Our ShipOnline module is close to its final beta release. Before we release this module, we want to offer this opportunity to gather your feedback. You can test out UPS & Fedex functionality, and soon USPS (via Stamps.com).
We have setup a demonstration site with CS-Cart Professional 3.01:
To generate a shipment label and/or get rates, click on an order with 'open' status. Inside this order, you will find a 'New Shipment' button where you can generate labels and rates.
To view existing shipments, hover over the Orders menu and select 'Shipments'. There may or may not be shipments in this list, depending on who used the site last and whether the DB was reset.
Heads up:
If you can't generate a shipment, you may need to delete prior ones created by other test users. To do this, click on Orders → Shipments, select all and delete.
Note: the database automatically resets itself every 30 minutes. There's a slim chance your shipment might disappear if you're testing this around the 0 or 30 minute mark of the hour.
Is there any way to do bulk shipments or more than one order at a time? It is too time consuming for us to ship each order individually. Much easier to export address as a csv and import into paypal multiorder shipping or fedex shipping manager. What about options for insurance and signature requirements?
Is there any way to do bulk shipments or more than one order at a time? It is too time consuming for us to ship each order individually. Much easier to export address as a csv and import into paypal multiorder shipping or fedex shipping manager. What about options for insurance and signature requirements?
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Bulk shipments is a possibility. We would first need to map shipping method(s) at checkout with the carrier services in the ShipOnline module. We haven't created a ShipOnline checkout module yet, but this would be the next step in order to facilitate bulk processing.
As for signature and insurance, these will be implemented before our final beta.
Very nice. I am looking forward to this getting done.
Any idea when USPS will be up to be tested?
Here are our suggestions…
On the weight, I would agree that it should pull in information from the products, but it still should allow you to edit the actual shipping weight. ---- Looks like this is planned.
Size should be able to be chosen in default settings and again, if you need to alter you can.
Is there to be able to “purge all labels (or images)” without voiding the transaction. We learned fast with the mod from shippingkit that if there was not a way to purge labels from a previous week or time then it really clogged up the server with junk we didn't need.
If you “delete” a shipment does this mean that it voided the label too? I know it takes the label away, but I am unclear if it is voiding the whole transaction. It will be interesting to see how this works with USPS as it tends to be a little different.
I don't see a way to choose “Delivery confirmation” or “Signature Required”. This should be on each shipment and may vary. ---- Looks like this is planned.
I don't see a way to change the “Package type” on each shipment.
Where is the “Declared value” put in at? If it pulls the information from the order total this will be inaccurate on international customers and they will be unhappy as they will have to pay higher duty fees. There should be a master setting to pull in the order total or actual product total by default. I guess this may be there but we can't see it.
8 ) What rates are pulled in on the UPS and Fedex? Does it pull in our “negotiated” rates in the back admin?
On Fedex I believe you will need to put in an actual time and you have to choose whether it is a “residence” or not. Your system does not show that.
Where are the various “shipping methods” chosen? For example, if it is a UPS package how does it know to show Ground, Next Day Air, etc. Do we get to choose which methods we ship? What I mean is, sometimes we ship via methods not shown on the front end of the shopping cart, so we would need to choose different shipping methods on the back end.
BTW, I forgot to mention that when I first “ship” an order and the label is created it ends up being really large and I cannot seem to print it. I have to close the window and then hit “view shipment” to be able to print it. I am using Firefox 13.0.1
Very nice. I am looking forward to this getting done.
Any idea when USPS will be up to be tested?
Here are our suggestions…
On the weight, I would agree that it should pull in information from the products, but it still should allow you to edit the actual shipping weight. ---- Looks like this is planned.
Size should be able to be chosen in default settings and again, if you need to alter you can.
Is there to be able to “purge all labels (or images)” without voiding the transaction. We learned fast with the mod from shippingkit that if there was not a way to purge labels from a previous week or time then it really clogged up the server with junk we didn't need.
