uniline1 Posted August 6, 2012 Share Posted August 6, 2012 (edited) I am setting up a store that will for now rely mainly on dropshipping. This means that for each supplier there is a different shipping point. I can use UPS Rates to estimate shipping costs, but how can these be changed for each product? For instance, if an order contains 2 items, one from a supplier in CA and the other from a supplier in NY, the shipping weight/cost chart will need to be different for each product. Is there a way to do this? Edited August 6, 2012 by uniline1 (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uniline1 Posted August 7, 2012 Author Share Posted August 7, 2012 No one knows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCharlie Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 I am doing the exact same thing with about 20 vendors and different shipping charges, weights, sizes, all kindsa fubar. The problem boils down to you cant control it if you dont do it. If you dont have the inventory and ship it yourself you have zero control and zero way to accurately do this. The best thing we have come up with so far is to do an estimate on the one-piece shipping on average an add a per-product after that. For us that turned out to be $7 plus $.50 an item. We do shirts and knick-knacks. When someone orders something from 2 or more people, we eat shipping costs. When people order a small thing we win. We are thinking seriously about adjusting our item prices and just doing free shipping or something like all orders ship for $4.95. Short story.. nope, no way to do it from multiple places drop shipping different rates and combinations of items. I have lost much sleep on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uniline1 Posted August 8, 2012 Author Share Posted August 8, 2012 Thanks SuperCharlie, that's what I was beginning to wonder about. I suppose in time a history could be developed as to an average shipping cost, but for now I will have to take a guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ehinarr Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 This is not very difficult to do, I suppose. You can create two or more hidden categories: Cat A and Cat B, for example, and bind Cat A to the Carrier A, and Carrier B to the Cat B, (by modifying the carrier module code). A good developer can do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCharlie Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 So.. Ehinarr.. what happens when someone buys 2 cat a's and one cat b then.. vs just one cat a.. or one cat b.. or 3 cat a's and 3 cat b's.. the killer is 1 of each as usually the initial item is more than additional items..per carrier.. also.. if you limit items in cat a to only carrier a, and limit items in cat b to only carrier b, you have created a logical paradox in that no carriers are available if someone buys an item of each.. its a nightmare. Been there.. bought the tee shirt. In the very very best scenario you could be able to use both carriers for a and b and the client would take the first item hit twice..and from the hell we have been getting on shipping costs.. it will drive people away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ehinarr Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 It's true. In fact, to bind products to a given carrier, it is not difficult. In my example, both carriers will appear to the customer. if it chooses a product from category A and another from category B. I think you can mix your two carriers into one, and treat both as services of this new module. Let me explain, I did something similar in a module. - The module checks the product category and shows the appropriate services (in this case one or two carriers mentioned above). - The module stores in a table each service (Carrier A and carrier and its values chosen by customer. - The customer sees only one freight value (A + , but I think it's even possible to show separately, is just an idea. - In BO, the services, which are in fact the carriers, are shown separately. I know this is not a solution, but it is a step for someone to make a module that fits what you need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCharlie Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Ahh I see what you're sayin now Ehinarr.. basically a module developed which uses the item category as the shipping selector and then either show all shippers in the front end or consolidate them and just show one price.. this is interesting.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
primetime Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 I am just setting up my store now but my current cart has that dropshipping feature here is how it works. I enter all info for my supplier such as account #, sales rep and address and on the product page there is a dropdown for supplier just select the supplier and it automatically uses the info that you put in under that particular supplier and the shipping modules calculated it from that. Once again im just having my presta shop setup so i havent got to this point yet but i do have an awesome programmer that has been able to do pretty much any kind of modification so i think i will see if see can maybe convert that module and make it work for my prestashop she did that with my template so i dont see why she couldnt. Hopefully in the next week or so we will ready to start on that i will let you know how it works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
primetime Posted August 9, 2012 Share Posted August 9, 2012 Here is one that has been created but its expensive http://www.modulebazaar.com/en/shipping-logistics/147-dropshipper-module-for-prestashop.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justdogwalking.com Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 Hi This module was actually developed for me (http://www.modulebaz...prestashop.html) and it does what I wanted, it does not however, link to suppliers stock and updates. Whilst it may seem expensive, one has to put it into context of what revenue it brings to your shop by having the ability to handle multiple suppliers and groups of suppliers. It also handles shipping for specific post/zip codes. My version for 1.3.2 did need mods to the core PS code so I have a problem with updating - but I will deal with that when I have to. Their support has also been good. ( I beleive the current version is ok for ps 1.4.x The only downside comes when a customer orders products from lots of suppliers and the shipping for each starts to rack up and big total. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeowsTheTime Posted August 23, 2012 Share Posted August 23, 2012 I've been browsing the forums trying to find an answer or a fix to my shipping problem. We also use mutliple suppliers. Most of the product is shippied UPS so I configured the module and got the API from UPS where the shipping is calculated automatically through the UPS site. However, the problem I seem to have is when the combined item or items exceed the UPS Ground weight requirement. If I change the UPS from "Disable Carrier" to the one that says greater or higher value, then it adds the UPS selection option to the customers check out. Which may confuse a customer when dealing with items that include "Free Shipping". I thinking now that my best option may be to average the shipping cost and add it to the price and just offer "Free Shipping" on the heavier items. Any thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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