UPS shipping rate estimates

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UPS shipping rate estimates

mike_mcmillan
at time the estimate is obtained from UPS and returned to Opentaps, the application does not know how many boxes the shipment will be.  This is because the estimate is returned at the time of order entry.  So, when it retrieves the estimate it tends to be off by a decent amount (low or high).  We have experienced the high shipping cost for an order with a low weight.....but technically only if the shipment is one box.  If the low weight order was boxed in multiple boxes, the estimate would be just about dead on to the real cost that’s returned with the label. There is a BUT.  

But, in another instance I shipped an order with a medium-high weight (22 lbs).  The shipping came back $18.59.  If we had shipped this in one box the shipping cost would have been $15.56 (I got this price by going to the UPS website) which we would have made $3.  ....but we didn't ship it in one box, we shipped it 3, and the actual cost that came back based on weight and box count came back $24.  So we lost $6

Is there a way to configure the live UPS shipping rate so that we can get better estimates?

Also....Under the service name in the shipping entity of the store there is a field "Config Props".  Can anyone tell me what this is used for?

Mike
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Re: UPS shipping rate estimates

Jacques Le Roux
Administrator
Apart that you speak about Opentaps (remember Opentaps is *not* OFBiz), please use rather user ML for such questions :
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Mailing+Lists#MailingLists-DeveloperList:dev@...

Thanks

Jacques

From: "mike_mcmillan" <[hidden email]>

>
> at time the estimate is obtained from UPS and returned to Opentaps, the
> application does not know how many boxes the shipment will be.  This is
> because the estimate is returned at the time of order entry.  So, when it
> retrieves the estimate it tends to be off by a decent amount (low or high).
> We have experienced the high shipping cost for an order with a low
> weight.....but technically only if the shipment is one box.  If the low
> weight order was boxed in multiple boxes, the estimate would be just about
> dead on to the real cost that’s returned with the label. There is a BUT.
>
> But, in another instance I shipped an order with a medium-high weight (22
> lbs).  The shipping came back $18.59.  If we had shipped this in one box the
> shipping cost would have been $15.56 (I got this price by going to the UPS
> website) which we would have made $3.  ....but we didn't ship it in one box,
> we shipped it 3, and the actual cost that came back based on weight and box
> count came back $24.  So we lost $6
>
> Is there a way to configure the live UPS shipping rate so that we can get
> better estimates?
>
> Also....Under the service name in the shipping entity of the store there is
> a field "Config Props".  Can anyone tell me what this is used for?
>
> Mike
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/UPS-shipping-rate-estimates-tp18036458p18036458.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>

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Re: UPS shipping rate estimates

mike_mcmillan
I meant to say ofbiz.  I'm trying out both applications.  Sorry about that.
Mike
jacques.le.roux wrote
Apart that you speak about Opentaps (remember Opentaps is *not* OFBiz), please use rather user ML for such questions :
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Mailing+Lists#MailingLists-DeveloperList:dev@ofbiz.apache.org

Thanks

Jacques

From: "mike_mcmillan" <mike.mcmillan@southernbookcompany.com>
>
> at time the estimate is obtained from UPS and returned to Opentaps, the
> application does not know how many boxes the shipment will be.  This is
> because the estimate is returned at the time of order entry.  So, when it
> retrieves the estimate it tends to be off by a decent amount (low or high).
> We have experienced the high shipping cost for an order with a low
> weight.....but technically only if the shipment is one box.  If the low
> weight order was boxed in multiple boxes, the estimate would be just about
> dead on to the real cost that’s returned with the label. There is a BUT.
>
> But, in another instance I shipped an order with a medium-high weight (22
> lbs).  The shipping came back $18.59.  If we had shipped this in one box the
> shipping cost would have been $15.56 (I got this price by going to the UPS
> website) which we would have made $3.  ....but we didn't ship it in one box,
> we shipped it 3, and the actual cost that came back based on weight and box
> count came back $24.  So we lost $6
>
> Is there a way to configure the live UPS shipping rate so that we can get
> better estimates?
>
> Also....Under the service name in the shipping entity of the store there is
> a field "Config Props".  Can anyone tell me what this is used for?
>
> Mike
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/UPS-shipping-rate-estimates-tp18036458p18036458.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
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Re: UPS shipping rate estimates

Vikas Mayur-2
In reply to this post by mike_mcmillan
Not sure I am 100% correct, but as per my understanding on how online ship
estimate are calculated - depends on certain attributes of Product entity
like inShippingBox, piecesIncluded, weight, shippingDepth, shippingHeight,
shippingWidth.

Case 1 : Lets suppose you have a Product A (productId = A), ordered quantity
= 2, piecesIncluded = 3, inShippingBox set to Y
               In this case 6 packages will be created for product partial
qty i.e 1/piecesIncluded

Case 2 : If you also have other attibutes set (shippingDepth,
shippingHeight, shippingWidth) along with Case 1 - than dimensions of the
product are
               also passed on to UPS. In this particular case the shipping
estimates might differ from the Case 1.

Case 3 : If inShippingBox is not set than the number of packages created
depends on max weight a package can hold - which can configured in
               shipment.properties (shipment.ups.max.estimate.weight). So
estimates will be weight based only.

Case 4 : If you think that case1, case 2 will result in higher shipping
rates as expected and you do not want to extra charge that to your
customer
               than you can always add custom field to the entity, code to
the existing service / methods.

              We have done a custom implementation for one of our client
where they want to split packages on the basis of 3 pieces in a package
+
              weight constraint as in Case 3. So Case 1 will result in 2
packages instead of 6 packages. This way charging less to the customer and
              also not loosing money.


             So, it all depends on how you set product attributes and
configure few properties to get correct estimates.


Hope this helps !

Vikas




On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 1:30 AM, mike_mcmillan <
[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> at time the estimate is obtained from UPS and returned to Opentaps, the
> application does not know how many boxes the shipment will be.  This is
> because the estimate is returned at the time of order entry.  So, when it
> retrieves the estimate it tends to be off by a decent amount (low or high).
> We have experienced the high shipping cost for an order with a low
> weight.....but technically only if the shipment is one box.  If the low
> weight order was boxed in multiple boxes, the estimate would be just about
> dead on to the real cost that's returned with the label. There is a BUT.
>
> But, in another instance I shipped an order with a medium-high weight (22
> lbs).  The shipping came back $18.59.  If we had shipped this in one box
> the
> shipping cost would have been $15.56 (I got this price by going to the UPS
> website) which we would have made $3.  ....but we didn't ship it in one
> box,
> we shipped it 3, and the actual cost that came back based on weight and box
> count came back $24.  So we lost $6
>
> Is there a way to configure the live UPS shipping rate so that we can get
> better estimates?
>
> Also....Under the service name in the shipping entity of the store there is
> a field "Config Props".  Can anyone tell me what this is used for?
>
> Mike
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://www.nabble.com/UPS-shipping-rate-estimates-tp18036458p18036458.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
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Re: UPS shipping rate estimates

schoen.inc
In reply to this post by mike_mcmillan
We are having the same problem with Rate estimates.  The UPS rate estimate is not giving very accurate estimates relative to the actual pricing.  Actual pricing can be 30% higher or lower.

What method are most people using to do rate estimates?
Am I doing something wrong by using the UPS Rate Estimate functionality or is there a better way?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,