I know there are many topics in the forums about integrating with Stamps.com. I actually reached out to CS-Cart and Stamps.com about this and have been working with them on an integration. I actually paid money to have the integration started, but now unless CS-Cart customers feel that it is needed the development effort will be wasted.
Now they both need a little nudge. i talked with CS-Cart and they are willing to start working with Stamps.com if we all feel it is needed. They wanted me to create a UserVoice post and see how many people would vote for this integration.
Please take a look and vote for this.
[url=“http://cscart.uservoice.com/forums/40782-professional/suggestions/2847766-stamps-com-integration”]http://cscart.uservoice.com/forums/40782-professional/suggestions/2847766-stamps-com-integration[/url]
Again. The coding has already begun. I just need customers to tell CS-Cart that this is valuable and they will contact Stamps.com to discuss a business relationship.
Thanks for voting. I feel this feature would really help store keepers save time and money on processing their orders.
Adam
I don't see why cs-cart is asking you to collect user voices when is pretty obvious to any regular forum reader that it is one of the most requested features.
The user voices doesn't guarantee your request will be considered. With all the task around cs3 pro, ultimate, and custom mods, cs-cart don't have the human or time resources to develop this at the moment.
I voted and I appreciate you pushing this, but I'm just trying to be realistic, there are other addons (quickbooks, livehelp, watermark, configurator, etc ) that are not quite completed, and stamps could end in the junkyard too.
I too added a couple of votes to uservoice but I wouldn't hold your breath that they will actually follow what is on it. Not to mention I would also have to agree that they should fix other broken parts like Quickbooks before they add this.
Here's what I've done:
[list=1]
[]When an order is placed, an entry is made in a csv file
[]When the csv file is downloaded by the admin, it is copied to a sub-directory as an archive (the other csv is now empty)
[]The client uses the downloaded csv as import into stamps.com
[]When they print their labels, etc. they generate another csv that contains the order_id and tracking number
[*]This is then downloaded into cs-cart to create shipments for each order (note: currently only one shipment per order is implemented since otherwise once would have to encode the order_id to identify which items go with which tracking number).
[/list]
I then have a cron job that works with my parcel_tracking addon that goes to usps for all orders in a specific status and checks to see if they are delivered. If so, the order status is changed.
It's two operations to import the csv from cs-cart and then to import the csv from stamps.com into cs-cart.
There are other integration options available from stamps.com including an xml interface. But I did NOT want to have to deal with the actual label printing from the browser so we let them do the actual processing with their stamps.com application running on their pc.
The same method can be used with UPS Worldship or other carriers that run an application on your PC to print labels.
[quote name='tbirnseth' timestamp='1337018200' post='136398']
Here's what I've done:[list=1]
[]When an order is placed, an entry is made in a csv file
[]When the csv file is downloaded by the admin, it is copied to a sub-directory as an archive (the other csv is now empty)
[]The client uses the downloaded csv as import into stamps.com
[]When they print their labels, etc. they generate another csv that contains the order_id and tracking number
[*]This is then downloaded into cs-cart to create shipments for each order (note: currently only one shipment per order is implemented since otherwise once would have to encode the order_id to identify which items go with which tracking number).
[/list]
[/quote]
So are you using the default export of an order to get the shipping info? I also see that the tracking number is put in to a “field” called shipping. So are you doing the above with vanilla script or is it required to have your mod?
Unsure if this is helpful, but I might be using this software…
[url=“http://www.shiprush.com/”]http://www.shiprush.com/[/url]
Interfaces between Stamps.com and CS Cart … $30/mo. Works with Multi Vendor edition too. Has a standalone application that is apparently very useful in printing postage paid stamps, all info drawn directly from your CS Carts DB
Have you tried the shiprush with CS-Cart yet? It did not work as of Dec. 2011. It was also riddled with bugs on posting back to Amazon. We were able to get it to work with Ebay, but it's response time was well over 30 minutes before it would actually post the item.
[quote]
So are you using the default export of an order to get the shipping info?
[/quote]
No, not at all. I use the 'place_order' hook and capture the info to generate the required csv columns.
[quote]
So are you doing the above with vanilla script or is it required to have your mod?
[/quote]
The addon (I don't distribute mods) has all the mechanisms in it to identify when an item has been delivered. So it uses the addon's code for that functionality. Someone could do their own thing for identifying when an item is delivered.
Edit: just occurred to me you might be referencing the csv import back into the cart. This too is not within the parcel tracking addon but is a custom function that will create a shipment for an item based on the csv info in the import file.
I tried to describe generically how I do what was in question. It is not intended to be specific instructions, but more of an “if you take this approach you can get this result”.
And no, I do not have this automated functionality offered as an addon at this time. Thought I might extend the parcel tracking to do the status update. Unfortunately there's not been enough demand for the parcel_tracking addon itself to warrant my investment.
Understood.
Clips, we have had great results with Shiprush since we started with them about a month ago. We've had no problems with Amazon or ebay at all. With CS-cart, the system was changing the status to “Complete” and attaching the shipping number but no email was being sent to the customer and the customer could not initiate a return.
I posted on their forums and their customer support was super responsive. They had an update for me the next day. Now orders have all the shipping information but orders remain marked as “processed”. For returns, we turned on the ability to return while in “processed” status. We have shiprush send the e-mail with shipping information because I don't see any reason to purchase the add-on that allows for bulk status change (I hope that's on the list of upgrades for a future release).
We are extremely cautious about signing on with any new service but the $30 for Shiprush and Stamps.com has been a godsend in the time it saves us on order processing. Next up: buying a thermal printer.
Very good. It sounds like Shiprush has worked out some of the bugs, but the “completed” portion still does not function properly. I believe that was one of the problems we were having. I'm guessing they need a good run with CS before they can get it fixed properly.
Shiprush is very responsive in getting back with you and trying to fix things. They worked with us for a couple of weeks trying to work out the bugs and the support person said they needed to purchase a pro copy to get it to work properly. They were super nice.
I guess I should mention, that another big problem that we had with Shiprush was the fact that our PC had to communicate with their website and then their website would communicate with our website (or Amazon, ebay, etc). So basically, their software made you rely on their server to be able to post and you had to trust that their server was then going to communicate properly with your server and mark items as “completed” and also hope that it was able to put in the tracking number. I am just not a fan of relying on 3rd party websites any more than I have too.
So aside from the fact that it did not work then (and it sounds like it still does not work yet if it cannot mark something completed and send the email), it was a preference issue too.
You definitely have to rely on the system working. Unfortunately, the only shipping alternative I could find required buying some software (I forget the name) and going through Endicia. It seemed like a multi-click process. There just don't seem to be a lot of options with CS-cart for easy shipping functionality.
Actually, there are some options for just CS like Webgility & Atranda but the problem then is they are not really geared towards the merchant that is selling at multiple market places or websites. First they charge higher fees and then they only show maybe 4-5 sites you can link to. At that point their fees just makes them a little out of reach. I did see that Webgility is offering a month to month plan, but they still have the up front cost and again, they are geared more towards 1 domain.
In regards to CS-Cart getting software that works with CS, it really does make sense if they do this. With all of the 3rd party sites they seem to be trying to push (Twigmo, Searchanise, etc), it really makes sense that if CS-Cart became a reseller for Stamps.com or Endicia it would be a great way for them to increase their sales. My biggest fear would be if CS did not continue to keep it up to date. I can't help but feel that CS-Cart has a little A.D.D. (Attention deficit disorder) in that they create something, it breaks or doesn't function properly and they kind of get distracted and start working on something else before they get the first thing working all the way.