[Old] Royal Mail Modules

According to my post office the amount of compensation paid is for the value paid by the customer for the goods. But they only pay up to £32 for most services unless you take out extra insurance including the really expensive airmail services. Special delivery is about £250, and you can pay more for signed for insurance, but I set things at the maximum that the post office would pay out so that new shop owners would be aware of the situation.

I appreciate all of the suggestions made so far, which is why I have incorporated them. I still have no idea what I did last night, I remember finishing and then the crash that seemed to mangle the 2nd class packet rate with the 1st class signed for service so there may be a mix up somewhere else, I couldn't find one last night but I may (when I work out what I did) go back to v1.3 and redo it to make the official v1.4

zigzak:

Hi,
Re the £32 compensation limit - it's all a bit vague really - especially if you're sending goods - do you claim your cost price, or the selling price? And do you claim VAT or not?
David

The thing to bear in mind is the obvious (although it somehow doesn't seem obvious until you think about it :smile: ) ie. the package is lost and you have to replace the goods. So if you've bought an item for £80 and sold it for £100 (invoice value) and claim for the invoice value, then you will be £60 down after you've replaced the item for the customer (2 lots of goods @ £80 = £160, less £100 compensation).

In addition, Royal Mail does not refund the postage on the item lost - which is really silly, since they're admitting it wasn't delivered, and thus they've not fulfilled their contract - so you will also be down by one lot of postage (assuming the customer paid for delivery).

I'm not sure about the VAT situation - they may pay you the value less VAT since you haven't really lost that. I think it says on the claim form - or you could ring them of course.

I can't imagine how anyone can use Royal Mail if their margin is less than 50%. Maybe a courier service might be the best solution in those circumstances. :smile:

Philip,

Thanks again, excellent work. - the shipping estimator works fine now when not logged in :smile:

Haven't yet looked at Second Class Packet vs. First Class Signed-for rates to see if there's any mix-up - but will take a look tomorrow.

Now ... if you're up to a further suggestion, I have one: :smile: (if not, don't worry) :smile:

Would it be possible to put a sort on the shipping options so they display (in the shipping estimator, and on checkout) in ascending order of cost - either just on the Royal Mail ones, or (preferably) on all the options displayed? At present they appear to be sorted by module name.

That would make it a lot easier for the customer to choose the level of delivery/cost they wanted to pay for.

Thanks again :smile:

Pixxi:

The thing to bear in mind is the obvious (although it somehow doesn't seem obvious until you think about it :smile: ) ie. the package is lost

Ahh but it could be nicked, half inched, stolen, fraud etc.... so you just give the shopper all the money that you get from the post office, and don't send them any more goods, then you've only lost what you paid for the item in the first place, you raise a credit note against your bad invoice and claim the VAT back. All perfectly legal too, you have the right to refund and refuse to sell an item especially if you suspect that the goose may go missing again, and let's face it, I mean you're sending your goods into what previously became a black hole.

It wouldn't matter what limit you set really, it's up to the individual seller as to at which limit they want a signature and extra insurance.

Pixxi:

Philip,

Now ... if you're up to a further suggestion, I have one: :smile: (if not, don't worry) :smile:

Would it be possible to put a sort on the shipping options so they display (in the shipping estimator, and on checkout) in ascending order of cost - either just on the Royal Mail ones, or (preferably) on all the options displayed? At present they appear to be sorted by module name.

Not easily from my end but very easily from yours, my end would require going through all of the modules, filling an array or object, sorting it on cost (easy with array, bugger on an object) and thee spewing it out. Alternatively, you could just work out that 2nd class is cheaper than first class etc.... and use the "sort order" number in the module admin which may or may not work since I haven't tested it. :D

Hi folks I am very sorry for asking such a silly question but I am unable to get this module to work. I am certain its something that I am do/not doing thats the problem.

I notice on the admin screen for the various options it states: You must enable Zone shipping for this module to work.

I accept the defaults that are provided, but its not working - do i have to enable/configure something else?

By the way this looks like a GREAT MODULE - WELL DONE :) I just need to get it working now.

It's probably not you

guzzer:

I notice on the admin screen for the various options it states: You must enable Zone shipping for this module to work.

Actually the "enable the zone method" is very misleading in that as far as am I aware one can completely and totally bugger up the whole zones section of admin (which I recently did) and as long as the "True" button is checked, then the module appears to work. Now firstly the modules have maximum order values and maximum weight values, is your test purchase under £32.00 and under about 2 Kilos ? and thinking about it do you have weight for your shop items set ? and does your test user have a country ? that would be pretty important too.

Also when you say it doesn't work, does that mean that no postal options are ever displayed on the screen, or that it charged someone £4000, hmm think that covers most of the options of what could go wrong, oh yes, what version of zen cart are you using ?

I wrote/ modified the software, don't mean that I knows nothing though !

Philip.

JollyJim was working on a similar project and has kindly submitted his work to me, he's done some very good things especially on the disabling of invalid shipping services either by price or by weight, so I will be incorporating parts of his work into the next release. It especially means no template replacement which is genius, he saw something I hadn't so all the credit goes to him.

Philip,
V1.4 looks pretty good - I also used your replacement Shipping Estimator file and that is much nicer also.

I too am getting shipping prices now regardless of whether logged in or not.

However I do seem to have a problem - in the admin I have enabled "First class packet", "First class recorded signed for packet", and "SpecialDelivery next day".

When I do a test order with a weight of 1.44KG the estimator gives me choices of "1st Class Recorded signed for packet" @ £6.27, and "2nd class large letter" @ £8.30.

