Enough is ENOUGH! For anyone who can help....

[Draygon]

I think there was a time when I was excited about deciding to use Prestashop for my new E-comm, now, not so much.  Over the last week, I've gotten nothing but excuses from anyone I've gotten on the phone, I've gotten lousy support (or any attempt at it).  Even when I resigned to the fact that support was not an option or of help and decided to buy additional modules, I get snubbed off by the sales people as well.  I've gotten hung up on and/or ignored.  Last week I called in to ask some questions about some modules I wanted to purchase, only to be told to hold on and then the call disconnected.  I then called back and selected different departments hoping to get an answer to the sales question I had only to be met with voice mail after voice mail.  I am starting to regret my decision.

 

Today I took to the forums for the first time hoping to get some answers, and while I can see that the postings were looked at, they have been overlooked by way of an answer.  Earlier I posted the following two topics:

 

http://www.prestashop.com/forums/topic/322466-tax-rules  and  http://www.prestashop.com/forums/topic/322461-product-attributes/

 

To this moment, I'm no closer to understanding those issues or a few others then I was when I asked them.  As mentioned a moment ago, resigned that I couldn't get an answerso I said to myself 'self lets buy a module to do that and maybe it will be easier'  so I took to the modules shop to see what I could find.  Unable to find what I was looking for, I decided to use the live sales chat module on the page (given my previous phone experience).  The outcome was more than  shocking.  Please find below the conversation I had emailed to me by request from the module...

 

Please note:  This short conversation took 50 minutes to conclude and ended with the sales rep terminating the chat session.

 

Felix Crego Hi!
How can I help?
Webuser Hi
Felix Crego Hi
Webuser I have a detailed question...
Webuser ???
Webuser Are you there?
Felix Crego Ok sure please ask
Webuser Since Prestashop out of the box does not account or allow for impact on dimensions for combinations, I need a module that accounts for not only impact on cost and weight, but dimensions as well.
Webuser ???
Felix Crego Dimension and Package Size Pricing Table - PrestaShop Addons
Felix Crego Something like this
Webuser No.
Webuser In the back office when entering in the details of your products, you can establish your combinations for those products. But the combinations only account for an impact on price and weight, not dimensions.
Webuser In example, if you have a product and it is available in 1 gallon, 5 gallon and 30 gallon, each of those have different dimensions, thus having an impact no only on price and weight, but dimension.
Webuser I need a module that will also allow impact on dimension.
Webuser When shipping products, dimensions are as important as the weight of the product.
Webuser My shipping rates would be off if I can not account for dimensions as well as weight in the combinations section.
Webuser This is important as to keep the store clean and tidy.
Webuser It messes up a store to have the same product listed three times with the only difference being the volume of the product.
Webuser ??

 

So if anyone can shed an easy to understand 100% working idea, please I am all ears.  I like some on here I'm sure are working on deadlines and I personally behind on mine due to the results and outcome of the above mentioned items.  I am hopeful that someone will understand and help a fellow out.

[Modesco]

I have the same problem with some of my products and even though you have the options you want in the shipping on the product page, I have made different product listings using their barcode.

[Draygon]

It just seem plain silly.  I am sure I'm not the only one here who has products to sell that come in a variety of volumes.  I nice clean page allows customers to find the item, then select the attribute ( in this case how many gallons) and move on.  But with increased volume comes increased dimensions to hold that volume thus, I must be able to calculate the impact on dimension as well as weight.  Otherwise I'm forced to create a separate product for each volume size.

[pets11]

Something like this?

 

http://addons.prestashop.com/en/shipping-logistics-delivery-prestashop-modules/8827-dimensional-weight.html

[stottycabanas]

What are the actual charging rules for the carrier you're using?

[Draygon]

What are the actual charging rules for the carrier you're using?

Largely I am using UPS for most things, others I use actual freight carriers due to their size and weight.  The simple example is this....

 

I have a product, it is sold, already packaged in gallon, 5 gallon and 30 gallon.  Naturally there is a weight associated for each of those.  Also obvious is the dimensions of the container for those quantities are different.   When I put these products into my shop, I used the combinations tab so that customers can select the size they want to purchase, thus I don't have to have the product listed 3 times in my store with the only difference being the gallons.

 

Now, when you use the combinations tab for your products, as you add each combination it asks for the impact on price and impact on weight, it does not as for impact on dimensions.  So the problem is, the shipping rates will be wrong when the UPS module acquires the rates from UPS as I cannot account for the dimension of the product.  I can account for one dimension, the default one for the product, but cannot account for the the dimensions of the other sizes of the product.   Make sense?