If you “delete” a shipment does this mean that it voided the label too? I know it takes the label away, but I am unclear if it is voiding the whole transaction. It will be interesting to see how this works with USPS as it tends to be a little different.
I don't see a way to choose “Delivery confirmation” or “Signature Required”. This should be on each shipment and may vary. ---- Looks like this is planned.
I don't see a way to change the “Package type” on each shipment.
Where is the “Declared value” put in at? If it pulls the information from the order total this will be inaccurate on international customers and they will be unhappy as they will have to pay higher duty fees. There should be a master setting to pull in the order total or actual product total by default. I guess this may be there but we can't see it.
8 ) What rates are pulled in on the UPS and Fedex? Does it pull in our “negotiated” rates in the back admin?
On Fedex I believe you will need to put in an actual time and you have to choose whether it is a “residence” or not. Your system does not show that.
Where are the various “shipping methods” chosen? For example, if it is a UPS package how does it know to show Ground, Next Day Air, etc. Do we get to choose which methods we ship? What I mean is, sometimes we ship via methods not shown on the front end of the shopping cart, so we would need to choose different shipping methods on the back end.
I believe that is all I have for now.
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clips: thanks very much for the feedback. You've given a lot of time and effort towards this, which I appreciate tremendously. Now, I'll reciprocate and by answering each question/concern as best as I can.
USPS is high on the priority list. I can't give a definite date right now but I don't imagine more than a month for beta. To give some background, we are three developers. I myself am coding this module and leading the overall project, while my colleagues are integrating carriers and perfecting the web service. It's a huge undertaking to do this kind of thing properly - infrastructure and all. I'm hoping the community can be patient as we ramp up. We have big ambitions with this and plan to see it through to perfection.
Indeed, we can default the weight and package dimensions to the individual product settings or a preset configuration in the add-on. Very easy to do. We will add a checkbox in the add-on settings to enable/disable this for those who do/dont want to use it. We can also offer a default preset if some stores ship using the same box dimensions all the time. We will try to make this as configurable as possible to accomodate everyone.
By size, do you mean preset packaging? If so, we are most likely going to allow the user to create a set of standard box sizes, as well as being able to choose any of the preset boxes/envelopes offered by the shipping carriers. Of course, the dimensions are always editable so you have full control over this at every stage.
We can always create an option for this in the add-on. We can set it for example so that labels > 1 week old are cleared from the DB automagically or manually.
At the moment, a deleted shipment does not void itself with the actual carrier. We could perhaps setup a pop-up alert asking the customer if they wish to void the shipment prior to it being deleted from the system.
Indeed, delivery confirmation, signature required and residential indicators will be added to the shipment screen.
Packaging type is next on our list and goes in conjunction with my answer to question #2. We first rushed this for in-house use where we use boxes for everything. Now we're adding the extra functionality for the masses.
We can use the product total, but leave the textbox editable so that you can adjust this value. I may need to speak with you in more detail about this as we haven't really tested much of the international services thoroughly.
Yes, negotiated rates will be the default. As long as the carrier supports this, which I know Fedex and UPS does for certain.
Like I said in #5, the residential indicator/checkbox will be added. As for scheduled delivery times, I will investigate this.
You will be able to enable/disable the shipping services you wish to use for each carrier within your account profile on the ShipOnline portal. You will also be able to rename each service to a custom label, if you desire. The thinking behind this is for when we develop our real-time checkout module. Some may want to rename “2 day express saver” with something else such as “expedited” or whatever they want. To respond to the second part of your question, even if your client choses one method and you decide to use another, that's totally fine.
Tried to do a shipment via Fedex. Selected Ground and it keeps giving pricing for 2 day. It also logs me out when I am trying to view the label that I created (there were no other shipments before I tried).
Is there going to be a way to run end of day with manifest?
