OK -- I need some insight!

My site owner has primarily been an ebay store owner - done very well and looking to expand off of ebay.

Problem is they have been using paypal, and with paypal they have the ability to print usps shipping labels. All they have to do is print the label, which has all the bar codes and shipping info on it, and drop off the package.

I have looked through the site but i cannot find a solution for the site owner on this. They are telling me that they MUST have the ability to print shipping labels which are ready to go due to the high volume they have.

Any solutions for this? if not what is everyone doing in terms of shipping, lables, and ZC?

HELP!

-B-

I think that "USPS.com Click-n-Ship AutoFill Button" comes close to doing what you want.

Thanks for the reply -- and your right it does.........EXCEPT for the darn shipping limitations of click and ship...

I think you cannot do First Class and there are quite a few products which are under 13oz.

what do you do when it comes time to ship?

I use table rates to determine the cost of shipping, based upon the price of the item. Then everything is shipped priority mail.

I should add that Priority Mail is very coste effective for me. The USPS provides me with boxes/envelopes, at no cost, delivered to my place of business, at no cost, and packages picked up at my place of business, at no cost.

You might look at this module as it was created for this purpose and states

Simple click ship your current record/sale and with the power of Endicia.com’s program called Dazzle you will have a label ready for your package in a matter of minutes. Please note that Endicia.com’s Premium service is required to ship packages through USPS and they do charge a monthly fee of around $15. You will need their Premium service as the program requires their XML support for shipping label creation.
The charge sould not be a concern for a high volume entity.

See it here: ZenCart Downloads Order Manager

Thanks for all the insight --

My site owner (relatives) cannot use the click & ship due to the exclusion of First Class mail. Everything is shipped by weight.

Raquel -- Yes i agree Priority can be cost effective and they give you all the materials as well. My wife used to do that as well. My home was a mini post office :) I have not considered table rates -- the site owner is purely by weight.

Kobra -- I have looked at the order manager and getting the site owner to seriously consider this as an option. The most difficult part seems to be the process of integrating the shipping information from the website/DB with the appropriate affiliate so that we may print prepaid labels. Of course if this is done manually it would not matter- BUT of course i want to be difficult and either have an integrated solution or at the very least a download/ upload solution that can be done in batch and then generate the labels in batch.

on a slight side note: The site is currently loaded with super orders 2.0 -- Do we think SO2.0 would play nice with Order Manager???????? It seems like both apps would give a very nice solution for managing everything from customer info to OTD. Thoughts???????

I have not compared these 2 mods but would look at the touched files for identical files altered and to the sql insertions for compatibility before trying it...then only on a local or a test site on a host before trying it on a live site.

Yes it would be good to know (if someone does not already) how these play together. I will start comparing.......

Maybe you can help me with another side but related -- Is there a tutorial somewhere on how to exaclty duplicate my present evironment to a test eviron? i.e.....import prod DB to already existing (but different content, think overwrite) test DB, change both configure.php files, ??, ??

None better than this, just alter a bit

Ajeh:

NOTE: It is best not to upgrade a Live Site

Backup the database

Backup the Live site

Create a copy of your Live Site in /new_shop

Create a new database with a copy of your Live database ...

Edit the /new_shop/includes/configure.php and /new_shop/admin/includes/configure.php to adjust the Path to /new_shop and the database to your new database, username and password

Copy all of Zen Cart v1.3.5 to /new_shop

Run the /new_shop/zc_install and Upgrade your database

Test that all is working first ...

Once your /new_shop site works 110% perfect ... set the Live Site Down for Maintenance ...

Backup the Live Site database again ...

Drop all the tables for the /new_shop database and load the current Live site database into the /new_shop database

Run the /new_shop/zc_install again and upgrade the database ...

Now the database is 100% current on the 110% working /new_shop site ...

Edit the /new_shop/includes/configure.php and /new_shop/admin/includes/configure.php to adjust the Path from /new_shop to your Live Shop directory ...

Do NOT change the database name, username and password ... this will be your new Live Shop database ... save your old one incase of problems ...

Rename the Live Shop directory /old_shop ...

Rename the /new_shop to the name of your Live Shop directory

Test everything ...

When all is working 125% perfect ... you are good to go and can take your new Live shop off of Down for Maintenance ...

PERFECT !! Thank you.
-B-