FEDEX module DOES WORK AFTER ALL

the ups rates come from UPS

Fedex requires an account for reasons that they never bothered to tell me. I believe it has something to do with tracking usage and being able to spot check.
they are totally ANAL about their logo and the exact wording and placement of EVERYTHING

and Yes they will blame the module...
they always do.

Just got off the phone with FEDEX. Although the guy was very friendly and wanting to be helpful, essentially he ended up blaming the module, saying the rates that come from the server are accurate, and the same for everyone.

What is suspicious is that the top and bottom rates are very close, but the middle rates vary enormously. This, to me, suggests a bug somewhere.

I agree but since all zc does is sent the zips and the weight then the issues lie on their end.....

now do you see why I dropped the Fedex Mod?

I agree with you, use UPS its much easier,
better yet use the MZMT mod and use averages for shipping to different zones and different tables

this way you are not tied to a third party that can go down and in the end cost you money....

I believe I have resolved this issue. Though I apologize for not having my facts straight to begin with, maybe this will help someone else:

The rates generated by my Zen Cart FEDEX module are the "discounted" rates for our company, which vary considerably from the "list" rates offered to the general public. By logging into fedex.com with our account NFO, I was able to generate both the list and discounted rates, and they pretty much match what I posted earlier.

Bottom line: The FEDEX shipping module for Zen Cart seems to be working after all.

Cheers:clap:

And I just realized this is what Merlinpa said in one of his early posts.:blink:

glad you got it straight

braggweb:

And I just realized this is what Merlinpa said in one of his early posts.:blink:And also what one of the users of this module also said when you asked for feedback from those of us using this module.. I have this running on several client sites, and NOT ONE of them has ever reported an issue with inaccurate rates.. The ONLY issue that anyone has really had (and this will be true of any shipping module which is relying on the shipping vendor's servers to return rates) is if the FedEx rate server goes down.. Gonna keep an eye out for how often this is a issue for my clients.. (So far I've only had one reported issue with the FedEx servers going down..)

Glad to see you did your own testing, and made your decision based on what you know.. not just what someone said..

DivaVocals:

Glad to see you did your own testing, and made your decision based on what you know.. not just what someone said..

Agreed. The testing was critical. Because I'm totally new to Zen Cart, I've been fumbling around a bit. Thanks for the suggestion. That's what's great about forums.

braggweb:

Agreed. The testing was critical. Because I'm totally new to Zen Cart, I've been fumbling around a bit. Thanks for the suggestion. That's what's great about forums.No worries.. Just out of curiosity, which version of the FedEx module did you test?? I recently tried to upgrade a client to the latest version (v 1.3.7) and couldn't get it to pull rates in the cart (though the preview worked) I ended up rolling back to the 1.3.6 version which has been reliable for me anyway.. I was just wondering if anyone had success with the 1.3.7 version...

Not sure what version I have. My Zen Cart specialist set everything up for us, and he's not available at the moment. Where can I find that info? I don't see it in the admin anywhere.

braggweb:

Not sure what version I have. My Zen Cart specialist set everything up for us, and he's not available at the moment. Where can I find that info? I don't see it in the admin anywhere.The version can be found in the install files he used..

Merlinpa1969:

Fedex n turn sends the rates, ( these are the published rates which Fedex requires you to display )

That means the cart rates should match the rates generated on FEDEX.com.

and then:

according to braggweb:

The rates generated by my Zen Cart FEDEX module are the "discounted" rates for our company, which vary considerably from the "list" rates offered to the general public.

Which is it? Does zen cart display the fedex standard rates or the discounted account rates?

As far as I understand this, in order to utilize the FEDEX module in Zen Cart, you need to have an account with FEDEX. If you have an account with FEDEX, I assume you get a discounted rate. Hence, Zen Cart displays the discounted rates to the customer [which are less than the normal FEDEX rates displayed on their website.]

So, what I then tried to do was add a "surcharge" in the Zen Cart/FEDEX module. I experimented with various percentages, but could not get the rates to sync up even close to the UPS rates. The UPS rates were lower, and we realized no one would use the FEDEX rates [unless they were really dumb :wacko:.]

Hence, FEDEX became too much of a hassle to deal with -- we ended up dropping FEDEX, and now use only UPS.

Best wishes