Shipping - totally lost!

[LooseDrumSticks]

good call

this is in the knowledge base

Thank you Jo, I'll look it up.

[LooseDrumSticks]

Ok,

Thanks to everyones help, I've sorted out my shipping issues, and am now a lot clearer on them. Thanks guys.

One other issue I would like to clear up though, is that the site seems to remember what I selected for my last shipping option, and I would prefer this to be selected every time an order is placed.

So, for example. If I shopped with second class, the next time I shop, it automatically selects second class as my shipping option, and does not give me the option to change to first class.

Is there a way round this?

Thanks in advance guys

[leehack]

Id load up an old version of actinic pre 8.5 and get used to the shipping on that if you are struggling. Once happy with that and how it works, then use a later version, which brings in all of the extra options. I find that setting up shipping is down to an ability to think laterally rather than understand every single part of it personally. As soon as you mention 'ship by weight', it sends people into cold sweats, where in reality the weights and costs you use, have sod all to do with weight, they are just giving you a flexible system to manipulate to suit your needs.

I reckon i could set up 90% of actinic stores with by weight shipping, however the way you need to think about shipping has always been something that comes easy to me - i struggle in other areas.

The screenshot you provided has categories setup, not sure why you need these and it also is limiting anyone to only ever buy one item, any more they will get an excess shipping error message.

If you are struggling, pay someone to do it for you and then use that to understand it in the future, bit like paying for a training course. We all started at the bottom, we all learnt things in different ways and have particular strengths in actinic, knowing this product inside out is not a 5 minute job. Contacting someone to do your shipping for you, is no different to people contacting Norman for something dynamic on a site.

It's a fine line when a commercial designer is asking other commercial designers to do some of the site he is being paid to design. Very few other businesses in the world would expect such a service from what is effectively a competitor. Having said that i've spoken to other designers as they have with me. I guess if you can scratch each others back, neither of you have a problem with it - it is not possible to know anything, on occasions it's not what you know, it's who you know.

[leehack]

So, for example. If I shopped with second class, the next time I shop, it automatically selects second class as my shipping option, and does not give me the option to change to first class.

It saves the setting as the user has selected to do so.

If it does not allow you to change it, then i'm afraid it's still set up wrong.

[LooseDrumSticks]

Thanks for that constructive post Lee.

I understand exactly where you are coming from, but I understand that to be the whole point about this forum. It does not limit who you are, just what you are trying to acheive.

I have a designer login, but find that posting queries there is not always the best place as the masses use this forum. Having said that, the designers forum will only have people who are posting and asking for help from 'competitors'.

I never think about who I'm posting to, and what they have to gain and I have to loose from a post. If someone needs help, and I have the ability to help, I just do so.

I certainly do not want anyone to do anything for me, or even expect it. What is the point in that? I have masses of other computer skills, but Actinic is my newest venture, and once I have it cracked, I will become a more useful member of this forum. Actinic is unlike any beast I have been used to in 15 years of computer experience. The learning curve is steep, and some things that seem like they should be pretty simple, have turned out to be extremely difficult.

I will have endevoured to find out the issue withe my latest post, but sometimes not knowing what to search for in relation to the issue is the biggest problem of all.

I'm sure that a few months down the line, I will be able to offer constructive and valuable advice, but I will not screen the posts to see if someone else's gain would be my loss. No-one on this forum is a competitor of mine.

Dave

[LooseDrumSticks]

It saves the setting as the user has selected to do so.

If it does not allow you to change it, then i'm afraid it's still set up wrong.

Thanks for getting back to me on that Lee, I'll look into it further.

At least I know that it is a set-up issue now, and not how the store runs as standard.

Cheers...

[leehack]

Dave, let me be blunt, i don't know any other way really:

You raised a thread with a problem you was experiencing. In the 2nd post and 4th post, i told you to ship by weight and to also provide details of what you have and what you want to achieve - you did neither from what i can see.

It's 99.99% sure that your shipping can be done by weight and it is undoubtedly one of the easiest setups that you require on this site. Shipping by weight can be identical to by quantity, however it gives some extra flexibility to use, either now or in the future.

