Help! Royal Mail to become volumetric in Aug06

[Middleman]

Hi guys,

Not sure if you're aware, but Royal Mail is changing their postal pricing to volumetric by 31st August this year. Just asking - do you have any updates or plan in place for this change?

I would like (and need) to use volumetric pricing for my site now, and worldwide shipping, but can't because of the restrictions of Catalog.

I've been to a site called cartingedge.com, and the ecommerce engine there allows this calculation. It would help if you could have something similar in catalog - otherwise it would create havoc for everyone in the UK come this August when Royal Mail changes their postal policy.

FYI I've been with Actinic since day one - I first got Catalog way back in 1996!


Jason

[wjcampbe]

See the Packetpost thread which gave some comment on this over the last two weeks http://community.actinic.com/showthr...ght=packetpost

[Middleman]

RE: Help! Royal Mail to become volumetric in Aug06

See the Packetpost thread which gave some comment on this over the last two weeks http://community.actinic.com/showthr...ght=packetpost

Hi Bill,

Yes I saw that, but Packetpost doesn't help at all.
If you do less than 5000 packets a year, what's the point? It isn't for me.

I am serious about this volumetric issue and I really need some answers. Actinic, and possibly a number of ecommerce software companies are going to have to deal with this - otherwise people are going to have to upgrade to something different or just dump their software.

As a Actinic user for almost 10 years, it just beggars belief that volumetric shipping is not an option in the software when it has been around for nearly 5. I've been looking at some newer ecommerce softwares such as Cubecart, and they can calculate shipping costs not just by percentage, but by categories or product, as well as weight. You can even set which items you do not wish to add shipping to, and even download modules for all sorts of payment and shipping options such as Paypal and UPS or print off an order form for payment. The only thing it doesn't have at the moment is mailmerge/labelling. Now if it does, I'm moving to it.

Now, I have thought of a possible solution to the volumetric problem this evening, but it will have to be a possible extensive inclusion into the next Catalog. Basically, a variable called Package has to be set in the shipping section, which is the physical length, height and width of the cardboard box divided by say 6000, and you can set a number of Packages (or standard sized boxes) you use to ship your goods in. Then you set an item number limit on the package (say 3) and you are then able to select this variable under your product section along with a dead weight you made from the volumetric. Now say 2 products use Package 1, in a shopping basket the program will calculate it is within the 3 item limit for the box, so will allow Package 1 to be used. Then it will calculate the combined weight of the two, and also do the length, height and width of the package. Whichever is the greater, that is the one it will select and give the correct pricing.

Then if it is over that amount ie. someone ordered 4 items which use Package 1, it will then carry over that one item (as the box can only hold 3) and add a calculation for an extra box in the final weight cost, or however volumetric is calculated. This way, customers are always given a correct estimate of shipping instead of the manual calculation most people seem to do.

I really think something like this should be included soon.

I really hope someone can come up with this soon.


J

[Mike Hughes]

To my mind anyone who wants to charge a customer shipping based on volumetric measures is missing the point (at least in the retail business - and if you aren't doing retail then royal mail probably isn't your best option).

How are you going to explain to customers that shipping charges depend on the width of the item, the weight and whether you decide to pack multiple items into one long thin parcel or a short thick one?

Customers like to see simple easy to understand rules for charges and if there's more than three bands for any one class of service then it's probably getting too complicated.

Mike

[Middleman]

Customers like to see simple easy to understand rules for charges and if there's more than three bands for any one class of service then it's probably getting too complicated.

Mike[/QUOTE]

Hi Mike,

Well, its actually going to come in soon. In many senses it already has. Ask any airfreight courier for example and tell me which one is NOT using volumetric measurements ie. UPS/TNT. Its not my idea to implement it, but Royal Mail's. They will be using this stupid system for ALL of their post after August 31st. That's why I am concerned because it would screw our ordering system up - and other peoples if it is not addressed soon.

That's why on my site after volumetric came in, I could no longer ship overseas with airfreight couriers. Yes I could of used Royal Mail/Parcelforce shipping because they were available, but they weren't reliable in my mind.

All I can say is, it is not my idea to go volumetric but the companies that handle our mailing are going this way. RM was the last one in the straw and I knew it was sort of coming, but didn't realise it would be this quick.


Jason

[Duncan Rounding]

Volumetric shipping will happen, but when I'm a customer I just want to simply know how much it will cost to ship the item - in fact preferably an inclusive price. Like you're saying the shipping costs will largely depend on how you are going to pack the goods.

I agree that Actinic should provide a volumetric shipping solution, but I also feel it will need to be simple for the customer - combing different items by volumetric weight is very confusing for customers and makes product prices difficult to compare.

[Froogle]

As a Actinic user for almost 10 years, it just beggars belief that volumetric shipping is not an option in the software when it has been around for nearly 5.

They are on the 7th revision and still can't iron out simple features like stock control, customer logins or the like.

No doubt someone will come up with a 'work around' that will attempt to fix the problem, although it won't be 100%

It's ridiculous that the software has been around for so long but is yet full of bugs.

[Robert Johnston]

Hello,

Why not start talking to couriers instead?

www.interlinkexpress.co.uk offer mainland UK next day by 3pm in increments of 1KG, 5KG and 15 KG by weight only. We only ship about 3000 consignments a year with them and have a special rate, cheaper than Royal Mail recorded delivery!

Regards, Robert

[animal dreams]

I think there is too much focus on getting Actinic to do everything, when the real issue for retailers is what is the shipping going to cost us and what do we/ can we charge the customer.

We already use interlinkexpress.com and volumetric pricing is part of the equation. It doesn't take much effort to calculate the effective weight of an oversized item and enter that into the product details as necessary.

I'm more concerned about Royal Mail giving us the pricing models in good time for us to assess the impact and then them being able to implement it efficiently at the point of despatch!!!