Royal Mail shipping extension

[jesus_automatic]

I have been very impressed with Abantecart and how everything just works. Except the Royal Mail extension which just doesn't. It doesn't show as a delivery option whatever settings I use. And it doesn't seem to have enough settings? It doesn't ask to charge by weight or have a box for the rates etc. Other shipping extensions work fine.

Has anyone had any success installing this module?

[abantecart]

Can you post example of the setting you use. I will check. Thanks

[jesus_automatic]

Store_default
Status_on
I have delivery methods
   second class post
   standard parcel
   airmail                    selected.
Weight_kilograms
Tax_none
Location_all locations
Auto Select_not checked
Accept these payments_none checked
Sort order_1

I currently have Parcel Force 48 installed and this shows a s delivery method but not the Royal Mail.
When I tried with only the royal mail, the second page of checkout went into a redirect loop and crashed.

[abantecart]

Thank you. After you access shipping confirmation page on storefront, please check your admin -> System -> Logs -> error log.
See if there is any message related to Royal Mail
Possibly that Royal Mail responds with the error.

Post message here.

[jesus_automatic]

Thanks for taking the time to help me.

There are no error logs

[abolabo]

i set up your parameters on my localhost and see delivery options for  royal mail.
What's shipping address do you use for testing?

[jesus_automatic]

I use a regular UK mainland address. My store is UK based. My company is UK registered and my customers are in the uk. . But royal mail isnt shown as an option. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the extension. Still no good. Royal Mail is the obvious and cheapest delivery option, so I am keen to get it working.
I have also tried Citylink and this doesnt show either. And UPS does?

[jesus_automatic]

I appear to have solved it. I changed the master weight class from gram to kilogram in the settings.

So now it displays as an option but the costs it is showing are very small compared with the real Royal Mail costs. How can I edit this, and make allowance for packaging?

[abolabo]

please check weight of some product on it's edit page

[jesus_automatic]

Yes the weight is correct. But the shipping cost specified is absurd.

For example. One item 140gram 25x15x10 cm. It gives a price of £1.75. Royal Mail website gives it as £5.20. It also gives the price as a letter, when it is too big to be accepted as a letter. It also gives the option to send it airmail to a UK address for £2.38 which is obviously not a service available, but only £1.57 to send to Spain.

In other words the costs given have no connection whatsoever with the prices Royal Mail charge. The Royal Mail charge by size and volume as well as by weight. This could be where the problem lies. If I change the size of the product, it doesn't affect the price. And it would explain how it will allow a large box to count as a letter, as long as it is within the weight limit.

But if the Royal Mail extension doesn't reflect the cost of the service what's the point of it? Is there an extension where I can manually enter the delivery costs in the manner of cost A for first item + cost B for each successive item?

[jesus_automatic]

"Bump"
I really would like some help with this. I have put a lot of effort building an online store with AbanteCart. But I currently dont seem to be able to find a way to charge for shipping what its going to cost me!

[jesus_automatic]

Well, a month down the line still no nearer a solution. Abantecart have done very little to help. It seems the problem has been ongoing and stems from the fact Royal Mail charges by weight, but in distinct size categories. For example. a small parcel of 100 grams is a completely different price to a large letter of 100 grams.
Abantecart's Royal Mail extension is entirely weight based so cant distinguish different size categories.

In february they said they would put it on their todo list  http://forum.abantecart.com/index.php/topic,611.0.html

But as it is. it is useless. Is anybody working on updating it?

[abantecart]

Yes. We are working on the extension fix. There are other priorities with new core release of AbanteCart 1.1.5 that are cumming to completion.

[abolabo]

Royalmail does not provide API to get the shipping cost based on the size of the parcel.
Unfortunately we can not calculate the cost of delivery otherwise.

We can move a table with prices of royalmail from controller to extension settings page, the administrator can modify them.

[jesus_automatic]

@abolado

I guess that would be the best fix. I could fiddle the rates to approximate the actual cost.