Get to grips with what a zone does and what a class does and how these show on a site. It is then just a case of adding weights and costs into the separate classes. This will service 90%(at least) of the sites you will ever build.

Just remember that when you have a problem, nobody has a chuffing clue about your products, your desired setup or what you have currently setup - so provide good screenshots of each screen and info on what you want. History and experience on shipping tells me that this will get it sorted out asap for you. You are not the first to get totally lost on shipping and you certainly will not be the last.

[pinbrook]

I have a designer login, but find that posting queries there is not always the best place as the masses use this forum. Having said that, the designers forum will only have people who are posting and asking for help from 'competitors'.

I, for one, rarely look to see which forum a question is asked in, unless it is pertinent to the reply. If i feel someone is taking the piss in asking Qs they could probably work out for themselves with a bit of effort, I simply choose not to reply. Although I do post to tell people to search for a common error when they clearly haven't.

But we mustn't lose sight of the fact that it is not mandatory for anyone to reply to any question. Thus in my view Mals reply was a little over the top (hopefully he was just having a grumpy morning ), in truth he would have been better to simply ignore the Q and let someone else reply or let the Q go unanswered. I've also noticed people tend to get rather impatient nowadays as the forum has become a victim of its own sucess, bumping after a few hours is not on in my view and will ensure I ignore it, as do PMs asking me to reply to threads. Maybe I'm just a contrary female, the things on the top of my list of things to do are those I put there, everything I have to do comes later, everything anyone else wants me to do always go to the bottom of the list and stays there until it becomes to late to bother with.

Designer forum is really there to ask confidential Qs you don't want the world and his wife to see (or your client) this forum will not be indexed therefore you can post URls you don't want indexed. It shouldn't be viewed as a mechanism to get unpaid for help from other designers.

There's no need for designers to be competitive, there is more to be gained from co-operation. I doubt if any regular designer in this forum is short of work right now.

[LooseDrumSticks]

Thanks Lee and Jo for your help and advice.

I agree totally with your threads, and I have both the AUG and Getting Started Guides open in front of me.

Maybe going backwards (as Lee sugested) is sometimes the best way to go forward.

Dave...

[leehack]

I, for one, rarely look to see which forum a question is asked in, unless it is pertinent to the reply. If i feel someone is taking the piss in asking Qs they could probably work out for themselves with a bit of effort, I simply choose not to reply. Although I do post to tell people to search for a common error when they clearly haven't.

I think this is a hard area on which to give a perfect solution. I think most newbies come onto the forum thinking their problem is the first time anyone will have ever experienced their issue. As we all know 95% of the time, this is not the case. They also choose to ignore the fact that there is a post specifically for 'new users' and more than anything, there are 150 pages of threads. If anyone stood back and applied a bit of logic for 5 minutes, it would be easy to ascertain that it must have been asked before. I can only assume that it is pure panic why this is not done, what else makes you think with such lack of logic?

If everyone chooses not to reply, they will be left with a thread with no answer or direction for hours. Directing to search the forum is not just about 'can't be arsed to reply to the same boring question', it is the best course of action by a country mile. Take a normal problem thread, it will receive somewhere in between 10-30 replies. To replicate all the opinions and advice provided in those threads, would be ridiculous and stupid, so a search of the forum is by far the very best course of action for them to get a solution. FAR more important is the fact that a search will often yield the answers in 5 minutes, not the hours a normal thread takes to progress.

I don't think there will ever be a polite way of effectively saying RTFM, some people take exception to this, but for me if somebody cannot be arsed to either select the correct forum, read the 'new users' stickies or apply a bit of logic, telling them the best course of action to get their problem sorted out in quickest possible manner, is the lesser of 2 evils.

Maybe something like my 'V8 Problems Solver' thread could be expanded on further and have a few people updating it. It can be no coincidence that it's the second most read thread on the forum - maybe some food for thought in that area from the mods. Rather than say search the forum, we could provide a link to that thread, as it would be flagged up on subsequent searches, if anyone did search in the future.

