Looking for a Shipping Module that does not Appear to be Available. Help!

[ricklarsen_ch]

Hello all,

 

I am looking for a shipping module that does not appear to be available. I have written to the developers of numerous shipping modules asking if their module will perform the simple requirements I have and everyone wrote back with a negative answer. Does anyone know of a module that meets the following business requirements (or a developer who is interested in writing one to fill this business need)?

 

BACKGROUND:

 

I am based in Switzerland, but also sell in the European Union. My shipping costs for shipments outside of of Switzerland are extremely high, whereas my shipping costs inside Switzerland are very low; in some cases national shipments cost almost nothing for my products.

 

I sell in two currencies, Swiss francs and euros. The euro price is just a translation of my Swiss franc price at the daily exchange rate.

 

A 35 CHF order from a customer in Switzerland can be shipped for between 5-9 CHF. The same 35 CHF order going to a customer 10 minutes away on the other side of the border in France, for example, can cost me 35 CHF to ship! That's how ridiculous the difference is.

 

BUSINESS PROBLEMS:

 

I am faced with a number of marketing scenarios that I simply cannot handle.

 

1. I would like to be able to offer free shipping to Swiss customers only, for orders above X, determined by the delivery and payment address, without offering anything to EU euro customers. In other words, determined by country or payment currency, together with order size (min. value). I cannot.

 

2. I would like to be able to offer EU customers a flat-rate shipping fee of €X, although my cost my be 2 or 3 times X. In other words, I would like to be able to offer shipping at a reduced price, but not free. In other words, determined by country, or payment currency, or order size, etc.

 

3. I would like to also be able to offer combinations of free and flat-rate shipping for certain articles purchased. Some of my products can be shipped in a standard envelope with a tracking number and benefit from advantageous shipping rates from the Post Office. Others require a box more than 5cm thick, even though they are the same weight, and the price for shipping triples! In other words, determined by item.

 

4.) I would like to set a minimum value for free shipping for customers who shop/pay in euros, expressed in euros. At the same time, I would like to set a different amount for customers who shop/pay in CHF, expressed in CHF. If I express the price in just one currency, customers who shop in the other can never be 100% sure they exceeded the limit for free shipping if the exchange rate moved significantly.

 

I understand that I might be able to handle this by converting to multi-store mode, but then I have 2 or 3 times more work because I have to maintain the same articles in the database of different shops...so I have only increased my workload.

 

Does anyone know of a module that can handle these issues? Is there any developer out there who wants to fill this business need and needs a beta customers?

 

Regards,

Rick Larsen

Made in Brazil

Edited August 30, 2016 by ricklarsen_ch (see edit history)

[Simonas Invertus]

By default PrestaShop divides the world in to the regions and the whole Europe is in one region, but you can change this.

 

I will tell you about default carrier which comes with PrestaShop, but other carriers should have similar configuration.

 

1) Go to Localization->Zones create new zone Lets call it "Test1"

2) Go to Localization->Countries find Switzerland click edit. Find zone and change it from "Europe" to "Test1"

3) Go to Shipping->Carries click edit "My Carrier", choose "Shipping cost and locations" and the bottom of the list you can see "Test1" and you can set 5 for that zone and 55 for the Europe. 

Does this solve your problem?

 

We developed module for DPD, we have experience to develop such kind of modules, but I am not sure if you need a custom module in this case.  

[ricklarsen_ch]

Hello,

 

Thank you for your interest in my problem. I looked at the information you sent me, but I do not see that this solves the 4 problems that I am confronted with.

 

Your solution, which I already use to define varying freight costs from Swiss Post to varying destinations, in Swiss francs.

 

1. It would let me manually set freight costs to zero for Switzerland, but freight costs for European customers would still be expressed in CHF, not EUR.

2. I could set flat rate fees for EU customers, but they would not be expressed in euros for these customers.

3. It would not allow my to set free shipping for EU customers for certain articles, expressed in euros.

4. I could set different amounts for different customers, but they would be expressed in CHF.

 

Regards,

[Simonas Invertus]

All the prices in PrestaShop are set in default PrestaShop currency, in your case it is CHF. And when I say all I mean: product prices, shipping prices and so on, but in front client will see prices depending on his country, so euros for EU clients and CHF for swiss.   

 

You can also create shipping ranges depending on price or weight.

 

You can create different shipping carriers for different groups of people and have different setting for each group.

 

I admit I can not solve all your problems with default modules and if you really need all your problems solved you might need custom shipping module, but from your description to create module from scratch most likely would cost 5000 or even more. It way cheaper to modify existing one than to create a new module.

[ricklarsen_ch]

Thank you for your comments and your interest in my problem. The problem with exchange rates is that the amount will always vary. I cannot publicize free shipping above €90 on the website, because this is not the default currency at the moment. A customer who researched products at 8am for a total price of €91 (base currency CHF) might come back at 8pm after currency exchange rates are updated (every 12 hours) and find that his total order value is now only €89. Under most conditions, this would be good news, but if the shipping that would have been free is now the equivalent of €30, the customer will not be happy. Moreover, if the customer then has to find another article to purchase at a minimum price of €10 just to qualify, they will be doubly unhappy.

 

I am not looking to have a module written for me. I am suggesting and demonstrating that there is a need for an application that handles the 4 scenarios above from many merchants in my situation.

 

I can handle the problem, I think, by converting to multi-store for zero investment, but this increases my workload going forward into the future on another front.

 

Best Regards,

Rick

[Simonas Invertus]

All merchant somehow found a way. If it would be huge problem, somebody definitely would have already solved it. 

 

Sorry, that I can not be more helpful. 

[ricklarsen_ch]

If your assumption were true, it would mean that all existing problems in the market were solved and there were no new opportunities.

 

Gladly (or sadly), this is not true.

 

Thanks for your interest though...