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Flat rate or actual shipping?

jenscandles

By jenscandles
in Business Side of Things

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candlelady Newbie

candlelady

Posted
Posted

I do "real time" shipping with USPS. Flat Rate won't always be the cheapest and alot of my orders are too big to fit. And having real time shipping is accurate so you don't end up owing anyone a refund or having to charge them more than the order states.

HTH

Carrie

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LuminousBoutique Newbie

LuminousBoutique

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I sell on ETSY, and I hate it... but its the only thing I have time for right now... and I SO wish they had a built in shipping calculator like Ebay does. Flat rate boxes are great for some things but really not appropriate for all orders, so I would go with priority. Thats what I use to estimate shipping.

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grama Newbie

grama

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I like UPS because they pick-up. In our small town you have to take your packages to post office and that is just to much trouble :cheesy2:

I have just started using foxycart for my shopping cart and they have all that, including USPS. You just choose which you want. I am really liking foxycart so far. The one I had been using was just to expensive.

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Noodle Newbie

Noodle

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I like UPS because they pick-up. In our small town you have to take your packages to post office and that is just to much trouble :cheesy2:

I would use UPS too if the post office did not pick up! Who in the world has time to go to the post office daily?

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CandleMama6 Newbie

CandleMama6

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The post office does not pick up where you are??? I use them a lot and I love that I can go online and schedule them to pick up whatever I have. I mean, the post office is less than a mile from me, but who has the time to run there everyday.

I like that UPS and Fed-Ex pick up as well. But unless you have a lot of items being shipped with them, their pick up charge or weekly charges can get pretty expensive.

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grama Newbie

grama

Posted
Posted

The post office does not pick up where you are???

Glenwood is a very very small town but the post office is less than a mile from me also. 1 traffic light but we do have a hospital, nursing home, bank, grocery store, Dollar Store & Flash Foods. Lots actually for a small town :cheesy2:

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  • 3 weeks later...
Catlover Newbie

Catlover

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Posted (edited)

Elaine, you mentioned foxycart....I am UNblissfully ignorant of the whole shopping cart thing, haven't set up a site yet because of that (not sure if I want to have an info-only site or take orders and do the shipping thing). If I do ship, I'd like to use real-time shipping as well, so people will know the exact amt. they are being charged (I'd never order anything with estimated charges).

I can't really find out how to go about using any of the shopping carts, i.e., if a get the site built, how do I go about adding the cart, real-time shipping, etc.? I am a reasonably intelligent person, but on this I seem to have a mental block. My head hurts. :embarasse

Edited by Catlover
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Stella1952 Newbie

Stella1952

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CubeCart, OsCommerce, Virtue Mart for Joomla content management system, Zen Cart, Agora Cart, Simple Cart - ALL are pretty easy to set up, inexpensive or free & have user forums for help with issues... All either come with an array of payment methods built in or have modules that can be added. For actual shipping or flat rate, you'd want something that hooks up with the Post Office.

My domains are hosted with two different hosting companies. One (Hostgator) uses an administration interface called cPanel. cPanel sports this nifty script installer called "Fantastico" from which you can choose free scripts (like blogs, content management, e-commerce, forums, auctions, newsletter, mass emailing, etc.) and with a few, EASY questions, will install the script to your site for you. Then YOU get to go about finding color themes, tweaking content, etc. The other (GoDaddy) has their own proprietary admin interface but also have a script installer for all the most popular scripts, same as above.

I have tested all of the scripts above and find that ALL of them are very good. Some I like better than others for one reason or another. Haven't found one yet that's EVERYTHING I want and not a PITA, but I've been messing with these for the past 10 years and they are getting VERY close to what my limited brainpower can handle.

Edited by Stella1952
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  • 6 months later...
Catlover Newbie

Catlover

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Resurrecting this thread as I'm on a fruitless quest for a free shopping cart that will allow real-time USPS shipping and also allow me to have the option to offer free pickup in my local zip code. It's about 1:45 a.m. right now, so I'm cross-eyed with looking at so many websites, but thus far they all seem to require much more knowledge of HTML--code than I have (which is none).

I'm set up with PayPal's free cart and it gets the job done, but I wish I could charge people the actual amount for shipping, not just have them stuck in whatever weight range their order happens to be in. Flat rate is great for larger orders, but seems a rip if someone only wants a few candles (i.e. college students who are friends of our daughters'--some Daddy's credit cards do have limits). ;)

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Noodle Newbie

Noodle

Posted
Posted

Since this thread has been brought up again, I figured that I would say that I do not charge actual shipping.

I do not want to raise my product prices to compensate for paypal fees, packing materials, etc... so my cart adds on a small fee to the shipping fee. It becomes part of the shipping cost. I have no handling fee displayed.

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Catlover Newbie

Catlover

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Well, I wound up with a cart from Auction Inc, which seems to be working great. I'm on a 2 week trial, so I've gotta drum up some orders before I start paying! It's not free, which is the only boo-hoo thing about it, but:

*their support is fantastic

*integrates with PayPal, but lets you have a customized order page until the customer checks out

*it allows many shipping options and gives the customer a drop-down menu to choose; it gave me my "Local Delivery" option (although I couldn't give the option only to certain zip codes, like I wanted)

*it gives real-time USPS Priority Mail rates and, based on info you give them about the weight and the dimensions of your products, it will automatically give the customer the cheapest rate, i.e. regular Priority Mail or Flat Rate.

It also allows you to add a "handling charge" if you want, which doesn't show to the customer--it just adds into the shipping charge. I didn't do that right now; just trying to get my product out there and build a customer base before I really stick it to people. ;) (kidding. I've been told my sarcastic humor doesn't always translate well into print....)

Anyway, after much sage advice from everyone, at this point: I'm happy! :yay:

Terri

http://greenglowcandles.com

Edited by Catlover
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