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Joined: 4/2/2004(UTC) Posts: 2,393 ![United States]( "United States") Location: Hummelstown, PA Thanks: 6 times
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We've been having problems with the one-page checkout with one of our clients (SP3.2). The problem is that customers placing an expedited UPS order (2nd Day or Next Day) are getting free shipping. When we test the addresses that the customers use the correct rates are returned. Any ideas?
Aaron |
Aaron Sherrick
BV Commerce
Toll-free 888-665-8637 - Int'l +1 717-220-0012 |
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Rank: Member
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Hello Aaron,
You've probably read (and even experienced) that sometimes the UPS rate servers do not return a rate. It happens with all the carriers from time-to-time. When it does happen, BV will not display the corresponding shipping method or service. If all the shipping methods fail, then BV displays a message like $0.00 - Contact Merchant.
If you are using my Shipping Rate Rule Providers and the UPS rate is part of a rule, then the shipping method may still be displayed (depending on your rules). For example, it may say $0.00 - Standard Shipping.
That is probably not what you want, so you can add another rule to hide the shipping method if the rate is 0. For example,
"When Rate From 'UPS Ground' equals 0, hide this method." |
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Rank: Administration
Joined: 4/2/2004(UTC) Posts: 2,393 ![United States]( "United States") Location: Hummelstown, PA Thanks: 6 times
Was thanked: 163 time(s) in 158 post(s)
|
Thanks, Andy. I'll give that a shot. I can't say that I've really experienced many problems with UPS in the past. On very rare occasions I've seen their servers go down and usually there is a corresponding error in the BV Event Log. Not so in these cases.
Aaron |
Aaron Sherrick
BV Commerce
Toll-free 888-665-8637 - Int'l +1 717-220-0012 |
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Rank: Administration
Joined: 4/2/2004(UTC) Posts: 2,393 ![United States]( "United States") Location: Hummelstown, PA Thanks: 6 times
Was thanked: 163 time(s) in 158 post(s)
|
Andy,
Do you know why the UPS servers will sometimes not return a rate? Is it a load problem or some kind of throttling requests from a single site?
Aaron |
Aaron Sherrick
BV Commerce
Toll-free 888-665-8637 - Int'l +1 717-220-0012 |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 11/5/2003(UTC)
Posts: 2,136
Was thanked: 1 time(s) in 1 post(s)
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Q: "On very rare occasions I've seen their servers go down and usually there is a corresponding error in the BV Event Log. Not so in these cases."
A: "Use Rate From" rules may be hiding the error from the event log...although that does not seem likely. It is more likely that the target shipping method is simply returning 0 as the cost. If the target shipping method is using BV's UPS rate provider, then BV may be able to tell you when it returns 0 as the cost but does not record an event.
Q: "Do you know why the UPS servers will sometimes not return a rate?"
A: No. I have never contacted UPS to ask why. I have asked FedEx (I was working with their servers for a while) and DHL (ditto). In both cases, there were basically 3 reasons: 1) "the service is having problems", 2) "we introduced a new feature B which broke A", and 3) "the service was under heavy load". Both FedEx and DHL would have weeks of no hiccups and then several over a week.
If you watch other e-commerce forums, you can generally see a correlation between error reports. That is, if 2 or 3 people post about a UPS rate error on an os commerce forum on a Tuesday, you will also see 2 or 3 people post on the same day in the zen cart forum. My impression (not a statistical study) is that the UPS rate service has about the same number of hiccups as the other carrier's and that the hiccups are under-reported by BV users. That could be because BV users do not look in the event log very often, or the errors are easy to miss in the event log, or that the UPS rate provider in BV does not record every hiccup. |
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