 

Thus, I need a way or module that adds the functionality of also taking into account the difference in dimensions for these products, not just the weight and cost difference between them.

[Draygon]

Seems everyone is scratching their head on this one.  However I've found an easier way to describe the issue.  Lets say you were buying milk on a website.  And for the most part, any decent website would have right there a selector for what size you wanted to buy, Quart, Half-Gallon, Gallon et. cetera.  Certainly the gallon jug is larger in dimension then the others.  So I'm not selling things by dimensions, my products like everything else HAS dimensions and dimension plays a factor in shipping cost.  This is the oversight I believe Prestashop is guilty of.  So when you look in your backoffice you will see then when you add your combinations (attributes) of your product you have NO way to account for the size difference of that attribute.

 

Will be interesting to see if Presta addresses this....

[stottycabanas]

I think the issue was understood from your first post.

In the case of your products (which being liquid will be pretty heavy), have you actually established whether having the dimensions at combination level would in fact make any difference to the shipping charge calculated by UPS?

If not, you'd be OK as the actual weight would always be used, not the volumetric weight.

If it did make a difference, I think you'd have to go down the route of separate products.

I think your general point about dimension impact not being available at combination level is valid and has been raised in the forums before. It's the same problem if you use Royal Mail in the UK.

Prestashop may well counter that they don't use dimensions in their own shipping calculations, but I wouldn't have thought it was a huge change to capture the data and pass the correct dimensions to the carrier modules, as they do with weight.

Cheers, Dave

[Draygon]

Dave,

 

   You are spot on in your analysis that it should not have been that much of a hurdle to incorporate this into the existing models.  A definite need is there as shipping carries do have different parameters for shipping packages.  Many of the carriers at some point seem to be using theoretic weight to determine weights.   If you were shipping large filters say, as soon as you cross the threshold to a certain size, the cost to ship nearly goes off the charts even for a one pound object.

 

  My apologies for overstating my example.  I'd received a number of private messages on the subject and nearly all of which took the assumption that I was selling items by dimensions thus, sent me a ton of links to modules that allow for selling items by dimensions, which is clearly not what I'm doing.

 

I need to keep my eye out for a module that accounts for this change in dimension.  For now it seems that I must do exactly what you said and what I didn't want to do, make a mess of my store duplicating my products with the only variance being it's volume just to account for the shipping dimensions.

 

Thanks for the input.

Edited April 14, 2014 by Draygon (see edit history)

[stottycabanas]

You're welcome, Draygon.

I guess there might need to be two modules, depending  on whether you're interfacing to a carrier to pull back their charges or having Prestashop calculate the shipping charges itself.

Good luck with the search!

Cheers, Dave

[Draygon]

You're welcome, Draygon.

I guess there might need to be two modules, depending  on whether you're interfacing to a carrier to pull back their charges or having Prestashop calculate the shipping charges itself.

Good luck with the search!

Cheers, Dave

Dave,

 

I do have my back office set with UPS and FedEx.  They certainly will quote rates based on information provided.  I feel that it is just Prestashop that needs to make the changes in accounting for the varying dimension and the carrier will take care of the rest for the quote.

 

Now, I'm just trying to get the correct ship parameters set.  Proving to be a bit of a nuisance.

 

I wish to offer customers free shipping on orders over $5,000 US.  However, only one shipping option should be shown to those customers.  Instead, all shipping methods are being shown instead of just the one. 

 

Though, while I will pick up the freight charges for orders over $5k, I choose the speed in which it gets there, I would like to extend an option to the customer to opt out of the free shipping if they wish to get in sooner then our default.

Edited April 14, 2014 by Draygon (see edit history)

[DeadDred]

Dave,

 

I do have my back office set with UPS and FedEx.  They certainly will quote rates based on information provided.  I feel that it is just Prestashop that needs to make the changes in accounting for the varying dimension and the carrier will take care of the rest for the quote.

 

Now, I'm just trying to get the correct ship parameters set.  Proving to be a bit of a nuisance.

 

I wish to offer customers free shipping on orders over $5,000 US.  However, only one shipping option should be shown to those customers.  Instead, all shipping methods are being shown instead of just the one. 

 

Though, while I will pick up the freight charges for orders over $5k, I choose the speed in which it gets there, I would like to extend an option to the customer to opt out of the free shipping if they wish to get in sooner then our default.

 

So has there been any progress on this? I'm just about to hit this road block adn really don't want to go with OpenCart which has modules that will do this for Canada Post and other Shipping companies but OC has other things I didn't like and the Presta store is almost done.

Here's a module for Open Cart to get an idead. http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=extension/extension/info&extension_id=14111&filter_search=dimensions

Edited June 7, 2016 by DeadDred (see edit history)