Priority Mail International shows free!

Mohamed Thelji wrote: @gpraceman :
You shouldn't edit the code that I gave and un-comment some section, if you want to, I can directly test it and find the issue that you are having on your website with it, but your shouldn't have any issue with the last USPS shipping version (not edited).

I merely did that as a test and this was done on our test site, not in production. Regardless, it is my site and I should be able to do with it as I like in order to troubleshoot a problem. With or without those two lines of code commented out, other Priority Mail International rates are affected by this issue. Your latest plugin version didn't fix this issue.

Mohamed Thelji wrote: Yes as I said we temporary removed the "Priority Mail International (International)" service.

As my testing has showed, the problem is not isolated to "Priority Mail International (International)". Other Priority Mail International rates are sometimes returning a zero rate and at other times are returning a reasonable rate.

Unfortunately, my experience with USPS and their API, in another shopping cart, has been that USPS will too often make a change that will break things, so it may be beneficial to have your plugin throw up an error message if a zero rate is returned and not present that free shipping option(s) to the customer. Shop owners don't want to swallow the cost for expensive shipping options, but they do want to be made aware of a problem.

Awesome! Thank you very much for going the extra step to get this back. Will you be posting here when the issue is resolved?

Thank you!

Hello,

other Priority Mail International rates are affected by this issue. Your latest plugin version didn't fix this issue.

Yes, I just added a fix about it, thanks for your feedback .

Unfortunately, my experience with USPS and their API, in another shopping cart, has been that USPS will too often make a change that will break things, so it may be beneficial to have your plugin throw up an error message if a zero rate is returned and not present that free shipping option(s) to the customer. Shop owners don't want to swallow the cost for expensive shipping options, but they do want to be made aware of a problem.

I'll keep that in mind and make sure to improve the USPS shipping plugin code.

Will you be posting here when the issue is resolved?

Yess ! Thanks to the USPS fast reply regarding the issue that we were having with the "Priority Mail International (International)" service for Canadian shipping addresses, I managed to fix that issue and get the "Priority Mail International (International)" service back.

Here is the last USPS shipping version, and if you see any issue about that version, feel free to ask me :



Also, don't forget to enable the "Priority Mail International (International)" service again through your USPS shipping configuration page.

Thank you for getting this fixed Mohamed! I'll download it & try it later tonight when I get home from work.

I do have to agree though that having an error message rather than letting the order go through would be great. The order that caused me to post cost me $35 to ship out of my own pocket. When you were logged in to my site, you forgot to deactivate the priority mail international shipping option when you logged out after testing (it was deactivated when your logged in)...and another order was created costing me an additional $45...so I'm out $80 because of this which sucked up all my profits thus far this month...so an error message would have stopped both of those.

The latest plugin looks to have fixed the issue. Thanks!

Now, if this issue can be resolved, all of my shipping issues would be cleared.

Mohamed,

Package installed & tested for both International & Domestic...IT WORKS!

Thank you very much!!!

Mohamed,

Is there possibly anything you see in the coding that would cause some International shipping to be quoted at a lower price than actual shipping? I'm shipping a package to Great Britain and actual shipping was $14.40, but my site only charged $13.70. This happened once before to on a package going to Canada, the difference there also cost me, but if I recall it was only about $0.50 or something.

Other package that ship International are ok, but it seems like every other one is coming up short costing me some money.

Thanks

Hello,
It's probably coming from the fact that the USPS shipping method automatically calculate and group the maximum number of products into packages to optimize the delivery.

Although I'm not a programmer, toying around on USPS' site versus known weights for the items I'm shipping...my site comes out less every so often...almost half of what I tested was less charged for shipping versus actual cost being higher.

Dragon41673 wrote: Although I'm not a programmer, toying around on USPS' site versus known weights for the items I'm shipping...my site comes out less every so often...almost half of what I tested was less charged for shipping versus actual cost being higher.

If you are not adding in a handling charge, you should. That will help for those instances when the actual shipping is a bit higher than expected. In my experience, quoted rates can often be a bit off. That is especially true when you are shipping multiple items. You really don't know what the rate will be until you have it all packaged up and weighed. So, I treat the rates as "estimated" and even have my site label the shipping total to the customer as estimated. If the actual rate is less than what the website charged, we will make a downward adjustment to the order before doing the credit card debit. For the few occasions where it is a bit more, then we just have less of the handling charge that we can keep.

