Evaluating Cs-Cart Multi-Vendor: Shipping, Sales Tax, Etc

Hello,

We're evaluating CS-Cart Multi-Vendor and are seeking feedback/info on a few key issues.

Use case is a US-based, small marketplace (5-30 Vendors) selling physical product. We have some questions and some "wants".

Anyone with experience implementing the following?

  • -How is Sales Tax handled? Most vendor will have nexus in single state, but some may have nexus in multiple states (USA). Does this require integration with 3rd party apps? How is accounting typically handled within the platform? Is is possible to have trade buyers not pay sales tax?
  • -Shipping. We need the ability to have the following shipping options: parcel common carrier (a box sent via USPS, FedEx, UPS, etc.), no shipping (customer pick-up), domestic freight (large item delivered by truck), seller fulfilled (no shipping handled by platform; seller handles it).
  • -Make an Offer - in addition to price displayed on site, a button that allows customer to enter a price and trigger an on-platform message communication between Customer and Vendor, with ability for Vendor and Customer to counter price, accept, etc.
  • Categories or Classes of users. For example Consumer and Wholesale (Wholesale is tax exempt, etc)
  • -Display sold items with ability to suppress sold price for transactions involving Wholesale customers.

I'm assuming that some of these are only possible with custom development. Any sense of how heavy a lift these would be on the CS-Cart platform?

Thanks!

Hello.
All these possibilities are in MV. Maybe not that you will have to slightly modify (but it requires that you describe it thoroughly)
As for tax matters in the US, you need to consult a tax advisor. In MV, you can flexibly manage tax rates.
Best regards
Robert.

In MV, you can flexibly manage tax rates.

How precisely can a vendor manage tax rates?

If they are from different states and have different rates, there is no way to use the CS-Cart Taxes as these are available only to site admin, not to vendors.

an EZ addon has to be purchased for US-based vendors. Unfortunately, there is no addon for EU-based vendors. Nothing. One tax for all EU-countries - which is ridiculous.

The same with shippings. Vendors can set their own shipping methods, but there is no way for them to set their own locations, which is the CS-Cart slang for Destinations. Being in different states and even in different coutries, vendors need to set different Destinations. This, however, cannot be done in CS-Cart MV. Even in the overpriced MV Plus.

@imac has no answer to this issue

How precisely can a vendor manage tax rates?

If they are from different states and have different rates, there is no way to use the CS-Cart Taxes as these are available only to site admin, not to vendors.

an EZ addon has to be purchased for US-based vendors. Unfortunately, there is no addon for EU-based vendors. Nothing. One tax for all EU-countries - which is ridiculous.

The same with shippings. Vendors can set their own shipping methods, but there is no way for them to set their own locations, which is the CS-Cart slang for Destinations. Being in different states and even in different coutries, vendors need to set different Destinations. This, however, cannot be done in CS-Cart MV. Even in the overpriced MV Plus.

@imac has no answer to this issue

Hi Imago, thank you for your reply. I'm confused by location/destination. Wouldn't the buyer enter a shipping destination, not the vendor? Or do you mean that there is a filtered list of possible destinations that orders could be shipped to, and the vendors can't say "yes" or "no" to a given location?

Hi Imago, thank you for your reply. I'm confused by location/destination. Wouldn't the buyer enter a shipping destination, not the vendor? Or do you mean that there is a filtered list of possible destinations that orders could be shipped to, and the vendors can't say "yes" or "no" to a given location?

1. If there is an integration with Fedex or USPS, then it's OK. But for countries where these two or DHL are 3 times more expensive than the local post service, an integration has to be developed at extra cost for any such service. If you got vendors from 20 such "not integrated" countries, either they, or you have to order this integration - and it may cost thousands of dollars each.

2. If 1. is not present, yes, the vendor should be able to set their own destinations with tiered rates, say, Local, National, Continental, Worldwide. For each country and, certainly, vendor's location, these destinations are different. So they have to be entered (created) by the vendors themselves. But they are not allowed to do so. Only site admin can set these Destinations. And he is not God to foresee the location and country of any potential vendor. Suppose, there are 30 vendors from 30 different countries with 4 different Destinations each. These are 120 Destinations that have to be set up by the admin, vendors could choose from. Of course, this is madness...

The easiest solution is to allow vendors to create their own destinations and rates. But the CS-Cart "architects" stubbornly refuse to do so.

Now extrapolate the same issue into the Taxes domain... For vendors from 27 countries with different tax legislation...

[list]

  • -How is Sales Tax handled? Most vendor will have nexus in single state, but some may have nexus in multiple states (USA). Does this require integration with 3rd party apps? How is accounting typically handled within the platform? Is is possible to have trade buyers not pay sales tax?






  • [/list]

Suggest you use TaxJar for the most robust implementation. Our cs-cart addon for TaxJar is tuned primarily for the US/Canadian market. You can find it at https://ez-ms.com/ez-taxjar.html
Otherwise the Merchant will have to setup all the various taxing jurisdictions for each vendor's NEXUS. And cs-cart won't handle exceptions (I.e. Garmets under $110 in New York are not taxed, but those above are).

