zip)
Unziped it and uploaded everything in

includes\languages\english\modules\shipping
and
includes\modules\shipping

to the same on my site, overwriting the existing (I have backups).
I then went to admin and uninstalled each module that I was using and reinstalled it to get the new values. Not so sure this was the right way to do it but it seemed sensible at the time.

I was sure I screwed up somewhere because some modules came up with no values and one in particular gave me a duplicate entry error........

Panic took hold and I restored my backup.... everything working again, phew! ok so no real notes on what I did or didn't do there.

With renewed bravery I tried again with slightly better results but still have an error:

uploaded files as before then went to admin shipping modules and starting at the bottom sequentially uninstalled and re installed:-

RM Special Delivery Next Day : worked fine

RM Standard Parcels : worked

RM International Signed For Small Packet Extra Insurance : screwed up with the error listed below.

RM International Signed For Small Packet: worked (tried the extra insurance again in case it needed this one first but same error)

RM 1st Class Recorded Signed for Packet: worked

RM 1st Class Recorded Signed for Letter: worked

RM 1st Class Recorded Signed for Large Letter: worked

As these are the only RM modules I am using I have not tried any others to date.

Also I found another error / Omission in the international section.

RM International Signed For Small Packet does not include "Jersey" or the "channel Islands"

Royal mail counts Jersey, Guernsey etc. as international but there is no option for these.

RM International Signed For Small Packet Extra Insurance gave this error:

1062 Duplicate entry 'MODULE_SHIPPING_RMAMISFSMALLPACKET_ZONES_COUNTRIES_1' for key 2
in:
[insert into configuration (configuration_title, configuration_key, configuration_value, configuration_description, configuration_group_id, sort_order, set_function, date_added) values ('Royal Mail defined European Countries', 'MODULE_SHIPPING_RMAMISFSMALLPACKET_ZONES_COUNTRIES_1', 'AL, AD, AM, AT, AZ, BA, BE, BG, BY, CY, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FO, FR, GI, GL, GR, HU, HR, IS, IE, IT, KZ, LI, LT, LU, LV, MK, MT, NL, NO, PL, PT, SE, SI, SK, SM, RU, UZ, UA, TM, TR, TJ, CH, MD, MC', 'two character ISO country codes for Europe.', '6', '0', 'zen_cfg_textarea(', now())]
If you were entering information, press the BACK button in your browser and re-check the information you had entered to be sure you left no blank fields.

Any suggestions welcome.

Regards

TFB

Quick Note
having uninstalled
RM International Signed For Small Packet Extra Insurance
The error appears right after clicking on the install button.

TFB

Sorry if I am being picky but, found another little one.... well a couple actually.
In the text on each module it says "Correct on 1th April 2007 from information published March 2007"
maybe that's right (apart from 1st not 1th :wink: ) but according to RM web site the tariff changes were from Monday 2nd
April 2007........

OK, Ok I know that's picky, but seriously what I wanted to point out is that in
Royal Mail 1st Class Recorded Signed For "Letter" the basic 1st class is set as 32p but should be 34p (including in
the example)

Correct on 1th April 2007, from information published March 2007.
Example: 0.1:0.32 means weights less than or equal to 0.1 Kg would cost £0.32.

actually many of the examples use pricing that is out of date though the examples themselves are correct in their
explanations and the pricing is also correct.
eg
Royal Mail 1st Class Recorded Signed ForTM "Large Letter"
Text states:

Correct on 1th April 2007, from information published March 2007.
Example: 0.1:0.44 means weights less than or equal to 0.1 Kg would cost £0.44.

but actual rate states:
0.1:0.48

Chuck
Thanks for your hard work updating the new prices, I Hope you don't mind my pointing out these little anomalies but you did say to report any errors.

Regards

TFB