Aside from the fact that I didn't have the second class large letter option enabled at all I think the weight limit for this would be 1KG anyway. And it's also quoting the cost for this at higher than the cost of sending 1st class recorded. I think it's maybe getting the prices correct but the titles of the services wrong!

Regards,
David

@Philip: D'oh - of course - especially since there's only likely to be RM modules installed :smile:

@ZigZak: Confirmed - maybe this was related to the 'mangling' of files that happened a day or two ago (see Philip's post above).

I have just installed v1.4 on a fresh install and all seems to work fine, except i cannot add the special delivery next day module in admin.

I get this error:

1136 Column count doesn't match value count at row 1
in:
[insert into configuration (configuration_title, configuration_key, configuration_value, configuration_description, configuration_group_id, sort_ofiguration_value, configuration_description, configuration_group_id, sort_order, set_function, date_added) VALUES ('Enable Zones Method', 'MODULE_SHIPPING_SPECIALDELIVERY_STATUS', 'True', 'You must enable Zone shipping for this module to work', '6', '0', 'zen_cfg_select_option(array('True', 'False'), ', 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.

Ii is the latest verion of Zen, but have also installed the beta UK template by MutalAdvantage.

Hi tonyrobbo,
That's interesting - because it's that service which seems to be causing me the problems I detiled eariler.

At the moment I would suggest version 1.3 is the most "stable" - and perhaps you should use that one instead.

I think Philip might produce an update for us if/when he can.

Regards,
David

zigzak:

Philip,
"First class packet", "First class recorded signed for packet", and "SpecialDelivery next day".

When I do a test order with a weight of 1.44KG the estimator gives me choices of "1st Class Recorded signed for packet" @ £6.27, and "2nd class large letter" @ £8.30.

Pretty sure that's from the crash where it transposed second and first class signed for or something. But it should be an easy fix when I'm up to it.

tonyrobbo:

I have just installed v1.4 on a fresh install and all seems to work fine, except i cannot add the special delivery next day module in admin.

I get this error:

1136 Column count doesn't match value count at row 1
in:
[insert into configuration (configuration_title, configuration_key, configuration_value, configuration_description, configuration_group_id, sort_ofiguration_value, configuration_description, configuration_group_id, sort_order, set_function, date_added) VALUES ('Enable Zones Method', 'MODULE_SHIPPING_SPECIALDELIVERY_STATUS', 'True', 'You must enable Zone shipping for this module to work', '6', '0', 'zen_cfg_select_option(array('True', 'False'), ', 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.

Ii is the latest verion of Zen, but have also installed the beta UK template by MutalAdvantage.

Yep that looks like it's probably another one of those crash problems I experienced. I think that version 1.4 should be declared 1.4-beta, 1.4 may not be fixed anyway since Jim Barrington came up with a great way of solving the way of not displaying the invalid shipping services without needing to modify the templates, so I may skip back to 1.3 and work from there.

TonyRobbo,

There's a bit of unexpected code (ie. mangle-ness) in the database insert in includes/modules/shipping/specialdelivery.php.

Remove the section on line 169:

sort_ofiguration_value, configuration_description, configuration_group_id, 

So that line 169 looks like:

    $db->Execute("insert into " . TABLE_CONFIGURATION . " (configuration_title, configuration_key, configuration_value, configuration_description, configuration_group_id, sort_order, set_function, date_added) VALUES ('Enable Zones Method', 'MODULE_SHIPPING_SPECIALDELIVERY_STATUS', 'True', 'You must enable Zone shipping for this module to work', '6', '0', 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(\'True\', \'False\'), ', now())");

Yes, '2nd class large letter' does seem to be displaying instead of 'special delivery, next day'. No worries, I'm sure it'll be perfect when it's done :D

Well spotted Pixxi, that fixed it. :D

I must say i was very dissapointed with the shipping side of Zen until this mod.

Thanks bouncingltd

There's another bug throughout the entirety of my module to do with shipping things in numbers of boxes, this is constant throughout every shipping option.

basically it don't work, I've fixed it on one version, and when I am "recovered" I will fix it for the next 14 services.

Philip.

Back again. Here's the beta:

http://bouncing.org/big_royalmail_v1.5-beta.zip

no longer should one have to alter the ZC files tpl_checkout_shipping_default.php and tpl_modules_shipping_estimator.php although a prettier estimator is included if you want to install it. It should now be non-corrupted and thanks to JollyJim who was responsible for pointing me in the direction of a method of removing shipping options without the need to alter templates.

The boxes problem that I introduced has now been solved, although there is still a problem stemming from the way zencart is set up, e.g. you have an item that weighs 2.2 kilos, you have a 2 kilo weight limit on and so zen cart puts one object in two packages. Strange but true, I have 5 lens caps in 7 boxes apparently.

Ignore the version numbers of the files and pretty much all of the instructions as I reverted back to 1.3 and for the beta version, have yet to change things around.

Thank you

Philip.

Thank you Philip, - good to see you back again :smile:

Will take a look tomorrow and see if I can break it ...

Strange but true, I have 5 lens caps in 7 boxes apparently

... things like this happen sometimes ... it's the 'Universe' (allegedly) :unsure:

:smile:

I probably should have mentioned, this does not require a remove and install of each shipping service, just a write over the existing files. And yes I'm back but with a hell of a drug hangover, it's a bugger having to go through withdrawal every couple of weeks.

There's going to have to eventually be a lot of changes to the modules because it has moved so far away from the original, there's some defunct pieces and some things that probably need the order swapping around. I think before this, we'll be addressing the courier zone/ region issue, there will have to be three courier modules to choose from because if one lives in Zone 2, one charges Zone 1 prices for Zone 2, making things a little complex.