Setting up shipping - data sources?

[justinhill]

At risk of asking something all you old hands have dealt with at length already, what's the score with setting up shipping tables for operators like UPS - other than typing the whole lot in, I mean?

Assuming UPS themselves don't offer anything to download (it doesn't look like it) and Actinic don't offer anything (likewise), has any enterprising person set themselves up to provide import files for shippers like this? I'm sitting here realising I've got to set up all UPS's zones and all their shipping rates by weight and really hoping someone's done that already and would like to sell/give it to me.

[leehack]

Have actinic withdrawn the shipping tables? they used to do them, have you had a look on their website?

[justinhill]

Well I looked before I posted, but all I saw was Royal Mail and Parcelforce, and a message saying they weren't compatible with 8.5 anyway. We're using City Link for inland shipping but they're not very cheap for Europe and elsewhere and, since we have a UPS account I thought I'd use them for the overseas stuff.

[cdicken]

Hi Justin

We've never had postal import files available for UPS I'm afraid. We formerly had import files for DHL, FedEx and Parcel Force, but these fallen into disuse as not many customers seemed to actually use them.

(If anyone out there needs these files kept up to date, do let me know)

[leehack]

setting up shipping tables for operators like UPS

I was addressing this, i misunderstood the word 'like', you meant 'example' and i took it as 'similar'.

[justinhill]

I can see why such files might fall into disuse or not be widely used since their usefulness depends on someone keeping them up to date, and users having confidence they're correct. An onerous and thankless task for anyone to take on - except the carriers themseves, who aren't going to be interested.

Putting in relevant stuff for the UK is fairly easy but trying to do the rest of the world is much harder; I noticed for example that City Link's international bands are quite different from UPS's, and both carriers place a given country in a different band depending on the service level.

[RuralWeb]

but these fallen into disuse as not many customers seemed to actually use them

I used them all the time - how do you know they were not being used - do you count the downloads?

[justinhill]

My impression from 'playing' with the shipping matrix is that it's reasonably do-able to handle the UK stuff since there's generally only one zone.

Doing the international stuff is much more long-winded but I suspect the only way to get a reliable import of the rates etc would be for the carriers themselves to do it.

In other words perhaps the good people at Actinic could speak to the good people at (say) UPS and suggest it would good for business for both sides if the carrier provided a regularly updated world-wide shipping rate import in Actinic format which could be downloaded from their own website.

(I know, dream on)