Shipping setup and PayPal express

I recently purchased the upgrade to powerstore 4.5 I'm finding the documentation to be of little or no help. I'd like to offer two or more shipping options. I'm trying out PayPal Express. The ONLY documentation on shipping I have located states:

"Shipping & Taxes
If you have already uploaded images to your live server, you can use the Import Images function to import those images into your PowerStore. Images can also be imported from within the Administrative Area."

Obviously needed some proof reading. The setup in the StoreManager appears to be the only area to setup shipping. I understand all the inputs except "base rate" and "per item rate" which would appear to be a handling and a percent rate per item? However, I would like to charge based on the USPS shipping calculation. (at least for one shipping option) I have eCart 4.5.x and see what looks like two stubs for shipping rates.

It seems like the "Express" paradigm is to collect all the information in PayPal and pass it back to powerstore. Which expedites the checkout but leaves one big problem in that sales tax and shipping can't be calculated until the buyer has been trough paypal. I'm not sure this helps conversion because most buyers want to know the total cost, not just product cost. Did I miss something there or am I correct in the flow?

Before I start hacking the code, I thought I'd at least ask to see if I've missed something in the StoreManager. Lacking that, maybe an explanation of the stubs in eCart. Also maybe a quick pointer to the right files to attack. It looks like you've made extensive use of the new Framework which I really like but it's a bit confusing until I figure out a bit more about it. (I also have the Framework extension if needed)

Thanks

to set up shipping in power store, go to the power store admin panel and on the settings tab select shipping.


if you wish to use USP to calculate the shipping: when creating the shipping rule, set the Provider to USPS and enter the details for your USPS account.


the base rate is used to set a flat rate for shipping, the per item create is used to set a flat cost for each additional item, if you enter values here, they will be charged on top of the USPS rate that is returned, if you don't want that, level them blank.


With express checkout, the user is directed to paypal to enter shipping and billing information.

since the shipping information is not gathered until the user fills that information in the paypal site, it is impossible to calculate the shipping rate until they return to the power store site.


I'm not sure where you where finding the documentation that you refer to but the built in help for shipping settings seams to be correct on the power store support page:
settings_shipping.html

Thank you Jason, you've confirmed what I thought about PayPal Express. And I read the link you included. I wasn't aware that was available. If you are interested I can go back and find the page with the bad shipping information.

The question that didn't get answered though is how would I set up shipping for both USPS and FedEx or UPS? Currently I have USPS configured.

you set up additional rules in the shipping tab, one for USPS, and another for the other providers you wish to offer.