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Author Topic: Shipping questions  (Read 6272 times)

Offline wedney

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Shipping questions
« on: September 14, 2012, 06:57:20 PM »
I am trying to set up the shipping.

I have installed the Royal Mail extension and am using weight based shipping but have noticed that the prices it generates are not current. Is there away I can update them automatically or manually? Is there a way that I can use Royal mail without using weight based shipping?

Also is there a way of shipping by zones, for example one cost for UK, one for Europe, one for rest of the world?

When I set up the shipping zones it would only show shipping in the cart if I choose all locations rather than my UK location. Does this mean that customers from outside of the UK will also be able to choose UK shipping such as royal mail first class or will they only be able to see the International options?

One last question, at first I choose display delivery time, but in the cart it just showed the text estimated time rather than a time such as 3-5 days. Is there a way of fixing it please?

Thanks
Wendy

Offline Nimitz1061

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Re: Shipping questions
« Reply #1 on: September 15, 2012, 11:42:13 AM »
I am trying to set up the shipping.

I have installed the Royal Mail extension and am using weight based shipping but have noticed that the prices it generates are not current. Is there away I can update them automatically or manually? Is there a way that I can use Royal mail without using weight based shipping?
I rather doubt that there is any automatic way to update the rates - the last I heard the Royal Mail still does not offer an automated rate estimation service.

I would have though you should be able to adjust the rates in the module settings, but these rates appear to be hard coded in about 20 lines of code, and will need to be adjusted in the file at extensions\default_royal_mail\storefront\model\default_royal_mail.php

Also is there a way of shipping by zones, for example one cost for UK, one for Europe, one for rest of the world?
Good question.  I do see that this module will take other country locations into account when calculating rates.  So, some shipping methods are going to vary depending on destination country according to Royal Mail rate standards.  But, I don't see any provision to set separate rates per zone within the extension itself.  There seem to be some cart features which would help in this regard, but I've not had to configure any of them at this time. 

When I set up the shipping zones it would only show shipping in the cart if I choose all locations rather than my UK location. Does this mean that customers from outside of the UK will also be able to choose UK shipping such as royal mail first class or will they only be able to see the International options?

One last question, at first I choose display delivery time, but in the cart it just showed the text estimated time rather than a time such as 3-5 days. Is there a way of fixing it please?
The language file is found at extensions\default_royal_mail\storefront\language\english\default_royal_mail\default_royal_mail.xml

There is a text key named text_eta which holds the text "Estimated Time:".  This can be found in the admin language management tool by searching for text_eta for the extension default_royal_mail if you insist on changing it.  I don't recommend that unless you are planning to offer some guarantee that the Royal Mail will consistently beat those estimates.  Interesting liability issue...

Thanks
Wendy

Offline wedney

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Re: Shipping questions
« Reply #2 on: September 15, 2012, 12:31:06 PM »
Thanks for the response.

For the first point, I have seen the code but being a non-techie I have never tried to modify code before so not sure I can do that.

Regarding modifying shipping rate by zones, I wondered if there could be a separate extension for that instead of using the Royal Mail extension. I am thinking to use flat rate shipping for simplicity but also I have International orders so it would be good to apply a different flat rate to those.

I see what you mean about the estimated shipping, I am not so bothered by it, it just didn't seem to work as expected for the extension.

 

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