Re: improving UPS shipping--Sure I've thought about it. But based on my past experience with the Shipping Cost Estimator for BVC2004, enhancing an existing feature is not well received. Potential customers get mad at the vendor (BV) for not including the enhancements in the original product, and are reluctant to pay me for my effort because there is not enough added value. Of course, "enough added value" is and should remain a subjective judgement that every customer must make. But from my perspective, the risk (that I will not be rewarded for my effort) is much higher with that kind of project.

I don't know if I understand your question about the addresses. Are you asking if there can be 3 addresses: 1) the address the package ships from, 2) the address the package should be delivered to, and 3) the address the package should be returned to if undeliverable? And that the actual cost of shipping (or the postage printed on the label) should reflect the cost of shipping from #1 to #2, not the cost of shipping from #3 to #2 (unless #1 and #3 are the same)?

Mitch asked about generating return labels, and that is definitely on my list (it may not be the 1st release). Would that take care of your concern? The original shipping label would have #1 and #2 printed on it, while the return label would have #3 and #2 printed on it.

USPS already has international (you can see the Customs tab in some of the screencasts...although I never demonstrate filling it in). FedEx will get it.

Joe, I think you answered your own question. When I wrote "higher volume", I was deliberately vague because it depends so much on how you use the products and divide the responsibilities. I have some customers that push all of the shipping functions to the warehouse and keep all of the order processing in the office. For them, Shipper is a much better feature because the warehouse is not switching back and forth from a web page to UPS WorldShip...they just want to stay in UPS WorldShip (many also setup Shipper to automatically push the shipments into UPS WorldShip).

The combination of Shipper + carrier software supports all carrier features, batch processing, integrated report writer (pick lists, etc), and facilitates the separation of duties.

The integrated products supports most carrier features, single-piece processing, and relies on the host ecommerce package for other order processing features (such as report writing).

I do not recommend that you install any pre-release software on a production system.

Do you run a test system locally? If not, why not?

I keep my local copy connected to a local copy of the database. It's pretty easy to make a local copy using SQL 2005 Express so I treat the local copy as throw away...each time I try something (this is for my own site at http://structured-solutions.net) I make just take a snapshot of the live database, copy it locally and then dev and test the change.

Andy, how is this coming? The videos look terrific.

The GridView (PSL) is binding to several objects. Some of those objects come directly from BVC5. It looks like at least one of them is a different version than expected. I wrote the code using SP2. If you have SP3 or higher, it probably will not work.

Unfortunately, I'm stuck in limbo land right now with FedEx. It may be several more weeks before I can release a new build.

The hold up is on Fed Ex's side. Compatability with SP2, SP3... won't be an issue.

Andy, you sound like one that could help with this problem.
Our developer added your ups module to our BVC5 and we've been unable to get correct correct UPS rates back.
A good portion of our shipments are dimensional and in testing after the addition of your module the actual weight quotes are around 10% high while dimensional weights are around 12% low.

Any thoughts you have on this would be appreicated.

Thanks

Thanks Andy,
i came in late to the party and don't totally know where the pieces fit yet..
Your product is what allowed our cart to send dimensions to UPS?

Andy, has the FedEx integration plugin been finalized? We have a client that this would be a great fit for (Shipper would probably be overkill) and I'm wondering about the details.

Andy -- question -- does this mean that using Shipper with FedEx ShipManager is a thing of the past? I can't tell if Shipper 3 works with ShipManager or you MUST purchast ShipRush to use. That is a big jump for our small business, to go from a small one-time license fee to now $600/year for Shipper and ShipRush -- plus not to mention learning a new system for printing labels. I really don't need the bells and whistles associated with Shipper 3, just the simple integration between BV5 and ShipManager.