Shipping problems

[Ken]

I am curious as to how all the canadians are using shipping. Or how you have set it up. I included shipping as an added bonus on my first site. http://www.pokerexpressonline.com

I did this because the US based shipping program with stores online is only available to US based owners. Before I launch my next site which has both US and Canadian based suppliers I was wondering if someone with knowledge on this may be able to help me out. Like who do you use and how does it work to incorporate it into your site.

Thanks in advance.

By the way this looks like a great forum so far!

Cheers;

Ken

www.pokerexpressonline.com

[Geoff]

Hi Ken - just discovered your commment here. Did you get this issue resolved in other parts of the forum?

Let me know and I would be happy to share our experiences if you still need help

[Ken]

Thanks for your response Geoff.

I have not yet resolved the problem. I am still waiting on launching my next site, so no rush, but I am most interested in your experiences and resolutions.

It's also good to see other Calgarian's doing well.

Thanks in advance.

Ken

[Cory]

I too am in Canada with suppliers based both in US and Canada. I have been exploring shipping options, and I am curious to which ones you guys seem to prefer or use. Also how to incorporate that information into my site for rates as well.

[Geoff]

Cory - you can just click on our store link below and check out what we are doing. Info both on the first page of Order Form at checkout and in Shipping/Returrn Policies. Just updated them yesterday.

Not perfect but a start. The old bugaboo - give them too little or too many choices? What is the balance vs how much trouble will it cause the neophyte shoper online

Have a look then contact us if you have more questions

[cbgourmet]

I guess I must be lucky. I don't use dropshipping suppliers but I have managed to negotiate with the various roasting houses and plantations to do the shipping for me.

Have you considered asking if your suppliers would consider shipping for you?

Leo
Ottawa

[Ken]

Actually they do ship the items for me. The problem I have is providing my customers with realistic shipping costs as they are not known to the client when ordering. So I fudge it and hope I dnt take a bath too often.

If I had a US based address. I could use the UPS real time shipping on my site. But since you must live in the USA to use it. It leaves me with lmited options.

I was hoping it would be straightened out by now but I cant see that being a priority since Canadians are a limited commodity, and it probably is not worth their time. They should however mention that it does not work in Canada when they sell their product.

Good site by the way! Hows business?

Ken

[cbgourmet]

UPS has software for Canadian account holders that can do all the calculations and what not. You can order it via your Canadian UPS account at www.ups.ca. BTW, it's free.

Are all of your products weights known? You can write an ordering rule for ranges of weight and destinations.


The formula works like this...

range(selected_weight, 250, 23.00, 500, 26.00, 1000, 33.00, 1500, 40.00, 2000, 47.00)

the first number is the weight, followed by the cost. so if the package weighs 250 grams the cost is $23.00 etc. All you would need to do is set one up for each country you are shipping to and it should work. You would use the Calculate function.

[loungeoutdoors]

Leo, thanks
I hadn't got to figuring out how to do the shipping cost with ordering rules so this will save me time.
I now have 4 different suppliers, 3 Canadian, 1 US (altho' they ship from Malaysia via California).
This wasn't a problem until i signed with the 3rd Canadian supplier who do not give me pricing with shipping pre-costed and pretty much flat rate as all the others do.
This 3rd supplier takes order, calculates shipping, asks customer if OK and then processes the sale - cumbersome and not an option with the SOL offering - you'd spend all yr time voiding & cancelling (with cost) those who don't like the ship charges (if you still had a merchant account that is - dig, dig!!).
I signed with UPS but the software wants you to register with the origin address of the shipping and does not offer a second address so they can bill you for the charges.
Right now i've "averaged" the ship cost but the difference between shippping to Toronto or San Diego is huge so I'll win on some lose on others, hopefully not too much. Of course the cost for a Toronto ship is too much and I'll lose sales to price.
This info from you will let me figure it correctly

Thanks, a ton of help!

[Jean Tessier]

Have you considered shipping through Canada Post? What I do is charge a flat rate for US and another flat rate for Canada. Obviously, I'm doing all the shipping as what few suppliers I have don't drop ship.

If you do your own shipping, keep in mind that you always have to deal with customs when shipping cross border. Canada Post makes this easy for me as I do it all right at the Post Office.

This has been a great option for us.

[planetbachelorette]

We started off with the same issues... We started with Standard and Rush shipping options, and fudged the numbers based on the "weight" of the item... just came up with a random formula that came close to what Canada Post was charging.

Due to the nature of our supplies (bachelorette party stuff), the order is time-sensitive. If they don't get the order by a specific date (and these people order at the last minute sometimes...), then the products become useless to them.

So I dreamed up exactly what I wanted to happen. The customer would pick their stuff, and at checkout, would be asked for the party date. On the next step, the contents of the cart and party date would be sent to my server for processing, and would return a list of shipping options ordered by date, accompanied by price and arrival date. The options would be color coded where green was safe, yellow was close, and red was too late. It was then up to the client to choose the shipping option that fit their schedule.

So after many days of work, I set it all up. It gets quotes from both Canada Post and UPS. I have an Excel list of all my products with weight and dimensions, and the box size for shipment is automatically calculated based on all of these factors (it's a feature of Canada Post's Sell Online program).

If you want to see what it looks like, check out www.planetbachelorette.com and fill up your cart with random stuff and try the checkout process.

I'm not sure I'd want to just give away this code, as I put in a ton of work into it, but I'm willing to listen

Cheers

[Jean Tessier]

Hi Planetbachelorette,

Are you interested in selling your code? I think it would be worth something for all the hard work you've put into it.

[George & Helena]

Hi I'm George, I'm new on this forum. I've been an SOL client since June. I live here in Canada. I bought my SOL membership here in Canada. I've just been reading about other people's problems with Optimal. So far I have learned that Optimal certainly has their hand in the pocket of us Canadians, deeper than anyone else. I'd love to tell you on what I base that claim but Optimal still owes me money and I don't want to jeopardise that. But I can talk a little about shipping. I am a drop shipping agent. My drop shippers are both in the US. The sales contract that my customers fill out when they order from me has provision for shipping charges to be calculated and added into the final total for the customer. However, because I live in Canada SOL's software will not do the shipping cost calculation at all even if the customer lives in the US. No matter where the shipment is going whether US or Canada, SOL's software will not do what they told me it would when they sold me the storefronts back in June.
So what do I do? For now I have contacted all three USPS, FedEX and UPS for their rate sheets and then calculated the cost of shipping from my suppliers to the US Northeast and the US southwest in 5 lb. increments and then averaged the cost and set that up in my shipping rules to be applied to the orders. Then I did the same for Canada. It isn't great but at least it works. Sometimes I windup ahead of the game and sometimes I lose out but the thing is that the customer gets what he ordered.
As far as crossing the border is concerned, I maintain a PO box in a little town just south of the border where I get most of my US purchases shipped and have found that anything (under $100.00)that I pick up and bring across myself comes in both duty and tax free if you treat the customs people with respect. But don't get smart with them. That'll cost you big time!
Unfortunately I can't offer the same to my customers, so they are on their own with the carriers. I do know that UPS has a regular brokerage fee of $35.00 on all parcels coming across the border.
Sorry for being so long-winded but I just had to get things off my chest. I'll have more to say later.
George