USPS Priority Mail

Store Builder Feedback
1

well, this might have been requested before, but i dont know. Currently, the only USPS Priority Mail options I see in CS-Cart is either Priority Flat-Rate Envelope, or Priority Flate-Rate Box. But what about USPS Priority Mail? The non flat rate. To my store, that is a must. CS-Cart to me, is the best shopping cart software, with all Pros, the only con is that USPS Priority Mail

2

Can this not be set up for real time shipping rates and just set basic dimensions for USPS in admin area for the priority package?



Then once the cart is loaded the API will calculate charges based on weight?



That is usual set up scenario, but I have yet to see this cart in action.

3

it says USPS Priority Mail there, but you also have to choose between Flat Rate Envelope, or Flat Rate Box. And during checkout, it says USPS Priority Mail, but no matter what the weight is. I could have it set at 50 lbs, or 2 lbs, the price will still stay the same.

4

hmm, have you set up a realtime shipping API account?



You must do that in order to get real time rates if that is what you are after.



Now if you are after flat rate, your right, that is all you ill see umless there are totally different setting set for that shipper.



I am not hip to all the set up yet, as I have not installed my cart yet. Trying to read the manual and the forum to get on top of issues up front, then will install it and look around.



To get real time shipping though, you must set up carrier with basic standard shipping envelope or box. Once this is done, then if you have your account set up and are plugged into the API, it will then pull rates based on standard dimensions and the different weights that are loded into the cart.



Now each product will need to have a weight assigned to it, then when end user adds products tot he cart, the weight increases and the total for shipping will increase as box size increases or weight increases. Once hooked up to it (API) you will see a trend for weight versus rates provided.





There isa test server and realtime server. Yuo will be assigned a test server initially until intigration is complete, then when it all works, you call them and get switched over tothe real time server.



I noticed that FedEx has a new API available now adn last cart i had, only UPS and USPS was live not FedEx. I can get better rates now that FedEx has an API, as it will be automatically reduced according to my account log in when looking at shipping rates.





Anyway, that is the just of things, sounds like you may not have had much contact to shipping carriers etc. There is quite a laundy list to get totally set up for realtime shipping.



Look into those issues and see what may or may not be going on for you.

5

thanks for the advice, but my real time shipping is setup, with both UPS and USPS. Its just apperantly, CS-Cart isnt supporting USPS Priority Mail. CS-Cart has it set to use Flat-Rate.

6

WOW, I thought it was set up for realtime and packages.



We are not all letter cariers here, lol.



This will need to be fixed if that is the case then.

7

Chicago,



There should be an option for Container (Priority Mail) to set at “None”. This would probably take care of the problem… you may want to open a ticket with the support team. This realtime shipping is kind of a pain in the *SS though. I’m seriously thinking about just going to a flat rate shipping system. Has anyone had any success with it… besides Disney!? :stuck_out_tongue:

8

I have great success with flat rate shipping, its not rocket science folks and I have no idea why people waste so much time with real time shippping, CS is perfect for flat rate shipping, no frills, no problems.

9

I use real-time shipping ‘caus I have such a large gambit of goods sold. The weight is all over the place, so sometimes I can get better deals if I go real-time shipping rates, then also offer free shipping of over certain amount spent on orders.



If I was limited to one product or a few known products and could do a flat rate, I would do so.



I was also glad to see the real-time FedEx too. I just hope this entire shipping works out ok, I lust uploaded the files and began to take a look at the shipping after I replied to this as it was driving me nuts. Should be fairly easy to set up, and then if the cost is slightly off, the ability to tack on an additional cost could be an a small percentage to be able to pass on and match the web site when checked.

10

thanks for all of your efforts to help me. Disney, I checked, and there is no option for None. I have filed a ticket, but so far, they have not understood my question. I will try to explain it to them again. Disney, the only options i see is Flate Rate Box, and Flate Rate Enevelope, and this is under Conatiner (Priority Mail). Did you mod yours?

11

Chicago,



I opened a ticket with the CS-Cart team as well. This is something they will have to add as part of the standard code and it will work. They also need to pass a similar value for Container (Express Mail). I’ll keep you posted with progress.

12

thanks a lot!

13

I am still working with the CS-Cart team on this one. There were some minor bugs with how various USPS rates (First-Class, Media, etc.) were being displayed. All have been corrected and will work properly in 1.3.3. There still is a problem with USPS Priority Mail since you as a seller can currently only select one type of Flat Rate packaging (Container). USPS Priority Envelope is $4.05 and USPS Priority Box is $8.10 and there are two different sized boxes (11" x 8.5" x 5.5" and 13.625" x 11.875" x 3.375). The problem is that there are many other shipping senarios that utilize USPS Priority that do not fall into the current available options. At one time, you could pass “None” as the Container variable, but I am being told by CS-Cart that USPS does not recommend this as they are phasing the “RateRequest” method.



The way to correct this is to also offer another Container variable that is used for packages that are too large for a Flat Rate envelope that weigh over 1 pound. Otherwise, $4.05 or $8.10 will always display regardless of the weight (up to the maximum of 70 lbs). I’m beginning to think this is a USPS API problem, but it still needs to be addressed by carts that are trying to correctly perform real-time shipping quotes.



On a separate note, there was another bug that would not allow Real-time shipping if a US customer used Zip+4 (12345-1234) when registering and placing orders. CS-Cart knows about this and will either prompt the user to enter only a 5 digit zipcode or ignore any digits beyond 5. In addition, the same will apply for Canadian customers as there is a special US to Canada UPS rate which requires the zip to be 3 digits, space, 3 digits (XXX XXX). This will be added to the 1.3.3 release.

14

Here is a temporary fix for the USPS Priority Mail problem. Basically, just remove $container_priority from the field in the /shippings/usps.php file




PRIORITY
$origination_postal
$destination_postal
$pounds
$ounces
$container_priority
$package_size

15

[quote name=‘disneyana’]Here is a temporary fix for the USPS Priority Mail problem. Basically, just remove $container_priority from the field in the /shippings/usps.php file




PRIORITY
$origination_postal
$destination_postal
$pounds
$ounces
$container_priority
$package_size
[/QUOTE]





What needs to be done to permanently correct this problem is fairly simple, and it is my hope that is will be corrected for version 1.3.3. Basically, there are the 3 options for priority shipping as previously discussed. There is the “flat rate envelope”, “flate rate box”, and priority mail service using your own packaging. The problem, as already discussed is that CS-Cart only allows you to select two of the three options in the admin area. What needs to be done, is to have a third option added to the drop-down box in the admin area that will add a “Your Packaging” selection (or something similarly worded). Then when that option is selected an empty string value must be sent as the value of the $container_priority variable. This will in effect cause the container value to be sent like this when the “Your Packaging” option is selected:






This will resolve the issue by allowing any of the three options to be used via the admin area without having to touch the code. In the meantime, as Disneyana said, you can just change the line with the tags so that the tags are empty.

16

Thank you all very much. It seems to be working smoothly. Again, thanks alot for all your help.