I know that with UPS you will not need the end of day manifest because it will use the online system. It puts a little bow tie present imprint so your driver knows they do not need the manifest. It has been so long since we've used the manifest print out and we love it. One less thing to worry about. On Fedex we didn't need a manifest either.
I know that with UPS you will not need the end of day manifest because it will use the online system. It puts a little bow tie present imprint so your driver knows they do not need the manifest. It has been so long since we've used the manifest print out and we love it. One less thing to worry about. On Fedex we didn't need a manifest either.
[/quote]Thanks for the info. It has been indoctrinated in me for such a long time to provide the manifest. When we use to ship via UPS we would do between 45 and 60 packages a day. The drive would scan and sign the manifest, I assumed so he would not have to scan the packages (I never thought to ask if he needed to scan the manifest). Now we use fedex and the driver scans everyone of our packages (we have only been using this location for a few months, maybe when he gets to know us he won't scan all the packages) and signs the end of day report, he said he doesn't need it but we still have him sign it. Sometimes I get a little freaked until we get the shipping confirmation if we didn't run end of day.
Tried to do a shipment via Fedex. Selected Ground and it keeps giving pricing for 2 day. It also logs me out when I am trying to view the label that I created (there were no other shipments before I tried).
Is there going to be a way to run end of day with manifest?
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What browser are you using? I had logout/redirect issues with IE but I thought I had fixed these. Could you pm me screenshots?
[quote]Thermal printing is the default and we are using this right now in-house with our Zebra printers.[/quote]
Thanks Jacques,
I will check it out closer when I have a chance.
I have always preferred to process shipments from our internal order management program vs. directly through our shopping cart, however, it looks as if your program is worth taking a closer look.
I just tested printing on to a Zebra thermal printer and it worked fine. I did have to adjust the settings some to get it to print the correct size, but it worked. I only tried UPS and Fedex so I'm not for sure if USPS would be the same or not.
On a similar note, the old USPS addon we had from Shippingkit was never able to print on our thermal printer. We were able to print Fedex and UPS with the shippingkit addon, but not USPS. Again, with this addon from ShipOnline.biz it DID print just fine on our printer.
I did notice that when I went to close the shipping window I was kicked out of the system too. That did not happen yesterday, but it is today.
When we first started shipping with the online system or Quickbooks I remember getting worried that packages would be messed up unless they did the end of day thing, now I don't even think about it. Our first real experience with no “end of day report” was when we first started using shippingkit.
What browser are you using? I had logout/redirect issues with IE but I thought I had fixed these. Could you pm me screenshots?
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Works fine in IE, FIrefox, chrome, Safari is where the logout issue occurs. The shipping is changing to 2 day if I try to get rates with all the browsers. If I don't try to get rates it leaves it at ground service. I could send you a screenshot of the logout but it is just the login screen.
Tried your shipping module demo today it looks nice. Just wondering if you were going to add a shipping note section on the label, for example. “Leave package on back porch if no one home”.
Also tried to use the Bulk Print function, but received a new blank popup window trying to log back into the site the url was http://demo.shiponline.biz/cs-cart/login.php even though i was still logged in. I'm using Firefox version 13.01.
I now this option might be a long shot but maybe adding a feature that would tie into FedEx system and give you estimated delivery for Ground Shipping. Displaying it similar to how you currently display price rates.
Works fine in IE, FIrefox, chrome, Safari is where the logout issue occurs. The shipping is changing to 2 day if I try to get rates with all the browsers. If I don't try to get rates it leaves it at ground service. I could send you a screenshot of the logout but it is just the login screen.
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Thanks for checking into that cross-browser issue for me. I'll be fixing the issues with Safari later in the day.
btw - You're going about fetching rates the wrong way. Sorry, maybe it's bad design on my part.
When you're getting rates, don't select any shipping methods. Select a carrier (but no method), enter a weight and then click 'get rates'. From there you'll see all the services will refresh with each of their respective rates.