One issue I'm running into now is that we've been given great rates from FedEx -- but when a customer orders one of the few items that we have that are drop shipped from a vendor (and they are usually larger items), and the vendor doesn't have the same rates, I lose money on shipping. I've had to put in a policy that at the very least drop shipped items can only go by "Ground" since on Express, my FE rates are half what vendors are paying for UPS (and what they charge me).


I wonder if there is a way to use Andy's shipping add-on to create a separate shipping fee for vendor-shipped items that uses different rates? Right now, the only thing I can do is add an additional shipping charge (dollar amount) -- it would be better if it were reading actual UPS rates or at best a multiple of my FedEx rates (i.e., FE rate x 1.4 or something).



Anyone have any ideas?

Matt - I don't see any criteria in Andy's add on for either vendor or manufacturer.

the problem is, I think, the calculation is done at the product level before it gets to the shipping method. Right now, if you have the following order:

Product A (ships from store): weight 5.lbs
Product B (ships from Vendor A): weight 5 lbs

Shipping is calculated for TWO packages, 5lb each, then determined by the Shipping Method chosen by the customer (FedEx Home Delivery, Priority Mail, etc.)

What I need is a calculation that says:

Product A; rates for FedEx Home Delivery shipping from store
Product B: rates for UPS Ground, shipping from Vendor A

Two rates are added together for total shipping cost to customer. so I think what we need is a default carrier for each vendor. Plus we need a way to say that certain vendors ONLY ship by UPS Ground -- no priority mail, no 3-day, no overnight, etc.

What then do you do with vendors who DO ship via several methods with their method is based on the product being shipped? Most of my vendors are not even close to automating their websites/catalogs. I think the only way to get this buttoned down would be for each product in your store to have it's own shipping method, zip of origin, 1st item size/weight, each add'l item size/weight, multiple items from the same vendor hitting the same box, etc. (Andy could then grab this and massage the shipping with his suite) Of course, as vendors changed their ship methods, you'd have to keep up with it in your store on a product-by-product basis. We'd need a control on the product batch edit table at least.



Selling 3 items in your store, one of which is from a vendor who won't ship next day air..... If the shopper selects next day air, what do you do? Would each item in the cart have it's own shipping methods to choose from? I've never seen this. How would you calculate ground for 1 box and air for the other 2?



For some items, getting the shipping wrong can be a profit-killer.



It'd be a devil to work out and integrate, likely on the scale of the kitting feature. Amazon can get to this level... I doubt BVC will have a market for this level of complexity, and I'm not sure if I had it built in now that I'd want to do all of the fiddling around.

I think you can do this now using Package Rules.


BVC5 will create a separate package for each vendor (and one more for everything that ships from the store).



There are 2 ways to identify where the package is shipping from:



1. Check a Source Address property such as Company. For example, When Source Address Company is equal to "Vendor A", Cost = ....

2. Check the Items Vendor or Items Manufacturer property. For example, When Items Manufacturer Company contains "Vendor A", Cost = ....



Once you have identified the source, you can use the rate returned by any other shipping method. For example, your sample above would look like the attached image.

I tested here, added a rule to calculate shipping for any items with a test vendor. Just did a simple one and have it calculating shipping based on the weight of the item * .90.


Tested with products from test vendor as well as other vendor products in the order, and it calculated it correctly based on the setup. It's a different approach than Andy's in that we're not drawing live rates from any shipping providers. This is because shipping tends to be re-calculated, discounted, removed, etc. during the sales process because of the market the client is in (lots of orders over the phone). Very common in that market to use shipping (or lack thereof) as a selling tool. 99% of the time, Live Rates are way off when reviewing (can be sent from multiple warehouses) so we established an average cost formula to cover the minimum and modify after the fact if needed.



The version of the Rule Provider on the site is: Version 2.7.0.1 © 2008 by Structured Solutions



Are you up to that version?

Thanks, guys -- I'll give that a shot. I will need to create new rules for ground, 3-day, 2nd, and overnight to cover all packages.

I'll also have to figure out how to do the Priority Mail -- while I have a store "policy" that none of my vendors can use USPS, as we do from the store, many times they either dont' know that or don't care, though usually these are big items and USPS calculates much higher than UPS or FedEx would.

There is an extra shipping fee field for each product. Can you use that?

I started a new thread with my question here: http://forums.bvcommerce...58754&g=58768#m58768