THREAD TITLES are so important for this forum. It's detailed in the 'new users' thread, if they use a crap title, do we assume they couldn't be bothered to read the thread OR that they just couldn't see it?

[pinbrook]

I think most newbies come onto the forum thinking their problem is the first time anyone will have ever experienced their issue. As we all know 95% of the time, this is not the case.

Yep just yesterday I had a problem with Protx, I glanced through the posts on the issue and thought yes, done that, done that, done that. I really can't be bothered with this I'll post in the forum - Lee, Mal, jont or someone will tell me the solution. Then I thought no, you're just being lazy (well tired actually) read the posts again and found one tiny little sentence with the clue... bobos your uncle, 15 mins of hard work, problem solved without egg on my face.

[RuralWeb]

I don't think there will ever be a polite way of effectively saying RTFM

How diplomatic Lee - but as you see the answer was there all the time in the manual. If someone posts such a basic question and they have read the manual, searched the forum etc and still dont understand then its time to go on a course IMO - especially if they are a designer.

I never mind giving help to DIY builders but what does anoy me are designers who try and hide behind the "Im designing MY site" type of question and dont fill in thier profile or signature. Its not about money its about being honest about who you are.

[RuralWeb]

15 mins of hard work

Thats the bit thats missing from many people who post on the forum IMO - as Lee says the forum is a victim of its own success. People can post and within minutes have the answer - we are making it too easy.

[RuralWeb]

And finally for anyone that reads this thread in future may I suggest looking in the help file which explains shipping in great detail. I have included an extract below:

Introduction to Shipping in Actinic

Actinic provides a selection of tools to help you charge your customers for having their orders shipped to them.
There are two basic approaches to working out shipping charges:
· Charge your customers a basic amount for the whole order, or a basic shipping charge for each product.
· Calculate a more accurate shipping charge based on the content of the order, and where it is being sent.
Once you have decided which of the two approaches you want to choose, you can then use the tools within Actinic that are relevant to you. These are described below:
If you want to just charge a basic amount for the order, of for each item, then you can read more in Basic Shipping Charges.
If you want to charge based on where the order is being sent, and how large the order is, then you need to firstly read up about how to create geographical shipping zones, and create classes within those zones. This is described in Zones and Classes.
After you've done that, you then need to decide what aspect of the order you want to base your shipping calculation on. An overview of all the different bases of calculation is in Calculation Basis For Shipping and you will find details on each in the list below:
· For details on calculating shipping based on the total quantity of items in the order, go to Calculating Shipping Based on Quantity
· For details on calculating shipping based on the total value of the order, go to Calculating Shipping Based on Value
· For details on calculating shipping based on the type of items you are sending, go to Calculating Shipping Based on Category
· For details on charging shipping based on weight and/or volume, go to Calculating Shipping Based on Weight/Volume.
Finally, you might want to charge an additional handling charge on the order. Details of this are in Handling Charges

[leehack]

I find it very hard to talk about or sell something that i have very little knowledge on. I'm just not good at bullshitting, i need to know what i'm talking about to sell a service. I understand that we all have to start somewhere and there will always be an element of "winging it" at the start of using a new package, but i am perceiving many actinic designers out there who haven't the most basic knowledge - maybe i get the wrong impression. Maybe I'm in the same bracket in other peoples eyes - it's all opinions i guess.

One of the worst things is the effect on a client, if they unwittingly employ such a person, (it's hard for them to tell at times) their site or wallet can suffer because someone is winging it so to speak. On Monday this week i was asked for a price to upgrade a site to V8 as their current designer had said what they wanted to do could not be done in V7 and was V8 dependant. This was total crap as it was possible in V7 and V6! I talked her through what to do in a 30 minute phone call and when i got home today, she had sent me a cheque for £50 to say thank you for saving her some money. I was shocked, but how nice was that? I can only presume she is a nice honest person and undoubtedly deserves better, than she almost received.

That poor woman could have been effectively ripped off cos of poor product knowledge by the designer. Why did the designer say that? was it because they only know V8 but wanted the work? - who knows, but a crap situation nonetheless.