Shipping Choices

[jackkyll]

I'm still playing around. I have enabled UPS and USPS and I did seem to get the UPS to give me a quote... but

Can't my customers choose which Courier and Service they want?

Melissa

[Jamie]

Hi Melissa,

Your customers can choose from any shipping method that the cart displays to them. This gets a little complicated, because that is determined by your shipping rules AND whether or not you have real time rates active for UPS and/or USPS. To understand this, you really need to have a good understanding of how the shipping rules work. Take a look at this thread:
http://ldev.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7

Also, read the explanation of how the shipping rules work in the documentation:

http://yoursite.com/squirrelcart/docs

THEN....if you aren't doing this: :banghead: read on:

If you have real time rates enabled, think of them as automatic shipping rules. They interact with your existing shipping rules, and use the priority you have specified on the courier (UPS or USPS). The default priority for real time rates is 2. Real time rates will only be offered if they are available from the courier for the weight of the package. For example, you may have real time rates enabled for USPS and might also have First-Class Mail enabled as a service. If the item the person is ordering is over 13 ounces, then it is ineligible for first class mail. Because of this, the cart will not display a first class rate to the customer.
So....
IF you have not changed the default priority of 2 on your UPS and USPS records
- and -
IF there are no applicable shipping rules with a priority greater than 2
the customer will get a choice of all enabled shipping services via real time rates that did not exceed a weight limit PLUS all the other applicable shipping methods/costs specified as priority 2 shipping rules.

IF no real time rates are returned, and you have any applicable shipping rules that have a priority of 1, the customer will get those choices instead.

-Jamie

[jackkyll]

Ok I understand all of this and the rules... I just don't think my USPS Real Time Rates is working at all... see my post titled "Real Time Rates". I don't think the URLs are correct because even the test URL USPS sent me in the set up email isn't working.

I have no other rules in my shipping rules and I have set up Real Time Rates with both USPS and UPS. UPS seems to be working fine and I have them both set to priority of 2. I do not get a choice however between the 2 services and when I disable UPS, USPS rates to not show up at all.

Can you please verify the instructions in the documents and the URL for the service?

Thanks!

Melissa

[Jamie]

The URL is fine. It is the default URL for USPS rates.

I just tested with your account, and could not get any rates. I then tested with mine to make sure everything was working OK, and I did get rates. I threw some test output into my dev copy, and using your login info, I get this error message back from USPS:

Authorization failure. You are not authorized to connect to this server.

When you sign up for an account with them, they send you an email with this in it:

When you have completed your testing, notify the Internet Customer Care Center (ICCC) listed below. The ICCC will switch your profile to allow you access to the Production Server and provide you with the production URL.

The ICCC is manned from 7:00AM to 11:00PM Eastern Time.
E-mail: icustomercare@usps.com
Telephone: 1-800-344-7779 (7:00AM to 11:00PM ET)

Now because you are not doing the integration with their system, and it already has been tested, there is no need to change the URL to the testing one, and no need to test before calling them. Once they fix your account, it should work OK.

BTW - you may want to leave the priority for USPS set to 2, and create 1 priority 1 rule as a fallback in case their systems are down. If they are down, then the cart would look for a priority 1 rule, and would use your fallback one. You could use a percentage of the total order amount or something similar just to cover you in case they have an outage.

Thanks,
Jamie

[SatinRose]

You were right, I just needed to call ICCC and get access to the server. Maybe you could update the cart documentation to remind us that we have to call and get access?


Thanks!

Lindsay

[Jamie]

Hi Lindsay,

Great! I just updated the documentation for the next release to cover this.

Thanks,
Jamie