Sorry big first post.... not a moan or a beg for help... but really its a request to make something that is quite complicated and untidy into something simple, streamlined and beautiful.
I have read an earlier post regarding needing special shipping for certain items and I know that Actinic has various ways to tinker with things that can do this or that (Ive been using Actinic since 2001) but I have a business that sends some chilled items... and this presents a problem:
I would like to send chilled items with a different service to the standard parcel service, so the customer cannot choose an inapproriate form of shipping (bless them trying to save a few pennies only to complain later) that requires me to either refund the items we cant send or send but suffer the wrath of said blessed customer when things arrive and aren't as they had hoped and then face demands for a refund for something they shouldn't have ordered anyway. Fictional example of customer behaviour here would be something akin to... Ice Cream via Pony Express to the Western Sahara.
So for example, while most items are ambient, if any chilled item is added the shipping needs to be instantly restricted to options such as next day delivery with UK mainland, or ship Monday to Wednesday only... and a message should explain why the restriction is required. All the options could be set up as normal in shipping zones/classes.
This would then also allow me to send goods to people outside of the UK who want them but who we currently have to refuse in case they ask for impossible items. By ensuring that if a chilled item is added by a non 'UK mainland' customer the checkout presents no available shipping options and a clear message to remove the item to allow the rest of the goods to be posted.
This may seem rather a unique request but having built other shops for people in the past I can see many uses for such a system based on their problems...
For products that require special shipping methods (regardless of weight or cost) such as expensive jewellery, delicate items, musical instruments, etc. any sensible online retailer would send these by a well insured courier and not leave it to the discretion to a customer who thinks well insured courier shipping for a £900 saxophone is a 'rip off' when he can see the royal mail standard parcel delivery costs less, so selects the cheaper poorly insured and practically untraceable option... but a customer buying a £2 saxophone polishing cloth can still get it sent by Royal Mail. And if the guy wants the saxophone AND the cloth, the appropriate level of shipping is applied to both together. All without the customer or the shopkeeper having to spot the problem and intervene each time.
At a simpler level you may just want to ensure you get a signature for certain items that may be better to send by Recorded Delivery. For example if they weigh almost nothing and can go by 1st class post, but are valuable enough to want to track... If you sold books, a tatty old Mills and Boon could weigh the same as a signed copy of an early James Bond novel... but the Bond novel deserves special attention and should shift the type of shipping for the whole package even if both books are sent together...
So my current solution is:
I have made a less than satisfactory workaround where chilled items have a component called CHILL1, which is free but incurs a surcharge of £1 per order. This £1 effectively upgrades them from 48hr to 24hr delivery but does clearly state the fact in the Shipping description in the checkout... to have to strip the component quantities in the Perl code to tidy up the checkout (many lines of CHILL QTY = 1) renders the component quantity feature permanently defunct for all other applications.
So even if they add three chilled items they are only charged for one upgrade. If they remove the items they revery back to normal shipping....
Not so bad but a bit sloppy from a tax/record keeping point of view as it doesnt properly reflect shipping charges that we pay compared to the Reports that are generated... and it completely fails to address the problem with the fact that I cannot prevent people in Australia or even Northern Ireland for example, from ordering products that cannot safely get to them... The best I can do is restrict my trading to UK only - which I have done, despite many request from Europe and US.
This also causes problems for my staff (and I don't mean my Mum and Dad anymore!) who are not always completely familiar with things. The shipping method does NOT say CHILLED DELIVERY... it is just the same delivery as everyone else. The customer has paid a premium for faster delivery and ice packs, but the packing list/receipt doesnt show that properly.
The shipping is not upgraded until I intervene and ensure that its sent only Monday to Wednesday and that the administrator who makes the shipping labels and doesn't even see the parcels is aware that each of those parels must go 24hr not the standard 48hr service...
I hope this all makes sense.
If, despite the calls to actinic and obbsessive tinkering late at night with my software anyone knows a way that Actinic can do this without completely baffling my colleagues or customers I'd love to hear it.
So in a nutshell I suppose a 'restricted shipping' option would be my request... when a chilled/oversized/overpriced(!) product is added it would cause the whole order to be restricted to shipping methods and destinations that I have selected for that type of product in the shipping Zones/Classes.
