Shipping charges

November 2, 2010 11:42 AM

Online payment system with integrated shipping charges calculator?

Asking for a friend. He has a business and ships out stuff, starting at $250 per Oder. Overage order Size is in the $xxxx range.
Currently you have to call him up to place an order. He is considering allowing online orders.

What online payment processing system allows the calculation of shipment charges? (either USPS, UPS or FedEx)

Problem: He ships a lot internationally.

posted by yoyo_nyc to computers & internet (3 answers total)

Does he currently have a web site for his business? Or would the web site be built around this online payment system?

How heavy is the stuff he ships? Would it be feasible for him to provide a list of products with shipping weights?

Is there anything unusual about what he ships? For example, FedEx may not ship alcohol between states (not 100% sure about that, I believe that was the case a few years back). Is the stuff he is shipping controlled in any way?
posted by pants at 11:47 AM on November 2, 2010

Yes, he has a website (but I would recommend redoing the website).
The stuff is not heavy. Let's say 1 pound per item. All the items have the same weight. Hence if 10 different items are ordered, you could assume 10 pound.
The stuff he sells is "strange" but not really controlled. However, he only sells to established professionals, governments, military and law enforcement.
I am currently thinking about USPS priority mail and maybe have the continent selected (Africa, Europe etc.). But it is unreasonable to just take the shipping charges times 10 since they don't scale like this. How can this be solved with preferable little coding involved?
posted by yoyo_nyc at 11:58 AM on November 2, 2010

We are using Miva Merchant. It computes domestic shipping very accurately, less accurately to foreign countries. The big problem is that the Post Office does not offer the same service options to all countries and it's quite a bit of work to get Miva to "know" that a package of a certain size can only go to Australia one of 3 ways while we could mail the same package to a different country seven different ways.

Your friend has a big advantage over us if all his items are about the same size and weight. If they fit into the flat rate boxes that the Post Office supplies, even better. I think setting up the shipping module would be really easy for you. We had a few months of WTF? - It doesn't sound like you will.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 2:34 PM on November 2, 2010