I had thought about that, but, that's what differentiates my site from others that carry the same items I do...no handling fee!

Hopefully it's an adjustment that can be changed.

Dragon41673 wrote: I had thought about that, but, that's what differentiates my site from others that carry the same items I do...no handling fee!

I think you are shooting yourself in the foot there. The handling fee should at least cover the costs of your shipping boxes, packing materials, tape, labels, etc.

Do these anomalies occur when you are shipping multiple items? Do you have correct weights and dimensions defined for each of your products? Do you add a "Weight approximation" in the shipping plugin to account for the weight of packaging?

I know a "handling fee" would cover stuff like boxes...but there's a reason I don't do it, I need to set myself apart from others. All weights are correct, and all dimensions are correct. I checked those first off.

Error's occur with usually 3 or more items. Oddly enough, sometimes, a lot of items, causes a major overcharge that I have to refund. I had a package with about 12 items go out, which cost me $13 to ship...but the program charged the customer almost $35. He contacted me, and that's when I started watching the shipping charges and noticed the errors.

Dragon41673 wrote: I know a "handling fee" would cover stuff like boxes...but there's a reason I don't do it, I need to set myself apart from others. All weights are correct, and all dimensions are correct. I checked those first off.

Is it really going to drive people to your site by not having a few dollar handling charge to cover reasonable shipping expenses? I have my doubts. I think that you'd drive more people to your site by having better product prices, offerings and customer service than your competitors. Checking your site, I don't see where you tout that you don't have a handling charge. So, how are your customers really going to know until they actually try to a place an order with you, if even then?

Dragon41673 wrote: Error's occur with usually 3 or more items. Oddly enough, sometimes, a lot of items, causes a major overcharge that I have to refund. I had a package with about 12 items go out, which cost me $13 to ship...but the program charged the customer almost $35. He contacted me, and that's when I started watching the shipping charges and noticed the errors.

That's exactly why our site states that shipping charges are estimated. We also have a link to our shipping page that gives more detail on shipping charges.

On shipping rates, due to the complexity of trying to estimate shipping weight and box size when ordering multiple items, the shipping charges displayed during checkout are estimated. The actual shipping charge will be based on the shipping weight of the total order, plus a reasonable handling charge. If there is any cost adjustment to be made, it will only be downward. If you paid by credit card, any adjustment will be applied before the card is debited.

Our handling charge covers shipping boxes, packing materials, shipping labels, receipts, and a small amount for the labor to pack and ship a package.

Also, you debit the credit card before you ship the order? You might want to consider doing only a credit card authorization when the order is placed and then do the debit once you ship. Then it is easy to make an adjustment to the order total if shipping ends up being less without having to do a refund.

I have many ways that I've let people know I don't charge handling, plus word of mouth from satisfied customers. As carriers of the products I sell, majority of them have restrictions on lowest possible price allowed to sell, so we are all the same price, hence why I won't charge a handling fee...it's just a few bucks less than others. Plus, others charge higher shipping fees than I do...which is another reason I want to make sure my site gets it right. The overcharges drive me nuts more than the undercharges.

In my line of products, people don't like estimates for total prices shipped. Due to that, I don't do them, nor would I EVER hit a customer up for more money if my site under charges them...it's bad for business.

I only use PayPal for payments, I do not process credit cards myself...too much liability in that.

Dragon41673 wrote: In my line of products, people don't like estimates for total prices shipped. Due to that, I don't do them, nor would I EVER hit a customer up for more money if my site under charges them...it's bad for business.

I agree about not hitting up the customer for additional shipping costs, that is why we state that if there is an adjustment to be made, it will only be downward.

Dragon41673 wrote: I only use PayPal for payments, I do not process credit cards myself...too much liability in that.

Of course. However, you can setup PayPal to do a two part transaction (authorization when order placed and debit when you ship). All of our credit card transactions, PayPal or not, are two part transactions.

Ok thanks...I'll still wait for the mods to look in to the issue at hand.