Thanks for reading all that!
I have read an earlier post regarding needing special shipping for certain items and I know that Actinic has various ways to tinker with things that can do this or that (Ive been using Actinic since 2001) but I have a business that sends some chilled items... and this presents a problem:
I would like to send chilled items with a different service to the standard parcel service, so the customer cannot choose an inapproriate form of shipping (bless them trying to save a few pennies only to complain later) that requires me to either refund the items we cant send or send but suffer the wrath of said blessed customer when things arrive and aren't as they had hoped and then face demands for a refund for something they shouldn't have ordered anyway. Fictional example of customer behaviour here would be something akin to... Ice Cream via Pony Express to the Western Sahara.
So for example, while most items are ambient, if any chilled item is added the shipping needs to be instantly restricted to options such as next day delivery with UK mainland, or ship Monday to Wednesday only... and a message should explain why the restriction is required. All the options could be set up as normal in shipping zones/classes.
This would then also allow me to send goods to people outside of the UK who want them but who we currently have to refuse in case they ask for impossible items. By ensuring that if a chilled item is added by a non 'UK mainland' customer the checkout presents no available shipping options and a clear message to remove the item to allow the rest of the goods to be posted.
This may seem rather a unique request but having built other shops for people in the past I can see many uses for such a system based on their problems...
For products that require special shipping methods (regardless of weight or cost) such as expensive jewellery, delicate items, musical instruments, etc. any sensible online retailer would send these by a well insured courier and not leave it to the discretion to a customer who thinks well insured courier shipping for a £900 saxophone is a 'rip off' when he can see the royal mail standard parcel delivery costs less, so selects the cheaper poorly insured and practically untraceable option... but a customer buying a £2 saxophone polishing cloth can still get it sent by Royal Mail. And if the guy wants the saxophone AND the cloth, the appropriate level of shipping is applied to both together. All without the customer or the shopkeeper having to spot the problem and intervene each time.
At a simpler level you may just want to ensure you get a signature for certain items that may be better to send by Recorded Delivery. For example if they weigh almost nothing and can go by 1st class post, but are valuable enough to want to track... If you sold books, a tatty old Mills and Boon could weigh the same as a signed copy of an early James Bond novel... but the Bond novel deserves special attention and should shift the type of shipping for the whole package even if both books are sent together...
So my current solution is:
I have made a less than satisfactory workaround where chilled items have a component called CHILL1, which is free but incurs a surcharge of £1 per order. This £1 effectively upgrades them from 48hr to 24hr delivery but does clearly state the fact in the Shipping description in the checkout... to have to strip the component quantities in the Perl code to tidy up the checkout (many lines of CHILL QTY = 1) renders the component quantity feature permanently defunct for all other applications.
So even if they add three chilled items they are only charged for one upgrade. If they remove the items they revery back to normal shipping....
Not so bad but a bit sloppy from a tax/record keeping point of view as it doesnt properly reflect shipping charges that we pay compared to the Reports that are generated... and it completely fails to address the problem with the fact that I cannot prevent people in Australia or even Northern Ireland for example, from ordering products that cannot safely get to them... The best I can do is restrict my trading to UK only - which I have done, despite many request from Europe and US.
This also causes problems for my staff (and I don't mean my Mum and Dad anymore!) who are not always completely familiar with things. The shipping method does NOT say CHILLED DELIVERY... it is just the same delivery as everyone else. The customer has paid a premium for faster delivery and ice packs, but the packing list/receipt doesnt show that properly.
The shipping is not upgraded until I intervene and ensure that its sent only Monday to Wednesday and that the administrator who makes the shipping labels and doesn't even see the parcels is aware that each of those parels must go 24hr not the standard 48hr service...
I hope this all makes sense.
If, despite the calls to actinic and obbsessive tinkering late at night with my software anyone knows a way that Actinic can do this without completely baffling my colleagues or customers I'd love to hear it.
So in a nutshell I suppose a 'restricted shipping' option would be my request... when a chilled/oversized/overpriced(!) product is added it would cause the whole order to be restricted to shipping methods and destinations that I have selected for that type of product in the shipping Zones/Classes.
Thanks for reading all that!
but it does mean you can phone them up and ask if the request has any chance of being coded or not 
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