When setting up a shipping method there is currently a checkbox to retrieve residential rates. This is a problem for us because we don't know if the address is a residence or not for some of our customers. They allow their users to add their own addresses, and it could be a residence or business.
We have been trying to figure out how to deal with the residential surcharges that we have been receiving for some shipments since we began using Pressero, and up to now the only real solution is to eat the cost.
The UPS API allows for passing a residential flag indicator when retrieving rates, however Pressero never validates addresses. I propose using the UPS Address Validation API to validate addresses before requesting rates and passing the residential rate indicator if applicable so that we can get the correct rate.
Full Address Validation at Checkout is much needed in Pressero.
1. Residential Flag: As mentioned UPS API passes the Residential flag, pressero should be able to receive it and recognize it. We have many sites that are mixed and too many complaints shipping is too high.
2. Address Validation: Recommendation and Correction is needed. To many bad addresses and wasted time, this is something that all other sites have had for awhile now.
3. Not Allowing PO Box addresses or other address that cannot ship UPS or FedEX. The choices for shipping method should change to only the carriers/services that can ship to a PO Box (USPS or UPS Sure Post, options that are enabled for that site).
if client enters a PO Box address and Selects FedEx, Pressero doesn't stop it and say FedEx can't ship to PO Boxes, it just accepts it and allows checkout and then we spend time contacting client, trying to collect more funds and get it shipped.
We loose clients over inaccurate shipping costs, we loose time and money and/or we are overcharging, and will eventually loose clients to printers that have full address validation and correct shipping methods to the other integrations that have it.
or the box size is addressed at the product level or linked
I think we should be able to have a spot up in the main preferences for box sizes and the maximum weight then link this into the shipping side to it rather then shipping only delegating one box size. we have run into the same issue where the shipping will not calculate correctly and its very frustrating. UPS uses box size then weight and that box has to be a certain weight even if its a 2lb box it can be considered and billed at 5lbs. I think linking these 2 together would be a better calculate the weight.
We also lose a lot of money on incorrect shipping costs. We have spent hours scratching our heads trying to figure out what's wrong. So we try to manipulate the pricing by increasing the markup or minimum costs or flat costs. But that quickly backfires and you get emails from customers who say the shipping rates are ridiculously high. So then we move it back down and then we are losing money again.
Shipping calculations are hard because there are SO MANY VARIABLES - carrier, ship method, package type, weight, distance, residential surcharge, fuel surcharge, etc.
I agree - I think the ability for Pressero to validate the address and automatically pass the residential indicator flag would be a huge help.
I wanted to try to give this a "bump". We continue to struggle with this, and continue to lose money.
Most recently, there seems to be an additional issue, where some prices provided by Pressero are very far off what UPS is actually charging us. Some of this can be attributed to the fact that the size of the package is not correct. There is nothing that Aleyant can really do about that, since we can't predict what type of box is going to be used to package every order. However, even that doesn't explain the entire discrepancy.
For instance, we recently had four orders come through. The pricing provided by Pressero vs what UPS actually charged us follows:
As you can see, we lost a collective $31.07 in those four orders alone! I have an open support ticket on this, but so far support seems to be indicating that they are receiving correct pricing from the integration. I took the time to download the UPS API for Rates, and when I executed a query based on the information in those orders, I got rates identical to what UPS WorldShip applied, so I just don't know what is going on.
The truly odd part is that the majority of the time we are getting really accurate pricing from Pressero.
Can we please do this for Fedex as well. My only work around has been to show Residential rates only so that I don't have to "eat" any of the cost. However, I do end up getting complaints that my shipping charges are high...