UPS Shipping Problems

Hi,

I have several problems with my installation of UPS shipping with eCart4.

1 - Shipping rates only calculate on the first item in the Cart, not the sum of all items in the Cart. For example, if I have 3 separtate items in the Cart the Shipping is based only on the first item.

2 - When I select "Clear Cart" and then add an item to the Cart, the UPS rate from the last session is still showing. For example, if I had 3 items in the Cart, the shipping rate for item # 1 was 11.23 and the other items were not being included in the calculation. If I clear the Cart, then add a different item with a lower rate to the Cart, the shipping cost will remain 11.23.

3 - For certain items, the shipping rate is too high using the UPS rate. Is there a way to override the UPS shipping cost?

Thanks for your help,
John

For the first problem with only the first item being considered in the quote what did you specify for the settings in the UPS shipping quote server behavior? You can edit this on the confirm page to see what it is set to, you can also post back with the code from this part of the page and we can take a look.

When you clear the cart only the contents of the cart are cleared, not the other session variables. You will need to clear this session variable as well:

unset($_SESSION["<your cart name>_UPS_Quote"]);

You can implement your own custom shipping rules along with the other, how exactly would you like the alternate shipping to work?

Thank you for your response Eric.

Can you tell me exactly where to put the clear session code for the UPS variables.

For the custom shipping rules, I'd like to override the UPS rates on certain items. The base rate for UPS ground is $7.44, however I have a few very small items for sales with a price of $3.00 that I'd like to offer cheaper shipping (like 50 cents).

Thanks again for help.

John

Hi,

So I figured out where to put the UPS clear session code, but I'm still having problems with issues #1 - the shipping is only calculating on the first item in the Cart and not based on the total weight of all items in the Cart. I checked the UPS server behivor on the "confirm" page and it looks to be configured correctly.

I'm thinking there might be something wrong with how "TotalWeight" is calculating in the eCart object...?

Also - still need help with issue #3 per my previous post.

John

Can you post back with a copy of your confirm page minus any of your payment gateway or shipping credentials? If I could take a look at this page it should clear up why you are only getting charged on the first item.

As for overriding the default UPS shipping would you like to do this when the total of the cart is less than $7? You will need to have the exact criteria and amount to charge figured out before you can implement your alternate charge rule.

Originally Said By: Eric Mittman

  Can you post back with a copy of your confirm page minus any of your payment gateway or shipping credentials? If I could take a look at this page it should clear up why you are only getting charged on the first item.

As for overriding the default UPS shipping would you like to do this when the total of the cart is less than $7? You will need to have the exact criteria and amount to charge figured out before you can implement your alternate charge rule.  

Hi Eric,

Thanks so much for your help.

I've attached the confirm page. Note that the total shipping weight in the shopping cart seems to only be calculating the weight of the 1st item based on my testing so this might also be a problem with how weight is either added or calculated for the eCart object using the "Add to Cart" button.

For the UPS shipping override, I'd like to be able to override the UPS shipping for any item under a weight of 1 pound (because UPS calculates a minimum ground shipping weight based on a 1 pound package so it's providing a rate of 7.44 for an item that only weighs .025 pounds for example). I could also do this by item #, but creating an override that says "If the item number = x, the shipping cost should be y".

Thanks,
John

For the weight that is being passed you are only passing the weight for the first item in the cart. To update this on your confirm page update the code on line 49 to be like this:

$Shipping_PackageArray[$Shipping_PackageIndex]["PackageWeight"] = "".WA_eCart_FormatNumber($orphanoshouse->TotalColumn('TotalWeight'), true, 1)  ."";

This is using the total of the totalweight column for the entire cart rather than just the first item.

As for the new shipping charges you will need to work out the criteria for applying the shipping charges a little more. For example if I have itemX that has a small weight in the cart and another item that has a larger weight in the cart what would you like to charge for the shipping?

I think you should base any new shipping rules on the total weight for the entire cart, if it is less than a certain amount then charge a flat rate. You can then edit the other shipping rule to account for this, you can add another condition to the trigger to check if the total weight of the cart is more than your low limit.

Originally Said By: Eric Mittman

  For the weight that is being passed you are only passing the weight for the first item in the cart. To update this on your confirm page update the code on line 49 to be like this:

php:

$Shipping_PackageArray[$Shipping_PackageIndex]["PackageWeight"] = "".WA_eCart_FormatNumber($orphanoshouse->TotalColumn('TotalWeight'), true, 1)  ."";

This is using the total of the totalweight column for the entire cart rather than just the first item.

As for the new shipping charges you will need to work out the criteria for applying the shipping charges a little more. For example if I have itemX that has a small weight in the cart and another item that has a larger weight in the cart what would you like to charge for the shipping?

I think you should base any new shipping rules on the total weight for the entire cart, if it is less than a certain amount then charge a flat rate. You can then edit the other shipping rule to account for this, you can add another condition to the trigger to check if the total weight of the cart is more than your low limit.  

Hi Eric,

Thanks again for your help. I'm just getting used to the Webassist eCart code so I really appreciate your help. I'll add the code you suggested.

For the shipping override, I agree that the trigger should be based on the total weight of the cart (since that's what we're using for the cart calculation). I thought that the shipping calculated on each individual items weight and then a shipping quote was created by summing each calculation. Is there a way to set-up an override for the UPS shipping if the total cart weight is < 1lb then multiply a factor x total weight?

Thanks,
John

You could setup a rule like this but it will not automatically override the existing UPS rule. You will need to modify that rule as well.

To make a rule like this you can set the condition to 'Subtotal for any column' then select the TotalWeight column and select is <= a value of 1.

Then for the calculation you would choose 'based on column subtotal' and choose the total weight column and 'times' then the factor you would like to multiply it by.

Once you do this you will want to update your UPS rule so that it has an additional trigger in the condition. In here you will set it to 'Subtotal for any column' then select the TotalWeight column and select is > a value of 1. This will ensure that the UPS rule will only trigger if the total weight of the cart is more than 1. With the rules setup like this it should use only one or the other, but not both.

Originally Said By: Eric Mittman

  You could setup a rule like this but it will not automatically override the existing UPS rule. You will need to modify that rule as well.

To make a rule like this you can set the condition to 'Subtotal for any column' then select the TotalWeight column and select is <= a value of 1.

Then for the calculation you would choose 'based on column subtotal' and choose the total weight column and 'times' then the factor you would like to multiply it by.

Once you do this you will want to update your UPS rule so that it has an additional trigger in the condition. In here you will set it to 'Subtotal for any column' then select the TotalWeight column and select is > a value of 1. This will ensure that the UPS rule will only trigger if the total weight of the cart is more than 1. With the rules setup like this it should use only one or the other, but not both.  

Hi Eric,

Thanks for all your help, everything is working great.

One last question. I just realized that if I have items in the cart that are less than one pound and then I select "clear cart" the shipping weight remains the same when I add new items to the cart. This is the same problem I had above with the UPS shipping until you showed me how to add the code to clear the UPS session variable. Can you also show me how to clear the variable for the rule we just created for items that weigh less than 1 pound?

Thanks,
John