Hi Everybody,
This is my first post! Greetings all.
I am more of a entrepreneur than a web designer and I'm sure there are others at my amateur level.
I am loving the potential I can see in CS Cart, however I found a few things more complicated than I expected.
The shipping was quite complicated to set up, however I have some useful advice to people new to setting up shipping.
This was hard and took ages of twiddling but worth finding out how to do and you don't need to edit code.
Nowhere online could I find an example suitable for a 'noob' on how to configure your shipping.
Assuming you want to set up domestic & international custom Shipping Method settings.
My Domestic Prices: I created 3 shipping methods
Letter size 0-.99 kg (sending tshirts (0.2 kg), small items as large letter)
Small packet 1-3.99 kg (sending pack of items in package - slightly more expensive)
Carriage Boxes 4kg-64 kg (For example sending 80 Tshirts (16 kg) but charging for two boxes if ordered with Hoodies & it goes over 16kg - two boxes )
I then wanted to have similar appropriate settings for International - Keeping it simple I've added Ireland rather than Worldwide[list]
[]Set default localization & location to UK (you can edit the default worldwide to your country)
[]Add Ireland in Localization and in Locations
[]Add the correct county/province for UK Locations (Ireland has no postcodes)
[]Disable every country except Ireland and UK in 'Countries' (this makes your checkout shipping checker hide countries you don't send to)
[/list]
Adding Localization makes your site content in between header and footer dissapear.
I then went globally into categories, banners and products and edited the localization to each individual piece of content as I researched to do so. (This worked)
For new users to make global edits to multiple products/categories at once:
- Go to products or categories in your admin panel. (you have to do it individually to front page banners in website > banners)
- Check tick the products you require for the delivery method
- At the bottom left of the screen next to save, click edit selected
- scroll down and uncheck all (all product/category options will be ticked to edit)
- check localize hit edit. (also tick weight as you need to set tshirt to 0.2 kg)
- Each category or product requires you to have localization for UK set to active and you must also click over each instance of UK until it's highlighted (mines in grey)…click save.
- You need to do this 'click highlight until grey' in > Shipping Methods > General > Localization > UK too.
- Now you have the weight of each product set
-Your set up in UK & Ireland in your Locations and Localization
-You have each product and category set up with localization and your site looks as it did before you did the localization process
- Go to your shop
- Add a product with a set weight & localization to your cart and click on Calculate Shipping
In calculate shipping a bubble box will pop up with the following info:
Country : (Checkbox > UK/Ireland)
State/Province: (County Checkbox for UK, Blank for Ireland)
Postcode: (Blank)
Clicking
UK > Oxfordshire > OX254SX
will result in:
[color=#ff0000]Sorry, it seems that we have no shipping options available for your location.
Please check your shipping address and contact us if everything is okay. We'll see what we can do about it.[/color]
This happens if it's left blank or filled with anything.
To fix this you need to go Locations > Required Location (UK)
- Click Edit at the right hand side
- Scroll to Zip/Post codes
It states unhelpfully:
You are able to use wildcards in this field:
'?' - any single character; '*' - any number of characters.
Example:
98?78 (corresponds to 98878, 98378, 98978, etc)
12* (corresponds to 12345, 12876, 12098, etc…)
for UK Postcodes enter
??? (This allows OX254SX to be entered for shipping)
??? ??? (This allows OX2 54SX to be entered for shipping)
??? ??? (This allows OX25 4SX to be entered for shipping)
If you have configured your shipping methods > location > localization > product/categories correctly custom shipping should be now useable.
Not the most intuitive for beginners.
Hope this helps and perhaps someone can help me out when I meet my next problem.
I'm knackered after staying up all night to learn that one,
Night!