[list]

  • -Shipping. We need the ability to have the following shipping options: parcel common carrier (a box sent via USPS, FedEx, UPS, etc.), no shipping (customer pick-up), domestic freight (large item delivered by truck), seller fulfilled (no shipping handled by platform; seller handles it).






  • [/list]

You can setup shipping methods in "all stores" and each vendor can elect to utilize those methods or not. The cart will take care of origin/destination relative to a vendor. Otherwise each vendor would need to setup their own methods. But do note that if you're not using realtime quotes, you will have to manage all the "locations" relative to customer destinations. Note that TaxJar will handle whether shipping is taxed or not. Otherwise you'll have to manage that individually by tax location too.

[list]

  • -Make an Offer - in addition to price displayed on site, a button that allows customer to enter a price and trigger an on-platform message communication between Customer and Vendor, with ability for Vendor and Customer to counter price, accept, etc.





  • [/list]

This would be custom development. Depending on your needs, this cculd be simple or more complex. We can do the development for you if you can provide the requirements. I.e. things like does a customer submit an order based on their offer and the vendor decides whether to accept it or not? Or do you do some sort of pre-order offer/acceptance? Or you could have a payment method of "make an offer" to place an order without a real payment method and then have the customer complete the order payment once the vendor approves. There are lots of possibilities. You could also have vendors setup a "lowest acceptable price" and if the "offer" is at or above that, the order will proceed; otherwise the offer wold be rejected.

[list]

  • Categories or Classes of users. For example Consumer and Wholesale (Wholesale is tax exempt, etc)



  • [/list]
  • [/list]

This is standard cs-cart based on 'usergroups'. However, one vendor's "wholesale" requirements may be different than another's. Again, based on your needs, it could be standard or require some addon modifications. You might find yourself managing many wholesale groups based on your vendor's requirements.

[list]

  • -Display sold items with ability to suppress sold price for transactions involving Wholesale customers.






  • [/list]

Not sure of the business purpose for this one.... More info would be required to provide you proper consulting on that issue.

I'm assuming that some of these are only possible with custom development. Any sense of how heavy a lift these would be on the CS-Cart platform?

Thanks!

We're happy to provide you fixed bid quotes where applicable for any of your needs above. Just click the get-a-quote link in my signature and we'll work with you to meet your needs.

The easiest solution is to allow vendors to create their own destinations and rates. But the CS-Cart "architects" stubbornly refuse to do so.

Now extrapolate the same issue into the Taxes domain... For vendors from 27 countries with different tax legislation...


Vendor origin is established by the origin of the company (As the Company info describes it). If a vendor has multiple origins (like multiple warehouses or even drop-shippers) you can use the Suppliers option to establish different origins. But note my comments above about Taxes. Our Taxjar implementation will handle Suppliers so tax rates would be based on the true origin/destination.

Note also that Taxjar handles other countries too. It's just that US/Canada is more complex than other countries who use a simple VAT. In the US, you can have sales tax at the state, county, city and regional area based specifically on a street address and zip code which can be affected by origin/destination or NEXUS.. There are different rules related to VAT when you cross country borders. Given the variability, using a service like taxjar is a huge load off a merchant's plate. If you want a 30 day free trial of TaxJar, you can get one here.

Vendor origin is established by the origin of the company (As the Company info describes it).

Note also that Taxjar handles other countries too.

Have you ever tried the individual Vendor Checkout with the MV Plus? The Locations and Taxes logic is quite different for it. There are multiple vendor-operators of taxes across the marketplace with different locations and local/national taxes. I doubt TaxJar will handle cases where vendor is from Venezuela and buyer from Nepal. Even if it does, which it certainly does not, the pricing tag for this would be be at least $300 per month. TaxJar is only for those vendors who have branches and customers in US, so it is not panacea for the CS-Cart tax issues. Mind also that for each vendor with separate Checkout I have to open separate TaxJar gateway... Is your addon ready for this scenario?

Of course, if I invest another $10,000 I will have everything fixed.

No, I've never requested (and would not expect) a developer version of the MV Plus addon from Simtech to test/evaluate with.

Not sure I agree with your Venezuela/Nepal statement. I've tested between various European countries and Canada -> Europe too as well as US -> Mexico. I have not verified whether Venezuela and Nepal are supported countries. There is a list of countries on the Taxjar.com site that are supported.

If a vendor has a TaxJar account and api key, it will use their account to establish NEXUS. If not, NEXUS depends on the setting of the "Seller of Record" setting in the addon. It behaves differently depending on whether Merchant or Vendor is selected. It also depends on the setting of the "prefered tax determination" setting in the addon.(origin/destination or NEXUS).

Most vendors will NOT have a taxjar apikey so the behavior in that case (if Vendor is the Seller of Record) is to use origin/destination unless the Seller of Record is Merchant and tax determination is set to NEXUS, then the Merchant's NEXUS will be used to determine taxes. No merchant NEXUS, no tax in that case.